XQQ-Pride-edition-Almost-final-Draft

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Cross Queer Quarterly 4
BLEED AREA XQQ Pride Edition 2016 EDITOR’S NOTE When I originally sat down to write this message, my intended message was very different than the one that you see before you now. It was written under a very different set of circumstances. It was written in anticipation of an amazing, fun-filled, joyful Pride month with the Victoria Pride Parade and Festival as its apex. This was before the tragedy happened. Along with the rest of you, I watched in shocked horror as the surreal news unfolded in Orlando, Florida, on June 12. I watched as the news media suddenly became inundated with reports of a mass shooting that took the lives of 49 innocent victims at Pulse, a gay nightclub. When Anderson Cooper cried as he read out the names of the victims, I cried with him. A boy of 18... A mother of 11 children. The killings were brutal, indiscriminate, and incomprehensible. A large part of me wanted to throw in the towel and cancel the Pride issue altogether... At least until after we had a chance to mourn; a chance to recover; a change to make sense of it all, and to get to a place where celebration, joy, and happiness would make more sense. And still now, even as I convinced myself that we must go on, Pride juxtaposed with this tragedy is a non sequitur at best. Yet, isn’t this exactly the type of hatred that helped bring about about Pride in the first place? It was out of adversity, intolerance, and a “we’re not going to take it anymore” revolution, that the LGBTQA+ community banded together and sent a message to the world: We’re here! We’re Queer! Get used to it! If it weren’t for the Stonewall riots of 1969, history may have evolved quite differently. And now, forty seven years later, U.S. President Barack Obama dedicated the Stonewall National Monument at the site of the original Stonewall Inn in New York, the bar where it all started. It is the first national monument in the U.S. to be dedicated to the LGBT community. So while this year’s Pride festivities undoubtedly will have a dark shadow cast over them, let us at least use that as a dire reminder that our work is not finished. There is plenty left for us to do in fighting prejudice, intolerance, homophobia and transphobia, and the deadly violence it brings. Pulse is OUR generation’s Stonewall. It is OUR call to action and OUR reason for ensuring our voices are heard. We will MUST celebrate Pride for as long as it takes! And maybe someday, we truly won’t need to, because love and acceptance for all will be the norm. Although I have to say, I hope that even then, we’ll have plenty of chances to wear rainbow-coloured tutus and dance through the streets, because let’s face it, that’s a helluva lot of fun! On that note, I wish you all a wonderful Pride Festival. Please, keep safe, enjoy all the great events that are scheduled, and as we remember the victims of Orlando, remember also that they died dancing. I’d like to think that they would want us to celebrate extra-hard for them, and for ourselves. Hatred and violence must never be allowed to win. And the best way I can think of to fight it, is with love, laughter, happiness, and celebration... Even if it’s a hard thing to do. 5
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