After Orlando, Anger, Love, & Change

Following the deadliest massacre of gays and lesbians in U.S. history, New Haveners spoke out for solidarity and acceptance at two back-to-back events.

The events Monday were organized in response to Sunday’s murder of 49 people inside Orlando, Florida’s Pulse nightclub.

The first event, a rally at 4 p.m. called ​“Speak Out for Safety, Rally for Hope” held at the Amistad Memorial outside City Hall, gave the city’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQI) youth a platform to speak openly about their emotional, mental, and physical states, fears, and hopes for the city in the wake of the attack. Many have deemed the shooting a hate crime against the LGBTQI and Latinx community, as it targeted Pulse’s Latin Night, whose flyer for June 11 featured black and Latina trans women, during Pride Month.

The second, a vigil for the victims, began at 6 p.m. inside the United Church on the Green and then flowed out onto Temple Street after a short service. The vigil’s timing had been planned in accordance with the rally’s, so that those wishing to participate in both events would have the chance to do so.

Both events drew hundreds of people.

A Place To Talk About Safety

At just past 4 p.m. on Monday, LGBTQ+ Youth Kickback organizers Salwa Abdussabur and Kenneth Reveiz raised their megaphones against the low-hanging sky and scanned a quickly growing crowd of over 100.

“We wanted to put something together to really talk about safety,” they told the group from the memorial’s elevated lip. ​“We wanted to talk about how badly we need safety at home, in our places of worship, in schools, at work, in places of leisure, in the streets, in our own heads, and beyond.”

“When we talk about safety … we have to intersect them with housing and jobs and when we talk about safety we are not taking about more police, we are not talking about militarized police, we are not talking about imperialism, militarism, and war. We are talking about the safety that we need for our community today so that we are not just thinking about how to survive but how to thrive. We need to center the voices of Latinx folks, we need to center the voices of trans women, black trans women, trans Latina folks, but this is really a speak out for us to share our stories about how we feel, how things have changed for us since hearing about Orlando, and how safety is an issue that we need to consider and work on urgently.” 

By the time they had finished their opening remarks, the crowd had nearly doubled, spilling onto the steps of City Hall to one side and the entire block to the other. A queue of those wanting to speak had already formed, attendees raising a finger to signal that they had something to say. Around many of their fingers hung the shining strings to white balloons, onto 50 of which the names and ages of the victims had been written in magic marker.

”Today was actually one of the first times in a while that I’ve felt unsafe being a gay man of color,” said Kyle Rodriguez, 21. ​“It didn’t really hit me until I was leaving to come to this rally and I had to tell my mother: I love you and I’ll text you if anything happens. When I said that, that terrified me a little bit — coming together with my community and I have to question my safety? I want to say as a community, I love you all. Our fight is not over. Being a gay man, I have to stand up for my trans brothers and sisters because I have the privilege of having gay marriage while they’re still fighting for their rights. The fight is far from over and I will continue to fight until everyone is equal because this is America and they say liberty and freedom for all.”

Jesus Morales-Sanchez agreed.

“I’m hurt,” he said. ​“I’m upset. I’m disappointed. I’m scared. I am angry. I’m angry at those people who took the time to put the actions of the terrorists in 140 characters or less. I’m angry at all those people who truly believe that the LGBT community has nothing left to fight since gay marriage is legal. I’m angry at those who consider trans people a threat to public security.

“You tell me: Who is the biggest threat today, yesterday, every other time that there has been a mass shooting?

“I’m angry at those politicians whose negligence has paved the way for more events like this to happen. I’m angry at the politicians who will use this as a marketing point for their own benefit. I’m angry at all of those who have, who are, and who will retaliate against our brothers — Muslims. I beg you all, Muslims out there, please be safe. I’m angry at the fact that a gay club was massacred during a Latin night. Not only were many of them gay, they were gay and Latino, just like me. I’m angry at the fact that not only are we seen as second-class citizens, we are also barred from helping out each other … LGBTQ people are banned from donating blood.

“I am angry at the fact that I know that this won’t change a thing. Last and certainly not least, I’m angriest at those who will stay silent. We are all one — Latinos, gays, cisgender, transgender, we’re all humans. We should be treated with respect.”

Another attendee, Natalie Mazzone, told the crowd about her harrowing experiences as a trans woman at the men’s treatment center Turning Point, where she was recovering from alcohol addiction earlier this year. Paired with Sunday’s attack, she said, those memories remind her constantly that the need for solidarity is profound, and without a time stamp.

