Orlando: Chelsea

We are not safe and secure when the government uses us as pawns to perpetrate violence against others. Our safety and security will come when we organize, love and resist together.

We should remember that we are alive. We are real flesh and blood. Apart from the fact that we are increasingly disconnected from the world by technology and politics, we are still surviving as a community.

And even though we have come a long way, events like these remind us we still have a long way to go. Thoughts and prayers alone won’t protect our community. We need to continue to build and support queer and trans communities and end the profiling and criminalization that so many face.

We find solace and sanctuary in the club because we are so often expelled from other public spaces – from bathrooms, from street corners, from jobs, from history. Our survival is our resistance. And our solidarity and support for the Muslim community in these coming days and months – some of whom are queer and trans – will lift us all up in the face of anyone seeking to further marginalize another.

Chelsea E Manning, The Guardian.