Pride is Public Safety

Having famously begun as a riot against the brutality and omnipresence of policing in individuals’ lives and communities’ private spaces, Pride has always been about public safety. Who’s allowed to exist in public space, and how? Pride ensures these questions are not rhetorical: LGBTQ+ people are allowed to exist in public space, with the same rights and privileges afforded everyone else. Our detractors continue to fight for a different answer, which is why Pride must be as much a celebration as it is a remembrance—of those who have paved and those we have lost along the way. 

From the AIDS crisis to our current administration’s dismantlement of antiretroviral distribution programs in the Global South, the number of LGBTQ+ lives lost to political malfeasance is unconscionable and uncountable, but some events bear the weight of our history with painful clarity. Nine years ago today, 49 people, overwhelmingly Black and brown, were killed in a mass shooting at Pulse, an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Orlando, Florida. We remember and mourn them. 

While undoubtedly his primary motivation, focusing on the assailant’s homophobia conveniently ignores the complex web of factors that came into play, such as his vocal and longstanding frustration with American foreign policy in the Middle East. This is to say nothing of the valence of his homophobia, which according to reports from friends and loved ones, was internalized. (This is not new. There’s a reason the Republican National Convention is regularly touted as the “Grindr Superbowl”: our most vociferous opponents tend to be gay themselves.) The overemphasis on motive in media reporting serves to obfuscate the more structural—and arguably more combatable—elements that undergird all American mass shootings: lack of gun regulation and white supremacy. 

White supremacy and homophobia are inextricable. White supremacy has been the convening battle cry for most of the American religious right, and was, argues Anthea Butler in White Evangelical Racism, the principle unifying force for backlash against advancements in LGBTQ+ and other marginalized groups’ rights throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. Behind the guise of spirituality, political positions such as segregationism and, soon thereafter, the moral panic around bodily and sexual autonomy, could escape scrutiny by the establishment media, much like the political forces facilitating frequent mass murder in the US remain obscured today. 

Pride is an exercise in illuminating these structural obscurities. From throwing bricks to die ins to the indefatigable pursuit of equality on Capitol Hill, Pride has always been about applying pressure to apathetic if not outright bigoted governing bodies to demand equality. The current administration is making unprecedented attacks on bodily autonomy and sexual and gender identity. From restoring “biological truth” to the federal government and banning gender-affirming care for children to gutting public libraries of any mention of queerness and much more, these virulent attacks prove the role of non-governmental bodies and our communities is more important than ever in the fight to create public safety systems that work for everyone. 

The Center for Policing Equity (CPE) is proud to be at the helm of this fight, sharing recommendations for non-enforcement of invasive and unconstitutional morality laws with law enforcement agencies and calling out racist dog whistles in the media in an effort to imagine, and create, a better future. That’s why, today, we remember: the 49 victims of the Pulse Nightclub Shooting, the generation lost to AIDS, and all those struggling under our current administration’s criminal negligence of their personal and political wellbeing. The path is not always clear, but memory is a refuge and a resource; looking back is often the best way forward. 

Reprinted below are the names and ages of the 49 Victims of the Pulse Nightclub Shooting: 

Stanley Almodovar III, 23

Amanda Alvear, 25

Oscar A. Aracena-Montero, 26

Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala, 33

Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21

Martin Benitez Torres, 33

Antonio D. Brown, 30

Darryl R. Burt II, 29

Jonathan A. Camuy Vega, 24

Angel L. Candelario-Padro, 28

Simon A. Carrillo Fernandez, 31

Juan Chavez-Martinez, 25

Luis D. Conde, 39

Cory J. Connell, 21

Tevin E. Crosby, 25

Franky J. Dejesus Velazquez, 50

Deonka D. Drayton, 32

Mercedez M. Flores, 26

Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22

Juan R. Guerrero, 22

Paul T. Henry, 41

Frank Hernandez, 27

Miguel A. Honorato, 30

Javier Jorge-Reyes, 40

Jason B. Josaphat, 19

Eddie J. Justice, 30

Anthony L. Laureano Disla, 25

Christopher A. Leinonen, 32

Brenda L. Marquez McCool, 49

Jean C. Mendez Perez, 35

Akyra Monet Murray, 18

Kimberly Morris, 37

Jean C. Nieves Rodriguez, 27

Luis O. Ocasio-Capo, 20

Geraldo A. Ortiz-Jimenez, 25

Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36

Joel Rayon Paniagua, 32

Enrique L. Rios Jr., 25

Juan P. Rivera Velazquez, 37

Yilmary Rodriguez Solivan, 24

Christopher J. Sanfeliz, 24

Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35

Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, 25

Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34

Shane E. Tomlinson, 33

Leroy Valentin Fernandez, 25

Luis S. Vielma, 22

Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37

Jerald A. Wright, 31