Resisting Identity Erasure after Pulse: Intersectional LGBTQ+ Latinx Activism in Orlando, FL

The evening of June 12, 2016, at Pulse night club started like most other Saturday nights at Orlando’s popular gay bar. Hundreds of patrons were in the bar for the weekly “Latin night” event, dancing to reggaeton, merengue, and other hits expected during noche Latina. At around 2:00 am, Omar Mateen entered the club and fired a semiautomatic rifle into the crowd. Mateen fatally shot 49 people and injured 58 others. In what was the largest mass shooting in U.S. history at the time, and the deadliest terrorist attack since September 11, 2001, the Pulse shooting disproportionally affected the LGBTQ+ Latinx population in Central Florida.

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Although Orlando has large concentrations of LGBTQ+ and Latinx populations, the Pulse shooting revealed a dearth of social services specifically for populations with overlapping LGBTQ+ and Latinx identities. Local LGBTQ+ organizations have historically provided services for primarily white, English-speaking clients, and local Latinx organizations have historically ignored LGBTQ+ concerns, effectively excluding LGBTQ+ Latinx populations from existing nongovernmental organizations. Recognizing urgent and immediate needs among local LGBTQ+ Latinx groups, several nongovernmental organizations emerged after the Pulse shooting to create mental health counseling services, sexual health support groups, and financial assistance programs to aid victims’ families. Despite momentum in creating local services, there remain numerous unmet needs of LGBTQ+ Latinx people in the Orlando area. Furthermore, state governmental officials have done little to acknowledge and act on the historically, economically, and politically driven processes that contribute to LGBTQ+ Latinx populations’ vulnerability, resulting in local activist mobilization.

In response to the Pulse shooting, state governmental officials failed to acknowledge the population disproportionately affected by the shooting or situate the shooting in broader forms of racial and sexual orientation–based violence. In discussing the Pulse tragedy publicly, Florida governor Rick Scott omitted references to LGBTQ+ and Latinx groups (Cordeiro 2017a, b), ultimately engaging in a form of identity erasure that echoes other ways in which state officials have invalidated the experiences of minorities with intersecting identities. Furthermore, following the shooting, Scott argued a need to funnel state funds into immigration control as an antiterrorism measure, and to date, he has not proposed any efforts to specifically prevent violence against racial minorities, LGBTQ+ populations, or groups at the intersection of those identities. Lack of political recognition and action, combined with long-standing unmet social service needs and exclusions from LGBTQ+ organizations that have historically focused on white populations, have resulted in emerging LGBTQ+ Latinx activist organizations making citizenship claims: demanding legal rights and protections, and asserting a sense of belonging to a specific community (Isin & Turner, 2002, p. 1).

Figure 1.

Members of QLatinx assemble for Orlando Pride in 2017. In the center, members hold the flag associated with the Trust Orlando Coalition, composed of social justice organizations that advocate the city of Orlando enact a pro-immigrant “trust” ordinance, 2017. Courtesy: Christopher Cuevas.

As a theoretical construct, citizenship extends beyond legal relationships between individuals and the polity and includes notions of belonging and inclusion (Sassen 2002, p. 278). Further, citizenship examines how groups of people assert claims of belonging and make demands upon a polity or group of people (Isin & Turner 2002). In Orlando, LGBTQ+ Latinx organizations make citizenship claims by combating racism through popular education events, drawing attention to the longstanding inequalities in LGBTQ+ organizations, and making efforts to include immigrant concerns in LGBTQ+ political activism. For example, organizations like QLatinx, which was created to provide a supportive space for LGBTQ+ Latinx individuals, directly combat the resurgence of white supremacist groups and take a stand on immigration concerns and exclusion from the broader LGBTQ+ community in Orlando.

As part of QLatinx’s popular education programming, the organization routinely critiques the various forms of white supremacy infiltrating contemporary politics. For example, following the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville that resulted in violent confrontations between white supremacists and antiracism protestors, we organized an “After Charlottesville” conversation about race. This included a dialogue about critical race theory, the legacy of memorializing racism in...