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"There was a brief pause in the shooting and some of us just got up and ran out the back." He described hearing "non-stop firing" which probably lasted less than a minute but felt like a lot longer. I guess the shooter was shooting at the ceiling because you could see all the glass from the lamps falling," he told the network. "At around 2:00 am someone started shooting. Speaking to Sky News, clubber Ricardo Negron, who was inside when the shooting began, described how the gunman raked the club with bullets. The club advertises itself online as "Orlando's hottest gay bar". "Officers are going in to search the building and to get people out." I am not sure if there are any deceased at this time," the dispatcher said. Stay away from area," Orlando police wrote on Twitter, with a police dispatcher telling AFP it was an "active shooting." "Shooting at Pulse Nightclub on S Orange. It was the second shooting incident in the city in just over 24 hours, coming shortly after singer Christina Grimmie was shot dead late Friday by a gunman who stormed a theater where she had just finished a gig. The incident began at around 2:00 am (0600 GMT) at the Pulse nightclub in downtown Orlando, with witnesses speaking of a gunman opening fire with an automatic weapon. If we want to change the world to make it less actively deadly to queer people we need to talk about what made it that way in the first place - “love is love” platitudes won’t get us there.An unknown number of people have been injured in an ongoing shooting attack at a gay nightclub in Florida which began early on Sunday, with police reporting "multiple injuries". Orlando is unfortunately an extreme extension of that violence and should serve as a wake-up call to the dangers of homophobia, transphobia, and toxic masculinity. A world where 40% of homeless youth are LGBTQ and 41% of transgender and gender nonconforming people have attempted suicide is not just unsafe but actively violent to queer people. A safe space is one that ostensibly provides shelter from an unsafe world. The Orlando massacre is the deadliest mass shooting in recent history, with a higher death count than the San Bernardino, Columbine, and Aurora shootings combined. Indeed, regardless of how Omar identified, his actions have disrupted the idea that there is safe space for queer people who are “out” in America. “The most important thing an individual can do to help someone with accepting their sexual orientation is to express empathy and acceptance regardless of how they identify,” says Yarbrough. Harm reduction should be the model, because statistically, harm is guaranteed.
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That extends to supporting people’s choice to come out in their own time, or not at all if it’s too risky.
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Eric Yarbrough, director of psychiatric services at Callen-Lorde Community Health Center. “LGBTQ people need to be supported and validated making the coming out process as easy as possible,” says Dr. These realities are inextricably tied to the act of “coming out” which still opens one’s life up to potential violence. We should not take the act of coming out as a cure-all for the travails of a queer life for many people, being queer is a reality that engenders poverty, homelessness, addiction, and suicide. citizen, was also the product of a culture that places a premium on being “out” if you’re gay but does not work hard enough to ensure that the world is safe for those same people. When you believe those messages, your feelings of despair can lead to harming yourself - as in suicide - or harming others - as in gay bashing or perhaps even something like the tragic massacre in Orlando, Florida.” Ibrahim tells Teen Vogue that internalized shame “comes from being told by society, your family, your church, and the media that who you are is wrong, perverted, invisible, or tragic. Omar, who was Afghan and Muslim, may have felt that his desire had marked him out as deviant and exiled him from religious spaces, like many queer people of various religious persuasions.