In Memory of Pulse/Orlando

Phoenix Rising by Robin Reardon

Wow! We have another 32 new listings this week for over 300 queer Substacks in total, and we added “Food” to the Leisure & Travel etc. category—thanks to

Michelle Albanes-Davis

for suggesting an easy fix!

All month, I’ll be conducting Office Hours in the Qstack Chat and Comments for the hour after the regular Saturday posting.

Last week we introduced our pets (There’s still time! We love them critters!)

This week, Queer Anthems! Dust off your records and pop some links to Youtube or Spotify for people to enjoy.

Let’s let tragic Mercutio give us a sneak peak with the disco classic, “Young Hearts Run Free” in the iconic party scene from Baz Luhrmann’s film William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996):

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🚨Announcements

• Rhiannon D'Averc
  is looking for beta readers for her Crowhill Kitchen series.

• Wendy DeGroat
  pointed us to the Brillantina Project, a community and collection of poetry commemorating the victims of the Pulse/Orlando massacre, and her poem “Weeks before the First Anniversary of Marriage Equality.”

• Victoria
  of
  Carer Mentor: Empathy & Inspiration
  has put out a call for people interested in sharing stories about LGBTQ+ caregiving experiences in Qstack Collaborations.

• There’s a workshop on Queer Imagination with Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya - June 30th from 1 to 3pm Eastern, through

  Write or Die Newsletter
  .

• Clare Egan
  has a new article published on Huffington Post: “For 33 Years, I Thought Something Was Wrong With Me. Then I Faced The 1 Possibility I Hadn't Considered.”

• CHé
  has a new podcast episode on Spotify about coming out non-binary later in life: The new person behind the person!

• Henrik Hageland
  has a new post on Medium about coming out: My Coming Out Story - How you come out in small steps and over and over again.

Qstack Announcements are open to ALL - DM or email: mrtroyford at substack dot com

Every time I see the angels who stand guard at the funerals of LGBTQ+ victims of violence—shields against the hate-spewing Westboro Baptist Church—I’m overcome.

They first appeared at the funeral of Matthew Shepherd in 1998, organized by his friend Romaine Patterson, and their depiction in the 2002 film The Laramie Project was so incredibly moving and powerful.

The Laramie Project (2002)

While we celebrate Pride Month, it’s so important to remember all of the terrible acts of violence perpetrated against queer people right up to the present day.

It’s also important to remember that we are not alone in our struggle.

Qstack thanks Robin Reardon for allowing us to reprint her memorial message from within days of the Pulse Nightclub massacre in 2016, and the spirit of hope, advocacy, and rebirth from the ashes of tragedy she so poignantly conveys.

(This is an update to an article first published in June 2016.)

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In Memory of Pulse/Orlando:
Phoenix Rising

by

Robin Reardon Writes

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From the ashes of destruction, so the legend goes, rises the Phoenix—renewed and reborn.

On June 12, 2016, a young man named Omar Mateen shot and killed 49 people and wounded 53 more in a mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The horrible, burning agony—physical and emotional—of that tragedy gave rise to a glorious spirit. We could see it appearing immediately.

Since the Stonewall riots of 1969, the spirit within LGBTQ people has been glowing brighter and stronger. This spirit has been spreading to people who are becoming advocates, more and more each year. 

Advocates. More and more of them.

These advocates are not queer themselves, but people who will pass and support laws protecting the rights of all citizens; people who will stand on a stage and speak or sing in praise of the queer spirit and the people possessing it; and people who write stories about the lives of queer individuals.

Immediately after the Pulse shooting, many people stood in line for hours, in the rain, to give blood that was badly needed after the massacre. We know these were advocates, because at that time, gay men were not allowed to donate. (This restriction has since changed.¹)

All over the world, from New York to Los Angeles to London to Tel Aviv to Paris to Sydney to Brisbane to Wellington and back to Nashville and Boston, we saw massive crowds.

We heard song and encouragement, we saw structures lit in the glory of rainbow colors.

World leaders from Belgium to Norway to Mexico and even Afghanistan expressed encouragement, support, and solidarity.

The Council on American-Muslim Relations condemned the shooting and repudiated violence against the LGBTQ community.

Not very many years ago, I would have said there would not be marriage equality in the U.S. during my lifetime. Before June of 2016, I would not have expected the kind of response we saw to the tragedy in Orlando, either in the U.S. or from around the globe. Nor would I have believed that Disney, that bastion of “family values,” would take a stand for the LGBTQ community—but they did.

A Wall of Love

And then there's the wall of love made up of all kinds of people who placed themselves physically between grieving loved ones at the funerals and memorial ceremonies of the Orlando victims and people from the hateful Westboro Baptist Church with their ugly messages.

There is still a lot of work to do in the area of rights and acceptance, as was evident when we saw public "leaders" respond to the Pulse shooting with prayers and nothing else, lining their pockets with money from the National Rifle Association and preventing any research into gun usage and death. Sometimes it seems the more progress we make, the bigger the pushback from homophobic bigots.

photographer: Kanta Komazawa, Pixabay

But consider that within five days after the shooting, a GoFundMe project to collect money that would go directly to the victims’ families and survivors of the Orlando massacre broke all records on that website. By June 17 contributions had exceeded $5 million, and the total was still climbing.

From the ashes of the Orlando shooting, we saw the first signs of the glorious Phoenix. 

It will not be the first time that bird has risen from the ashes of LGBTQ persecution, but it will be the first time the rebirth also encompassed millions of advocates who saw—finally—that we are all one people. It’s the first time the queer community was not so very alone in its struggle for acceptance. It was the first time that beautiful, multi-colored emblem—the rainbow—was displayed so widely, so proudly, and so openly.

So as we remember and grieve for the loss of life, and as we offer support for all survivors and families of tragedies aimed at queer people, despite our tears let’s be sure we don’t miss the Phoenix rising.

image creator: Gioia, Pixabay

BIO: Robin Reardon is an inveterate observer of human nature, writing novels about all kinds of people, some of whom happen to be gay or transgender or bisexual or intersex—people whose destinies are not determined solely by their sexual orientation or gender identity. Check out her work on her website.

1. As of May 2023, potential donors are screened with a questionnaire that evaluates their individual risks for HIV based on sexual behavior, recent partners, and other factors. Sexual orientation is no longer one of those factors.