The shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida is more than just “another shooting” for this guy from Manila, Philippines. It matters to me because it happened at a gay nightclub.
Readers of this column will remember that I spent all of April talking about gay clubs and what they mean for their patrons. A gay club is not just a place to dance and flirt in the hopes of taking someone home at the end of the night. It’s not just where one gets drunk and wasted. It’s a community, a fortress, a home.
A gay club is that one place where gay men and women can be themselves and not fear the prosecution of the heteronormative world. There, you can freely make out with whomever you want and the only looks you’ll get are because of jealousy, not judgment. That’s where you can let loose and admire the eye candy around and hit on every single person in the room – and you don’t have to be afraid of being punched in the eye for being flirty with a straight guy. Because there are no straight guys there. If there were, they’d be open to the flirtation and simply politely decline your advances.
A gay club is a gay clubber’s comfort zone. It’s a place they truly call their own and it’s –supposedly – one of the few things that cannot be taken away from them. It’s home.
But with the Pulse shooting by a lone gunman that killed 49 and injured 53, gay clubbing is forever changed. At least for this observer. I mean, where else can gay people feel safe when their own home has been smeared with the blood of 49 of their own? How can we ever go inside a club and not think of our fallen brothers and sisters?
These people, whose ages range from 18 to 50, were not just strangers who died in a shooting. They were sons, daughters, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, parents and colleagues to many. Most of them were gay men who probably went through the same struggles that many gay men did growing up gay: the road to self-acceptance, the coming out to their families and friends, the rejection by society, the heartbreaks, the tears, and sometimes, the blood.
They had hopes and dreams. And it’s not unlikely that one of such dreams is to live in a world without prejudice, where they are not judged for being their true selves, where they are not deemed unclean sexual deviants, where they are not considered outcasts.
In a way, they represent every non-heterosexual person on this Earth. And they died because they were themselves. They died because there are people living and breathing amongst us who still cannot process the idea that it’s possible for men to fall in love with men, and women to fall in love with women.
Or if they know it’s possible, they can’t process that it’s not wrong; that they don’t have the right to impose their own beliefs on others; that they are not superior.
This is not the work of one man. Only he pulled the trigger but everyone like him was in on it. This is the work of an entire system of bigotry, of homophobia, of discrimination, of superiority complex, of insanity. Heteronormativity is the real enemy here. It’s the belief that society subscribes to – and it’s an evil belief system that has to be stopped.
This unfortunate event is an eye-opener. It tells us that even in 2016, you can live in a democracy, a country with legal gay marriage, and still be hurt or, worse, killed for exercising your basic rights. Only one person had the nerve to act on his murderous rage on June 11, but imagine all those others who are just bottling it all in and cheering him on in their own homes.
They exist and if the world and its leaders continue to oppose equality, then that’s all the ammunition they need to lock and load their own guns.
But if there’s a silver lining to all of this – and believe me, I’m reaching here – it’s probably that the slain 49 died so that we can finally talk about this and realize that unless we correct society and rid it of flawed convictions, anyone of us can just be shot dead. They died so that perhaps, we don’t have to. I beg everyone who’s reading this: We have an opportunity to do something good here. Please don’t let these unnecessary and senseless deaths be in vain.