It’s been a week since the Pulse shooting and as a queer woman, I am still angry

As a queer woman, I have been extraordinarily lucky. The universe has spun out in my favor in a number of ways. For starters, I was born both white and cisgender, so any discrimination I’ve faced has never been compounded by my race or my gender identity. I was born and lived the first half of my childhood in New York, so I was raised from the beginning in a culture of diversity and acceptance. Though I live in the South now, the high school I attended while figuring out who I am as a person was very diverse, full of students and teachers of every gender, race, creed, and sexual orientation. I live in the capital of Florida, which means I have more direct access to my elected officials than others might, and I attend a large university, which gives me access to a multitude of other people and their experiences and histories.

Because of all this, I have been able to go 21 years, five of them as a self-aware queer woman, without facing the reality that was callously shoved in my face on Sunday, June 12th: there are people out there who want me dead.

I’ve been in a sort-of limbo over the past week, moving through work and life in a fugue state in which the events in Orlando are always teetering on the edges of my mind, waiting to creep back in and remind me exactly how unsafe the world is for people like me. People who love and want to be loved, people who find friends in the oddest places, people who have been told for generations that there is no place in society for us, only to carve out places for ourselves.

When I think of the harsh realities of being a queer person in 2016, I usually think about rights. I think about the right to marry whomever you choose, and how that legal victory in 2015 was a true landmark in LGBTQ+ history. I think about how in 28 states, you can be fired for being gay, and how in 32, you can be fired for being transgender. I think about how the state of North Carolina went out of its way to make it extremely difficult for trans* people to safely use the bathroom. I think about how in many states, legislators would rather see children remain in the foster care system indefinitely than go to a loving environment headed by two people of the same gender. None of these is a small issue, and in addition to the dialogues initiated after the Pulse massacre, we should continue to discuss these problems as well.

But rights seem less important when you’re preoccupied by the notion that you could die at any moment. I suppose that is a notion that everyone has to live with—life is anything but guaranteed—but there’s something uniquely terrifying about living your day-to-day fully aware that there are some of your fellow countrymen who actively, truly want you dead.

It’s hard to think about. It’s hard to write about. Because I never knew any of the Pulse victims, because my own experiences with queerphobia have been detached and nonspecific, I feel as though I do not have the right to my own grief. I feel as though my own fortunes do not allow for me to go through the grieving process.

But the grieving process is real. I never had the luxury of denial. I cannot see the value of bargaining. I hope beyond all hope that I never fall into the trap of acceptance. And though depression comes so naturally, though it is so easy to sink into the dumbfounded despair that results from a tragedy like the loss of 49 lives, I find myself, with each passing hour, hurtling faster and faster toward anger. I am angry. I am pissed the hell off. I am livid that my elected officials, the people tasked with the vital responsibility of making the country a better place to live in, failed to make the tough decisions and sacrifices necessary to restrict access to the weapons that are used to silence people like me. I am outraged that we have continued to engender a culture of toxic masculinity and normalized homophobia that creates people who enact violence against those with whom they disagree. I am irate that 49 queer people were murdered and the media has the nerve to demonize an entire religion for the actions of an individual, even though that individual’s motives were undeniably rooted in hatred, not in religious fervor.

I am so angry I can hardly stand it. My life matters. The lives of my queer and trans* friends matter. The lives of every single person in that club mattered. And you, my friend, your life matters, too. Never let anyone tell you that your life is not worth living, that your experiences are not valid. And for god’s sake, do not fall into the trap of acceptance. We cannot accept 49 dead queer people as the price for a society that worships guns. We cannot accept diversion from the truth and from the nuanced reporting of queer narratives. We cannot accept inaction and empty rhetoric from the people we have chosen to represent us at every level of government. Acceptance is the product of apathy, and I, for one, have never been less apathetic in my life.

I hope that you will not fall victim to apathy. I hope that we, as a nation, will decide collectively that we are tired of our president’s speeches about mass shootings. I hope that you will get into contact with people in power and demand action from them. I hope that you will confront toxic attitudes in your homes, your workplaces, your schools, and seek positive change in the people around you. I hope you will love openly and unabashedly, sharing your compassion and your joy with the people in your life. This, after all, is the most we can ask of each other.