C.J. Ford of Orlando places flowers as visitors continue to pay their respects at a makeshift memorial at Orlando Regional Medical Center, a few blocks from the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., Tuesday, June 14, 2016. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT
I don’t have the words to properly express my shock and grief in the wake of the shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, but I’ll do my best.
On Sunday morning, I woke up to bright sun streaming through my windows straight into my eyes. I got up and rubbed the sleep out of them and pulled out my phone to check out what had happened the night before and was greeted by my friend reminiscing on his time at various gay clubs. I thought it odd, but kept reading until I saw the words “I bring this up in light of what happened last night in Orlando.” It was eight.
It’s strange the way the mind memorializes things. For the life of me, I can’t tell you where I was when many of the other shootings that have happened in the last few years occurred, but I feel like this one is going to be filed away. This is, ostensibly, my community.
I’ve always felt weirdly out of place claiming “LGBT” for myself, because none of those letters define me. I hate being defined, in fact. Whenever anyone asked me if I was gay or straight, my response was “I don’t care!” because it was the truth. I don’t care. Never have. Finally, I learned there was, in fact, a word for not caring. Pansexuality. I’m sure it’s somewhere in the + in LGBTQA+ or whatever the longer acronym is, but I’ve never considered myself an active part of the community. If anything, I’ve watched from the sidelines as others took up the active battles, writing about the deeds and bravery of others as they fought for basic human rights. Sunday, that stopped.
I cried. Which never happens. I cried as I saw the story of a mother desperately trying to find her son. I cried again as the names and stories of the victims came out. I cried at the outpouring of hate that I saw. I cried so much, was so crushed, that I resigned myself to a world of fantasy, which I ache to get back to, because I can’t handle what is going on in the world right now.
When Sandy Hook happened, there was no one saying those children deserved it. No one said the theater-goers in Aurora or Lafayette deserved to die. The people gunned down on college campuses are never spoken of as subhuman following their deaths. But the 50 men and women who died at Pulse in the early hours of Sunday morning? Apparently, even in death, they don’t deserve respect.
Lawmakers that regularly fight against gun control and LGBT rights are treading a line right now between rejoicing in this and trying to spin it in their favor. Worse, many people claiming they love Jesus are busy saying they are grateful that the “terrorists started killing the perverts instead of innocent people.” Lots of people in this country feel like these fifty, FIFTY HUMAN BEINGS, deserved to die solely because they disagree with their lifestyles. The shooter’s father, while expressing shock over what his son had done, didn’t offer any condolences or sympathy to those who died, saying instead that “only God can punish homosexuality.”
I’m disgusted and at a loss. We already know what’s going to follow, too: two weeks of passing concern, half-assed measures from campaigning politicians to change the gun laws, left vs right battles over the right to be safe and live in peace, and then nothing. This will fade, this will fade away like everything we passingly concern ourselves with. That is, until the NEXT mass shooting, when it will be dragged out alongside Sandy Hook as an example of our country’s utter unconcern with actually changing anything of merit.
So I’m off. I have nothing left to give. I won’t offer any hollow thoughts or prayers. I will express my deep, profound, devastating sadness at what happened in Orlando, and I will do my best to stop watching from the sidelines. Because I’m pansexual, and in these people’s eyes, that makes me subhuman. I’m not subhuman, I’m Dane La Born, and I’m goddamn proud of who I am, and I am prouder of the bravery of the men and women who stand up in the face of oppression and bigotry everyday, and die for their troubles. The indomitable human spirit can never be defeated. Their hate, their terrorism, and their religion absolutely can.
My Words Are Gone: A Eulogy
C.J. Ford of Orlando places flowers as visitors continue to pay their respects at a makeshift memorial at Orlando Regional Medical Center, a few blocks from the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., Tuesday, June 14, 2016. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT
I don’t have the words to properly express my shock and grief in the wake of the shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, but I’ll do my best.
On Sunday morning, I woke up to bright sun streaming through my windows straight into my eyes. I got up and rubbed the sleep out of them and pulled out my phone to check out what had happened the night before and was greeted by my friend reminiscing on his time at various gay clubs. I thought it odd, but kept reading until I saw the words “I bring this up in light of what happened last night in Orlando.” It was eight.
It’s strange the way the mind memorializes things. For the life of me, I can’t tell you where I was when many of the other shootings that have happened in the last few years occurred, but I feel like this one is going to be filed away. This is, ostensibly, my community.
I’ve always felt weirdly out of place claiming “LGBT” for myself, because none of those letters define me. I hate being defined, in fact. Whenever anyone asked me if I was gay or straight, my response was “I don’t care!” because it was the truth. I don’t care. Never have. Finally, I learned there was, in fact, a word for not caring. Pansexuality. I’m sure it’s somewhere in the + in LGBTQA+ or whatever the longer acronym is, but I’ve never considered myself an active part of the community. If anything, I’ve watched from the sidelines as others took up the active battles, writing about the deeds and bravery of others as they fought for basic human rights. Sunday, that stopped.
I cried. Which never happens. I cried as I saw the story of a mother desperately trying to find her son. I cried again as the names and stories of the victims came out. I cried at the outpouring of hate that I saw. I cried so much, was so crushed, that I resigned myself to a world of fantasy, which I ache to get back to, because I can’t handle what is going on in the world right now.
When Sandy Hook happened, there was no one saying those children deserved it. No one said the theater-goers in Aurora or Lafayette deserved to die. The people gunned down on college campuses are never spoken of as subhuman following their deaths. But the 50 men and women who died at Pulse in the early hours of Sunday morning? Apparently, even in death, they don’t deserve respect.
Lawmakers that regularly fight against gun control and LGBT rights are treading a line right now between rejoicing in this and trying to spin it in their favor. Worse, many people claiming they love Jesus are busy saying they are grateful that the “terrorists started killing the perverts instead of innocent people.” Lots of people in this country feel like these fifty, FIFTY HUMAN BEINGS, deserved to die solely because they disagree with their lifestyles. The shooter’s father, while expressing shock over what his son had done, didn’t offer any condolences or sympathy to those who died, saying instead that “only God can punish homosexuality.”
I’m disgusted and at a loss. We already know what’s going to follow, too: two weeks of passing concern, half-assed measures from campaigning politicians to change the gun laws, left vs right battles over the right to be safe and live in peace, and then nothing. This will fade, this will fade away like everything we passingly concern ourselves with. That is, until the NEXT mass shooting, when it will be dragged out alongside Sandy Hook as an example of our country’s utter unconcern with actually changing anything of merit.
So I’m off. I have nothing left to give. I won’t offer any hollow thoughts or prayers. I will express my deep, profound, devastating sadness at what happened in Orlando, and I will do my best to stop watching from the sidelines. Because I’m pansexual, and in these people’s eyes, that makes me subhuman. I’m not subhuman, I’m Dane La Born, and I’m goddamn proud of who I am, and I am prouder of the bravery of the men and women who stand up in the face of oppression and bigotry everyday, and die for their troubles. The indomitable human spirit can never be defeated. Their hate, their terrorism, and their religion absolutely can.