And perhaps we have been too silent with our straight communities about what our daily lives are actually like, even at the best of times. As one gay man—who sometimes passes as “straight” and makes a very good living—told me: “We have worked hard for acceptance by the straight world. So hard that we have convinced our allies that we are ‘just like them,’ save for one little difference, like the color of our eyes or hair. But, the differences between us are not at all little. Unlike most of our family members, we live in constant fear that people want to destroy us. And they actually do. I don’t think our straight family members get that.” To this man’s point, when I post smiley photos of myself and my husband enjoying our “normal” looking lives, say on a beach vacation, I don’t tend to mention the threats that were directed at us off camera, sometimes by “decent,” hard-working, Christian Americans, with picture-perfect families. Like many queer people, I omit in my social self-narratives the daily dark sides of being gay, out of want of acceptance and of respect, and to avoid being dismissed as a “Debbie Downer” or a “perpetual victim.” But perhaps we curate our lives too much. Maybe more of our families and friends need to know that to walk in our shoes means to look over our shoulders at every turn, and to be prepared to defend ourselves against people just like them. But the insidious disease of silence finds nuanced ways to harm us even when our relatives do recognize that we are targets, and even when they reach out to us out of love and concern. More than a few queer people whose families actually contacted them this week were advised to “not go out”; or to “avoid drawing attention” to themselves; or to keep their “pride inside.” In other words they were told to go back in the closet, which is precisely where and how the very self-hatred that led to the Orlando shooting metastasized in the first place. The answer is not for queer people to retreat inward, but for our straight allies to join us in coming out. They must claim us openly; they must identify, unpack and challenge the socially conditioned queerphobia that lives within them and in their communities; and they must never stop talking about the danger in which they leave us when they stop talking—to us or on our behalf. For inspiration, they can look to the band Florence + the Machine, whose lead singer, Florence Welch, took an extraordinary stand in solidarity with the Orlando victims and their families, and the LGBT communities at large, as she waved a rainbow flag while running fearlessly across the Barclay Center stage in Brooklyn, during a live performance of her song, “Say My Name”: Say my name, And every color illuminates, We are shining, And we will never be afraid again The words of this chorus remind us that we are all united in our capacity to recognize difference. As humans we have the capacity to empathize with the distinct and various ways each of us must walk through our lives. When we acknowledge how our differences make some of us more vulnerable than others, we can eliminate some of the danger and the fear that destroys us. So if our families truly want to help keep us safe, they must say the names of the Orlando victims; and the names of the trans people of color who are murdered on a regular basis; and the names of all of the various forms of hatred that contributes to the everyday terrorizing of LGBT people. They must also say our names, loud and proud. Preferably while we’re still alive. Dig, Root, Grow

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#gay marriage#gay rights#homophobia#lgbtq#omar mateen#pulse shooting#td-original