Pulse Was More Than Jt a Gay Club: It Was a Place Where We Didn't Have to Hi | GQ

Contents:

• IT'S BEEN 5 YEARS SCE THE PULSE NIGHTCLUB SHOOTG, AND GAYS AGAST GUNS WON'T LET THE WORLD FET
• SCENE OF MASS SHOOTG MORE THAN 'JT ANOTHER GAY CLUB'
• PULSE WAS MORE THAN JT A GAY CLUB: IT WAS A PLACE WHERE WE DIDN'T HAVE TO HI
• 50 AD, ISLAMIC TERRORISM TIE EYED ORLANDO GAY BAR SHOOTG

IT'S BEEN 5 YEARS SCE THE PULSE NIGHTCLUB SHOOTG, AND GAYS AGAST GUNS WON'T LET THE WORLD FET

It’s been nearly two years sce the mass shootg at Pulse nightclub Orlando, Florida, that killed 49 people — wily believed to be an act of aggrsn agast the club’s LGBTQ clientele and “unniably a homophobic hate crime.

In fact, he allegedly had no ia Pulse was a gay club, and simply Googled “Orlando nightclubs” after fdg that secury at his origal target, a major shoppg and entertament plex, was too high, as reported by. A radil Islamic terrorist targeted the nightclub, not only bee he wanted to kill Amerins, but orr to execute gay and lbian cizens, bee of their sexual orientatn. ” The followg day at a North Carola rally Tmp said, “We want to live a untry where gay and lbian Amerins and all Amerins are safe om radil Islam, which, by the way, wants to murr and has murred gays and they enslave women.

SCENE OF MASS SHOOTG MORE THAN 'JT ANOTHER GAY CLUB'

The shooter didn’t target LGBTQ people — he didn’t even realize Pulse was a gay-oriented nightclub, askg a secury guard at the club where all the women were jt before he started shootg. On Saturday, June 12, a sea of veiled, whe-clad activists om the direct actn group Gays Agast Guns showed up to the Christopher Street Piers—a se wh a storied and plex queer history—to hold space for the 49 people who were murred at Orlando's Pulse nightclub 2016.

"Remember the 49, " read one prott sign, and that was the ethos that fueled the group's march om the Piers to the Stonewall Natnal Monument, where numero speakers—cludg Gays Agast Guns foundg member Jay W.

PULSE WAS MORE THAN JT A GAY CLUB: IT WAS A PLACE WHERE WE DIDN'T HAVE TO HI

Gays Agast Guns is particularly vted potg out the disproportnate effects of gun vlence on LGBTQ+ people, and particularly queer and trans people of lor; below, fd the chillg yet spirg imag om the group's Pulse Remembrance Day prott. Photographed by Michael GeeBen Williams—one of the origal members of Gays Agast Guns—joed the first weeks followg the massacre.

50 AD, ISLAMIC TERRORISM TIE EYED ORLANDO GAY BAR SHOOTG

They joed the Gays Agast Guns monstratn solidary.