To a heartbroken Twitter User:

I want you to read this. It is a series of tweets from a user called supergrover (@fuzzlaw) that I compiled. This is as poignant and heartbreaking as anything you will read on the subject. I am not gay, but to the LGBTQ community, I promise you are not alone, though I imagine it's almost impossible not to feel that way often. We who support you outnumber those who don't, even if the "leadership" does not reflect that on the whole yet. It will in time, but never soon enough.

I'm an aging dyke, so I'm just going to get this out of my system: kids, y'all 35 and under, this wasn't supposed to happen to you. The generation ahead of us knocked down the wall: Stonewall. Initial visibility. Standing proud. Being out. They suffered the consequences. Backlash. Violence. The Upstairs Lounge in New Orleans. Guns fired at the places they dared to gather. Then AIDS swept in and devastated the community. Reagan and his ilk laughed at our suffering. They closed ranks. Cared for one another. Tended the dying and buried the dead. There's a reason why most 60+ gay leaders are women. See the genocide underneath the demographics. Then, the mid-90's. Anti-retroviral drugs came along. Our men started surviving. We began to flourish, stand up, stand out more strongly. Here and there, we fought for 'gay' marriage. Folks started coming out. Melissa. K.D. George. Ellen. Each was huge and life-affirming. Reveling in our newfound life and out-ness, Matthew Shepard's death cut us to the core. It was 18 years ago. 1998. As a community, we threw it down. HELL no. We didn't survive AIDS for this. We mobilized. Flexed our muscles. Change came. With every step of progress came backlash. But we pushed. And we pushed. And there weren't any Upstairs Lounges. No Matthew Shepards. We won. We won the right to marry, to have our employment rights protected, to live as fellow citizens. Fights remain, of course. But we were winning. Then, Pulse. 50 dead. 50 wounded. Babies. Kids. The ones we fought so hard to protect from the backlash. The backlash we knew all too well, but that the post Matthew Shepard generation has never known. We never wanted you to know about this. We never wanted you to experience this. It's why we fought, and fight, so hard. Yes, it's for our generation, but really...it's for you. For us, this violence is...not unexpected. We know it's possible. We've seen it. But you all...dammit, you've never had to worry about it, not collectively. We never wanted this for you. We thought we had protected you. But...clearly, the past is not even past. Welcome to being GLBTQ* in America. There are people who want us dead. And that's no exaggeration. And it's not just the nuts with the guns. It's the politicians who sacrifice us on the altar of hateful rhetoric to score political points. It's the churches that won't ordain us, won't celebrate us, who insist on continuing to 'love the sinner and hate the sin". It's the nonsensical fight over who can use which bathrooms. The inability of Congressmen to mention that it was GLBTQ* people who died. It's the families who turn GLBTQ* teenagers on to the street instead of just fucking loving them. Schools who expel them. It's every bully who teases and effinite boy and harasses a masculine girl. Every man who tells a lesbian she just needs the 'right dick'. It permeates our society. It is SO much better than it was, yet remains SO awful. It's why our generation kept fighting, and keeps fighting. But it's time for our generation to teach the next. Welcome to the fight for your lives, kids. We're with you. We'll guide you. We'll teach you everything we know. We'll stand on the front lines until you can do it. We'll be the cannonfodder. You're not alone. But the college-environment-creating-change-kumbaya-all-is-well-everyone-has-to-bow-to-what-we-say approach isn't reality. The world is not a safe space, and it only gets safer when you fight like hell for it. We weren't given the spaces we have. It's a fight. So get prepared. Read your history. Talk to your elders. Listen, and learn. And show up. We need you. Your energy and ideas. We'd still take a bullet for you, literally, and figuratively. You were just never supposed to have to take a bullet for us. RIP, my nieces and nephews and sons and daughters in Orlando. I'm so sorry we didn't protect you.

To supergrover (@fuzzlaw) :
This was not your fault. It is everyone's fault. There is failure at every juncture. We don't protect everyone in our society, only those we don't deem "less than." We continually exercise our rights at the expense of the rights of others, a direct violation of the one cardinal condition of having those very rights. Our nation's leaders do it daily, and often with the support of the Supreme Court. This is not your failure - it is systemic failure. Individually, we care very deeply. But as a country, we do not care one bit. Our elections are a clear indication of this. Voters continually re-elect bigoted and corrupt politicians who have rigged the system to their benefit, at the expense of the country, in general, and of the people most in need of protection, specifically. We have a segment of the citizenry who wants to exploit their rights the way the politicians do - so they use "freedom of religion" as a backdrop for discrimination. They tout the 2nd Amendment as the backdrop for endless and militaristic armament, walking through towns with assault-style weapons slung from their shoulders to scare and intimidate people, just praying - practically daring - someone to confront them and gives them a reason to engage their weapon.

You live in a country that is not emotionally stable. And the nation's leadership operates in a manner that keeps people there. We try to improve things, we try to engage people's hearts, so that they might see who the people are that they actually hurt, rather than the demographic. And you plug along, and you see small indications of improvement, you think things are starting to take on an exponential pace... and then you watch someone like Donald Trump take over the Republican party. And you realize the improvements are just a facade. That, given a bigoted presidential candidate to rally around, the id of the hateful segment of this country races to take over the spotlight.

So please, superuser, do not carry this cataclysm on your shoulders. This country was supposed to protect these victims. You are part of why improvements have occurred all. And they will continue to because, as I said, we who support you outnumber those who don't. As much as your heart is broken, you are not responsible for what happened. This country is. And we will continue to try to wrestle power away from those whom thrive on our instability and feed the hateful id that festers just below, and sometimes above, the surface. I promise. You are not alone.