going to the club

When I go to a club
I have to wor­ry about some ass­hole putting shit in my drink,
con­flict from guys be­ing too sex­u­al­ly aggressive,
or even the worst case,
be­ing a by­stander when some cock­sure dude flies bul­lets to prove the val­ue of his masculinity. 

How­ev­er, these wor­ries are uni­ver­sal, these are not tar­get­ed in­ci­dents be­cause of the na­ture of the club I am in or who I am, they can hap­pen anywhere.

The club is also not my safe space, I am free to live as my­self open­ly with­out fear of so­ci­etal re­course (too of­ten fa­tal re­course). I go to the club for LOVE of com­mu­ni­ty, not for NEED of community.

This is what is tru­ly hor­ri­fy­ing to me about Or­lan­do. The com­mu­ni­ty knows that by virtue of be­ing at a gay club they are putting their lives in dan­ger, plac­ing a tar­get on them­selves and their space, but since this is tru­ly the only place they can still live free – even with the slow march to­ward equal­i­ty – they brave this wor­ry and go.

This is ab­solute­ly hor­ri­fy­ing to me. This fuck­er and his cheer­leader ilk (that in­clude bath­room law­mak­ers, re­li­gious tyrants, and pas­sive mod­er­ates) de­stroyed the only real refuge of safe­ty from a tar­get­ed mi­nor­i­ty. They are cul­tur­al refugees now and I can’t even imag­ine how they will be­gin to re­cov­er from this mas­sive diaspora.
 
 

—na­tal­ie michelle

Flom­mist Na­tal­ie Michelle does­n’t have a bio. She just rants. Copy­right © 2016 Na­tal­ie Michelle.

To sup­port the vic­tims of the Pulse shoot­ing, please do­nate here. Also, jet­BLue is ex­tend­ing an of­fer of free trav­el to/from Or­lan­do for im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly members/domestic part­ners of those im­pact­ed by the shoot­ing, de­tails here.

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