Life is hard! The real daily struggle of drinking enough water, getting enough sleep and doing enough exercise is hard. Making ends meet at the end of the month is hard. Finding a realistic work and family life balance is hard.
Marriage, relationships, interacting with others is hard. Parenting little humans is very hard. Trying to be happy, staying positive, making it to the top of every hour is hard, is hard and is hard.
Lately, living in Florida as an LGBTQIA+ person, as an immigrant, a person of color, a woman and/or as a marginalized person of any kind is getting really, really hard and terrifying. Our trans siblings are having their human rights vaporized, limiting access to basic and life-saving healthcare. They are facing genocide. Drag, a beloved art form and at the core of LGBTQIA+ culture, is suddenly being criminalized, flashing back to the early 1900s. Our collective and eclectic history is being further whitewashed. People of color are too offensive and the criminal acts committed against us are too uncomfortable to talk about, therefore, we are being erased. Our children and families are being silenced in our schools. We are being wiped from the bookshelves as if we never existed. What post-pandemic, apocalyptic world have we woken up to? We are the same people we have always been since the beginning of time. The LGBTQIA+ community didn’t suddenly turn into fungus-filled zombies, as seen in “The Last of Us” — spoiler alert. Then, why are we treated as the “infected”?
Please remember, we are and have always been your teachers, your business owners, your doctors, your neighbors and most importantly your friends, your children, your parents, your siblings and your family. With more questions than answers, how has our world so drastically changed? BUT… what if we aren’t the “infected” but they are? They being all the politicians, elected officials, decision makers and their mindless fungus-filled followers who have been infected with hate, blinded by rage and fueled by misdirected and senseless anger with an ultimate goal to bite and contaminate as many people as possible to believe their absurdities and dangerous delusions. What if “The Last of Us” is a social commentary, art imitating our real life? What if this is a sobering metaphor, foreshadowing our impending danger and our call to action?
As in the classic hero’s allegory, the fictional storyline from “The Last of Us” has the hero experiencing tremendous loss, heartbreak and extreme mental and physical pain as he heroically powers through the life-threatening struggles, never accepting his defeat. Similarly, when armed with the bravery and courage to come out as our authentic selves, so many of us in the LGBTQIA+ community have experienced deep grief over the disintegration and estrangement of significant relationships. We’ve tasted the pain of rejection, discrimination, bigotry, racism, homophobia and transphobia. They cut deep and leave emotional scars. So many of us have experienced trauma in the name of religion, ancestral culture and the hypocrisy of “family values.’’ YET… here we stand.
If you haven’t been inconvenienced or felt uncomfortable by the past and proposed legislation in the state of Florida, then your privilege is showing. I’m calling YOU to put down your phone, get off your recliner and wake up. This is not a drill.
Allies! Where are you? Allyship is NOT just jumping on a float in October during Pride or inviting us to your bachelorette party. We are more than your entertainment. We are humans, who are currently under savage attack and about to be eliminated. During these critical times, we need you to arm yourself with knowledge, gear up and become our co-conspirators. Speak for us in places where we do not have access. Educate on our behalf. Donate and contribute to organizations to financially support the work on the ground. Challenge those with fungus-filled minds who are blindly repeating this hateful rhetoric. Use your power and privilege as a tool to create positive change to make a true effort to save our lives.
My friends and chosen family, we are a resilient community that has always marched on, never accepting the injustices placed upon us. In reality, we’ve been too comfortable and complacent for too long. Our history reminds us that our revolution was birthed by Black and Brown trans women who were fearlessly armed with only bricks. I’ll say it loudly for those in the back — This. Is. Our. Time! This is our time to stand up. Our time to organize. Our time to unite and to FIGHT the infected! Like it or not, we — the trans and LGBTQIA+ community, the immigrants, the women, the communities of color and any other marginalized and disenfranchised group who are under fire — are an intricate part of the fiber and fabric of American culture, adding color, flavor and flare. We will not be silenced or erased. We will resist. Florida is our home. We will blaze on, paying tribute to our past, fighting for our lives in the present and holding hope for our future generations. We are Orlando Strong and we will #KeepDancingOrlando!
Tatiana Quiroga is the executive director for Come Out With Pride. She is a proud mother, wife and LGBTQ advocate in Central Florida.