“They made the space very unsafe for me,” she said. ​“I was groped. I was solicited. It was awful. I’ve been to two treatment centers since and I have had to fight for a female bed … I am legally entitled to be in a female bed. So while we are unsafe on the city bus, where I have been called a faggot, while we are unsafe in the treatment centers, while we are unsafe in the clubs, we need to remember that when I see another queer person, when I see another trans person, I feel safe. When I see all of you right here I feel safe. And I want to thank you for that. For too long I have been someone that I am not and I am not going to live another day as a lie. I am a woman, I am trans, I am an addict in recovery and I demand respect.”

Mayor Toni Harp also had a few words to offer the crowd, promising attendees that she would join them in the fight for safety, and work toward heightened gun control measures to the best of her ability.

“It’s really great to see everyone out here today and it is really sad that once again in America, guns have been the instrument of hate and bigotry,” she said. ​“We have got to support this community today. When I was in the legislature a couple years ago, it was young kids in a classroom in Sandy Hook School.”

“We have got to make sure that nationally people know that we just can’t have guns available to anyone who wants them. They really cause mass destruction. It is unacceptable that people who have a right in our country to express who they are have to feel unsafe and to feel danger. But it won’t stop until we get the guns off our streets. You have my support here in this community and we will work with you and try to assure that we can work together so that something like [what] happened in Orlando does not happen here in New Haven.”

Amazing Grace Over Temple Street

The vigil at the United Church on the Green went from an idea to fruition in the space of a few hours, thanks to 24-year-old Elijah, an organizer for the New Haven Pride Center and transgender activist engaged in interfaith work. (He declined to give his last name.)

“It doesn’t matter who’s organizing it when people are so ready to act,” Elijah said. ​“I’m just so impressed with my community.”

Elijah took on the task because they were seeing a lot of ​“are you OK?” statuses on social media, and worried about the mental states of so many in their community.

“The gravity of the event is just beyond what the community usually deals with,” Elijah said. He and other organizers belong to the United Church on the Green, and asked the Rev. Bonnie Scott about the idea of holding a vigil.

“You can have our church,” Scott said.

So the United Church on the Green was nearly full on Monday evening by 6:15, both with people from the rally and those who had come to grieve with and support them.

After a few words from Elijah and a moving rendition of ​“Blackbird” from Jessy Griz and Robert Messore, the Rev. Shelly Stackhouse from the Church of the Redeemer talked about the need to not move too quickly through grief. She recited W.H. Auden’s ​“Stop All The Clocks,” explaining that Auden had ​“loved a man at a time when it was illegal. And when he died, Auden wrote this poem.”

The microphone was then given over to people of several faiths and no faith. A minister in a church in Florida, not far from Orlando, just happened to be in town. ​“We are united by our shared humanity, our shared anger, our shared pain,” said Chris Stedman of the Yale Humanist Community. A Muslim woman expressed her outrage at the attack and said that ​“another name for Allah is ​‘friend’ and ​‘helper.’ I know that we can all come together as friends and helpers, as a community.”

“I’m an ally. I’m also a Christian,” said Kyndria Brown, Elijah’s mother. ​“My mission is to teach all of my fellow Christians that being yourself is not a sin.”

“Amen,” someone said from the crowd. Applause followed.

“My mission is to make all of you feel that you are loved by the straight community that gets it, and there are a lot of us,” she continued. ​“You are not alone. I weep with you. Because all of those people were someone’s child. And I love you all.”

Another man stepped up to the microphone to tell those assembled that one of the victims in the attack, 26-year-old Mercedes Marisol Flores, was his cousin. She died alongside her best friend, 25-year-old Amanda Alvear.

“I’m trying to make sense of it, and all I know is that it shouldn’t have to happen,” he said. ​“I see their faces everywhere I go now. This shouldn’t have to happen.”

“I would love it if the world were kinder,” he said.

The vigil ended as it began, with music. ​“I just wanted to dedicate this song to K.J.,” said Carlos Sanchez, before singing ​“We Will Stand” in memory of his friend Kimberly Morris. They had grown up together in Torrington; she was the bouncer at Pulse on Saturday night and died in the attack.

Everyone moved outside the building, taking a candle with them as they left. A candle was lit, and the flame passed around. Singer Kathryn Thomas led the crowd through ​“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” The crowd didn’t disperse; the vigil wasn’t over, didn’t feel over just yet. So Thomas belted out ​“This Little Light of Mine.” All sang along, and clapped and cheered at the end. At last, ​“Amazing Grace” closed the vigil, and one by one those assembled put their candles out.

Those feeling distressed in the wake of the attacks can call the Disaster Distress Helpline at 1 – 800-985‑5990; TTY for deaf and hearing impaired at 1 – 800-846‑8517. The GLBT National Hotline is 1 – 888-843‑4564. The Trans Lifeline is 1 – 877-565‑8860. The Trevor Lifeline for LGBT Youth is 866 – 488-7386. The English-Spanish Hotline for the NYC Anti-Violence Project is 212 – 714-1141. The National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1 – 800-273‑8255.