To our LGBTQ+ Community at George Mason University,
This weekend, on the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance, a mass shooting occurred at LGBTQ nightclub Club Q in Colorado Springs. We mourn the loss of five individuals. We uplift hopes of healing for the twenty-five individuals injured. We hold all those affected by the ripples of emotional and spiritual trauma as a result of facing great loss and targeted violence.
We are all fighting. Every time we put on clothes that make us feel like ourselves, every time we experience love and connection, every heartbeat and every breath that solidifies that we are still here, still alive—we resist those that wish for us to assimilate, to change, to disappear. To fight, every day, every moment, is tiring. Exhausting. We find communities, we carve spaces, we gather to scream and laugh and cry and to remind ourselves and each other that we are here, we are alive, we are not alone. And to be faced, once again, with an act of violence and horror that destroys the spaces we have carved out for ourselves is a pain unlike any other. We are scared. We are hurt. We are tired.
We are not alone.
Community is our strength. Community is our healing. We hold each other in our grief, uplift each other in our joy. In our understanding of the complexities of identity, we find power in nuance, in our ability to link arms and carry all our victories and tragedies at once, a terrible and beautiful shape that no one person can wrap their arms around but as a group we can hold in firm and gentle embrace.
Resistance takes many forms. It is outrage, and protests, and letters to the governor against anti-Trans bills, and voting against politicians who seek to silence and destroy us. It is also joy, and healing, and laughing together around a shared meal, and allowing ourselves to cry.
We don’t know what comes next. We don’t know when the next strike against our rights or our safety will be. What we do know is that we will be here. In the LGBTQ+ Resources Center, the Women and Gender Studies Center, the LGBTQ+ Faculty Staff Alliance; in student, faculty, and staff government and organizations; in offices, classrooms, and residence halls on every campus; on Zoom and on Teams. We are here.
We are here, feeling the pain of this most recent tragedy that compounds our trauma, we are here.
We are here, the week after mourning over 375 (known) deaths of trans and non-binary siblings worldwide for International Transgender Day of Remembrance, we are here.
We are here, months after the rollback on the rights of queer, trans, non-binary, and questioning youth in Virginia schools, we are here.
We are here, years after the Pulse Massacre, we are here.
We are here, decades after HIV/AIDS’s decimation of our elders, we are here.
We are here, holding on to each other because it is an act of resistance to be ourselves.
We are here.
We are here.
We are here.
In solidarity, strength, and healing,
The LGBTQ+ Faculty/Staff Alliance
The LGBTQ+ Resources Center
The Women and Gender Studies Center
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