Let’s Get Visible

“Men are bad in countless ways, but good in only one” — Aristotle

As soon as I heard about the shooting in Orlando, I braced myself for what would happen online. The cultural ritual of publicly mourning mass shootings in America on social media has become routine, perhaps as a means of coping with the disturbing frequency of such events (there have been 998 shootings since Sandy Hook alone), yet somewhat disturbing in its own right as a distinct phenomenon of this era. No shade, I get that your intentions are good when you #WeAreOrlando or repost a video or meme from your queer friends’ newsfeed. I get it. And there’s nothing particularly wrong with these responses, because everyone processes grief in a different way, especially a grief so public, but much of what I saw on Facebook in the Orlando aftermath seemed to center around dualistic conceptions: Bad people shoot people; good people donate blood.

Much of the initial media coverage desperately sought to align the shooter with Islamic extremism. Later, attempts were made to historicize the event as the biggest mass shooting in American history. This ignored instances where Natives and black people were the victims, and all of it is distracting, or worse — scrambling to obscure what is really at hand: violent homophobia or, to be more specific, toxic masculinity in American culture.

For queer people, this event is part of an ongoing narrative. Throughout history, we have been stabbed, strangled, beaten, raped and wounded; our bodies were dropped in dumpsters, tossed into rivers or left unclaimed in morgues by families who didn’t want them. The queer victims of the Holocaust, bearers of the pink triangle, for example, were the only victims who weren’t allowed to repatriate to their home countries. Many wandered Europe for the rest of their lives, unable to work or find a place to call home. Last year in Israel, a friend of mine witnessed a stabbing at a Pride parade; that same week, a woman in this country killed her child, who she perceived as being gay. And 2015 was the worst year on record for violence against trans people. In the first five months of 2016, 10 trans people have already been murdered, the majority of them black (Editor’s note: Since this article was written, that number has jumped to 14).

This doesn’t account for those that weren’t reported or investigated, or were completely misgendered by the authorities, their identities erased. It becomes difficult to separate their stories from the bigger narrative of violence in this country when you consider the problem of visibility. In the US alone, there may be more than 5,000 hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people annually, on average (Google Marsha P Johnson. Go ahead, I dare you). We’re glad you’ve finally woke to it, straight people, because the truth is, to be visibly queer is to be vulnerable.

For all these atrocities, there are also incredibly beautiful examples of cultures and times when sexual diversity and non-binary forms of gender were embraced and revered. We are the artists, the healers, the visionaries, the priests and shamans in many times and places, because we are creative in ways beyond the procreative, and we are joined outside the typical familial bond. It has been said that because we are excluded from origin narratives and genealogies, queer people are left to write our own stories, and how we tell this particular story will be crucial.

The first responders at the scene spoke of the eerie sound of cellphones making noise as friends and families worriedly texted and called, desperately hoping their people were OK. That word “family” sticks with me. How many of the 49 people lying dead had families who had rejected them or parents who had disowned them?

There are many ways to tell this story, but for now, I am angry. Angry that a man with a known history of hate speech was still allowed to acquire a military-grade assault rifle. I’m angry that Christian preachers call this an “act of God.” I’m angry that a Tennessee representative — I don’t need to tell you which party — now plans to give away two AR-15s at a family pig roast, the same weapon used in the massacre. The message is obvious: It’s fag huntin’ season. You’re probably not the kind of person who would shoot somebody, but if you really want to help, forget about memes and ask yourself if you contribute to this culture. If you laugh when someone is called a fag, you’re a part of the problem; if you sit in a pew at a church that teaches homophobia, you’re a part of the problem; if you say things like, “Love the sinner, hate the sin,” you are definitely a part of the problem.

There are myriad factors that contribute to a culture where a man can walk into a bar and shoot over a hundred people. That’s why it came as no surprise to me that the shooter used gay dating apps like Grindr and A4A, frequented the gay club and may have even solicited sex there. Self-hatred is hell. I spent my first three decades, give or take, mired in self-hatred, internalizing other people’s shitty ideologies from the things I had learned at church, at school, from my parents and from my peers. I wanted to die. I wanted to kill myself every single day. At that time, I couldn’t understand it and didn’t have words for it, and even now, it feels like an ongoing process. But I was lucky. A handful of good people (straight people) held onto me, and I survived. This is why visibility, for me, is everything. I once heard a drag queen say that when it came to being physically harassed, the real pain is that next time you go out, you check yourself for fear that you will be seen for who you really are.

I choose to no longer be afraid, but to present myself to the world as I am. Visibility means being honest about myself, despite the risk of harassment or even physical harm. To be visible is to reject normalcy and stand in solidarity with those who must hide, those who live in fear and those who couldn’t pass for normal if they tried. By being recognizably queer, I am trying to change the way we are perceived and hopefully make room for everyone to be authentically themselves.

originally published in the Santa Fe Reporter 22.June 2016: https://www.sfreporter.com/news/coverstories/2016/06/21/lets-get-visible/