On the evening of June 11^th, 2016 I had a quiet night at home and watched two films about slain gay rights activist and San Francisco politician Harvey Milk. When I woke up on June 12^th, I read about a mass shooting in Orlando at a gay club, killing fifty people and injuring at least fifty more. I can’t say as I was watching those films that I had any particular sense of foreboding; but reading about the shootings the very next day was disturbingly eerie.

Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were shot and killed in City Hall, by former City Counsel Supervisor Dan White in 1978. He snuck into City Hall though a window, so as to avoid setting off metal detectors with the thirty-eight caliber gun and ten extra rounds of ammunition stashed in his pockets.

White’s lawyer argued that he should not be charged with capital murder because of a chemical imbalance in his brain caused by eating too much junk food. White was found not guilty of premeditated murder based on the argument that junk food made him do it. He was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and released from prison in 1984, just five years after the trial.

If Mayor Moscone were the only victim, White would have surely faced much harsher punishment. I don’t doubt that Milk’s life, as an openly gay elected official was deemed less of a loss than that of the Mayor in the eyes of the jury –what I struggle to understand is why.

Being part of a minority, I automatically empathize with the struggles of others, even if their struggle is not the same as my own. I grew up in a loving home, with parents who taught my brother and I to take pride in who we are, fight for what’s right, help others whenever we can and never to judge things we don’t understand. Growing up with a disability, I had to learn how to have a thick skin; I had to learn to advocate for myself –to recognize discrimination and fight against it. Before I could do this for myself, my parents fought tirelessly on my behalf. My family is loving, accepting, open and gracious. This is how I was raised.

I can’t pretend to know what it’s like to be persecuted and targeted on the base of skin colour, sexual orientation or gender identity –but I do know what it’s like to be persecuted and targeted, to be discriminated against and treated unfairly. I know how exhausting it is to have to constantly fight for equality –I know how that fatigue aches the bones and rattles the soul.

If there’s one thing I’ve always known, it is that I have no right to demand respect and equality if I don’t practice what I preach. I’m not gay, but I have friends who are. I also have friends who are LGBTQ and disabled. Sometimes, a shared minority experience is all it takes to spot a friend amongst a sea of strangers.

Recently, someone said to me after knowing me for less than a week, “You know, I can’t imagine how frustrating it is for you, to face the things you do –to have such a hard time finding a job when clearly you’re so capable or to literally have to fight to get in a door- but I am gay, so I understand what it’s like to deal with ignorance, to come up against people who think they’re being helpful when in fact they’re just patronizing or people who make assumptions and don’t care how offensive or inaccurate they are. It can be infuriating. What you deal with and what I deal with aren’t exactly the same, but it doesn’t mean I don’t understand. You’re smart, you’re capable and you’re kind; you’re a wonderful girl –that will get you farther ahead than your being in a wheelchair could hold you back.” All I could think was wow. That’s it –just wow.

When things like this happen, I can’t help but think of all my friends who face such hate and threat of violence just for being who they are –good, kind and loving people. I know what it’s like to be hated, to have derogatory comments hurled at you and to be treated as inferior, but I can’t say I know what it’s like to have my identity as a member of a minority also be something that causes me to fear for my life.

It’s 2016 and for all the battles for equality that the LGBTQ community have fought –and won- they’re still the targets of senseless brutality. The disability community as a collective group could do well to take activism cues from the LGBTQ community; the disabled are among the largest systematically marginalized groups in society and very little is being done about it. Still, we don’t face the same kinds of threats –not even close.

Years ago, I was at a friend’s house for a barbecue. It was summer, so we were outside in the backyard. Next door, the neighbours were also enjoying dinner outside. We could hear them laughing and talking; one of the men happened to have a very effeminate voice. My friend started laughing at this person, for some reason finding his voice to be endlessly entertaining and making comments about how girly he sounded, even going so far as flicking his wrist mockingly. I was well aware that my friend and I had vastly different views and opinions, but I always made a conscious choice to never engage in discussions with this person about things that would just cause fights. This time, I didn’t have a choice. “Who do you think you are?” I asked. “That guy has no idea that you can hear him; he has no idea that you’re laughing so hard at his expense. He’s enjoying a barbecue in his own home, with his own friends, just like we are; just because you can hear him and he doesn’t know doesn’t mean he deserves to be made a mockery of. He’s on his own property, enjoying a nice night and he shouldn’t have to be quieter to avoid being made fun of. Who knows, maybe he can hear you, and he thinks your voice is weird too. Maybe the reason they’re laughing so loud is because of the way you sound.” Thankfully, the subject was dropped; if it hadn’t have been, I would have asked to be taken home.

I thank God all the time that Canada does not have nearly the level of gun violence that exists in the States. I’m also eternally grateful that Canada as a collective are a much more tolerant population. If I lived in the States –as a member of a minority- I think I’d be a good deal more fearful. America may have better accessibility legislation, but I would not want to live there.

When will all the craziness stop? If I were born even twenty years before I was, I likely would’ve been institutionalized, no questions asked. Less than a hundred years ago, Jews were exterminated en masse under Hitler’s regime in Nazi Germany. Before that, black people were enslaved treated as less than human for the colour of their skin.

For all of the forward leaps and bounds we’ve made and all the tyranny we’ve risen against, we still have a long way to go. Any display of violence is sickening –there’s no group of fifty people that it would be more acceptable to murder, but the fact that the homosexual community was the intended target of such brutality cannot be overlooked or shoved aside. The F.B.I. is investigating the shootings in Orlando as an act of terrorism; reports say that ISIS is claiming responsibility –the shooter has been identified as an American citizen. This has been qualified as the largest mass shooting in U.S. history –the victims of which are not insignificant.

I don’t care if you agree with homosexuality or not –in my mind there’s nothing to agree on. The LGBTQ community doesn’t organize rallies and marches and fight tirelessly so that they can wave rainbow flags in everyone’s faces and taunt people mercilessly to make them squirm. They do it to be seen as equal, to have equal right under the law to love who they love and be who they are without having to hide or live in fear. It shouldn’t matter who people love, or how they love, or how they define the bonds of family. Take all that away if that makes it easier because it doesn’t matter –it doesn’t matter who people love, or what colour his or her skin is, or whether someone has a disability. We’re all human.

Everyone deserves to feel safe –or at the very least, to know they won’t be killed for being who they are. ISIS may be claiming responsibility and the culprit is the man who walked into that club with an automatic weapon. But hatred gets us nowhere. Even if not everyone agrees, I wonder how different things could be if, even in spite of disagreement we could still regard each other with respect while allowing space for personal opinion, knowing full well that there will be some that don’t mesh. Lots of people can do that just fine. But for everyone who can, there are at least just as many –if not more- people who can’t.

There is no excuse for the terrorism of what happened in Orlando –no justification. This didn’t happen in a war-torn region rife with civil unrest. This happened in North America, where equality and human rights are supposed to be held paramount. If we could all just give each other a little room to breathe, not be so concerned with proving ourselves right and everyone else wrong and not discriminate against people for demanding equality as though to giving it to them robs everyone else of their liberty. If only we could just acknowledge our shared humanity –imagine the possibilities.