Orlando shooting and a sense of erasure

Watching coverage of the murder of 49 people in an LGBT club in Orlando, Olivia Laing experienced familiar feelings of shame and paralysis. She reflects on growing up in a climate of intolerance and the many ways queer people have been silenced through history

I woke up this morning to a video of Owen Jones repeatedly being told by two straight people that the murder of 49 queer people in a gay club in Orlando was not about homophobia.

There is a particular feeling that comes with erasure: a kind of paralysis, a kind of shame. Don’t be silly: what you’re seeing is not about you, what you’re seeing is an attack on western freedoms – clubbing! – and not part and parcel of the everyday viciousness of homophobia, a climate of hate enacted in everything from casual comments on street corners and in school playgrounds to violence, to the systematic application of laws that erode LGBT rights, to the dozens of countries where being queer means prison or death.

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