Are you OK?
For the first time in 10 years, I put feelings about June 12, 2016 into words.
10 years ago, I woke up to dozens of messages asking the same question.
It took me a while to understand what people were asking about. And after it became clear, it took me even longer to believe what my eyes were seeing.
“Are you OK?”
I left a life, a family, and several friend groups behind to move to the U.S. at 18 years old, to pursue my dreams, and to live as my most authentic self.
Pulse gave me best friends, heartbreaks, headaches, laughs, good (and bad) drinks, clothes smelling of cigarettes from the outside area. We were at Pulse nearly every Friday — dancing, smiling, laughing, and figuring ourselves out.
Hundreds of memories at Pulse. Some in photos and videos, most that didn’t get captured. We were having too much fun.
I had already moved to South Florida by 2016, but many people in my life didn’t know that. I also visited Orlando all the time. In fact, I was in Orlando on May 2016 — one month before what happened — and I went to Pulse to see my friends, of course.
It was plausible (and even probable) that I would’ve been at Pulse for Latin night one month after my last visit to see my friends at Pulse. My friends who are nearly all Latinos, just like me.
In Brazil, where I was born and raised, June 12 is Valentine’s Day.
A cutesy holiday that I spent my entire life remembering completely vanished from my memory on June 12, 2016. For the past 10 years, June 12 has been a devastating, heart-wrenching date that I try not to open up about. Today is the first time that I’ve put any feelings about June 12, 2016 into words.
“Are you OK?”
In hindsight, June 12, 2016 was oddly helpful to my coming out. Within my own bubble of friends and relatives, the concern that I was at Pulse that night was bigger than pleasantries or politics.
Several conservative childhood friends reached out, panicking. I can see, now, that they also learned something that day: How could their values be against gay people, yet they cared this much about one of the gays in question?
I never came out to a single other person after that day. I just became more of myself, and everything sorted itself out after that.
In 2023 — my second year working at Out Magazine — I asked if I could work on Brandon J. Wolf’s profile for the Out100. I vaguely explained that I had experiences with Orlando and with Pulse, and I was assigned to do it.
But the truth is that it meant the world for me to stand with my LGBTQ+ siblings who have been (and are still) leading the battle to honor the victims of June 12, 2016. Those who have been fighting against anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in Florida day in and day out.
As a storyteller, I recognize that my power is in telling stories to an audience that I’ve been growing with for many years.
But my story with June 12 has nothing to do with me. I am just a voice hoping to catch your attention to something greater and more important. The journey should play out as it did with those concerned friends, 10 years ago, who woke me up with texts and had their minds changed as a result of our connections.
For 10 years, various government agencies have done everything in their power to dismantle memorials, erase rainbow crosswalks, and build new things on top of places we deem sacred as a community.
They want us to forget the 49 victims. They want activists like Brandon to lose their voice/power. 10 years is too long for them to respect our dead, I guess. That is the value — the shelf life? — of queer lives taken in a targeted massacre.
Stanley Almodovar III, 23 years old
Amanda L. Alvear, 25 years old
Oscar A. Aracena Montero, 26 years old
Rodolfo Ayala Ayala, 33 years old
Antonio Davon Brown, 29 years old
Darryl Roman Burt II, 29 years old
Angel Candelario-Padro, 28 years old
Juan Chavez Martinez, 25 years old
Luis Daniel Conde, 39 years old
Cory James Connell, 21 years old
Tevin Eugene Crosby, 25 years old
Deonka Deidra Drayton, 32 years old
Simón Adrian Carrillo Fernández, 31 years old
Leroy Valentin Fernandez, 25 years old
Mercedez Marisol Flores, 26 years old
Peter Ommy Gonzalez Cruz, 22 years old
Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22 years old
Paul Terrell Henry, 41 years old
Frank Hernandez, 27 years old
Miguel Angel Honorato, 30 years old
Javier Jorge Reyes, 40 years old
Jason Benjamin Josaphat, 19 years old
Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, 30 years old
Anthony Luis Laureano Disla, 25 years old
Christopher Andrew Leinonen, 32 years old
Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21 years old
Brenda Marquez McCool, 49 years old
Gilberto R. Silva Menendez, 25 years old
Kimberly Jean Morris, 37 years old
Akyra Monet Murray, 18 years old
Luis Omar Ocasio Capo, 20 years old
Geraldo A. Ortiz Jimenez, 25 years old
Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36 years old
Joel Rayon Paniagua, 32 years old
Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35 years old
Enrique L. Rios, Jr., 25 years old
Jean Carlos Nieves Rodríguez, 27 years old
Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35 years old
Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz, 24 years old
Yilmary Rodríguez Solivan, 24 years old
Edward Sotomayor, Jr., 34 years old
Shane Evan Tomlinson, 33 years old
Martin Benitez Torres, 33 years old
Jonathan A. Camuy Vega, 24 years old
Juan Pablo Rivera Velázquez, 37 years old
Luis Sergio Vielma, 22 years old
Franky Jimmy DeJesus Velázquez, 50 years old
Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37 years old
Jerald Arthur Wright, 31 years old
I won’t let political agendas steamroll our lives and our memories and our joy.
I urge you to help me not let them.