We’re not safe behind closed doors, so where are we safe?

Ican’t be alone in finding international news hard to digest. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s that sometimes it’s hard to make sense of events you have not lived yourself.

But when I woke up to news that another gunman had opened fire in a queer club – this time in Colorado – my heart dropped.

I don’t blame you if you read the headline and moved on. We’ve all done it. But, as a gay person, as a member of this beautiful, global rainbow community, I’m telling you that it’s worth your time. I’m asking you to pay attention.

This isn’t just a sad, foreign tragedy. This isn’t just an American issue about gun violence and a stomach-turning reminder of the 2016 massacre at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

This is very close to home for all New Zealanders – and not just for queer people.

It’s true New Zealand is increasingly accepting of people whose sexual orientations; gender identities or sex characteristics differ from majority norms.

We have laws providing marriage equality and the right to self-identify gender, and protecting against discrimination in most cases, but it’s not the whole story.

In August Newsroom’s Mark Daalder wrote about how the surge of anti-transgender rhetoric and homophobia in the United States was driving an anti-LGBT backlash in New Zealand. This followed back-to-back incidents that targeted the queer community: the vandalising of a pink church on the West Coast with homophobic slurs, and the arson of the Tauranga Rainbow Youth and Gender Dynamix.

All the while, in the US, moves against queer people, especially trans people, mount up. In the past week alone, I’ve seen legislators make access to genderaffirming healthcare more difficult for trans people (or impossible), I’ve read about queer children being discriminated against in schools, and of course, the most anti-LGBTQ+ president in recent history has announced a 2024 run… it’s a lot.

These decisions, and this anti queer rhetoric, does impact New Zealand. It fuels fear, it fuels hate and it causes harm. Often it finds haven online.

People who hate our community, people who want us to ‘‘keep it private’’, want us expressing our euphoria, our love, and our lust behind closed doors. But attacks like this make it clear that we are not even safe here, in these spaces. So where are we safe?

The Government has watered down its proposed hate speech laws as they were ‘‘too controversial to be palatable’’, and as such, rainbow people are not specifically protected. That, apparently, requires more discussion.

A reminder that this review of the Human Rights Act stemmed from another hideous and unforgivable act of violence: the Christchurch terror attacks.

This heinous act was fuelled by hatred too. And it was right-wing extremism that caused it, in our backyard. The same backyard where researchers say they’ve witnessed an uptick in anti-LGBT hatred, driven by American politics.

If you think that LGBTQ+ people in New Zealand are safe, think again. Don’t let the corporate inclusivity lingo, rainbow ticks and pride flags in windows fool you.

Our community is under attack. We always have been. The devastating events at Club Q are a reminder.

Activist Dan Savage reminded his followers yesterday that at the Stonewall riots in 1969, queer people chanted ‘‘out of the bars and into the streets!’’ He reminded me that we fought back then, and we fought back in Colorado too. It was patrons of the bar, not the police, that brought this terrorist down.

We are fighters and, we will keep going until we are safe everywhere. In the meantime, how many more of us need to die?

Don’t let the corporate inclusivity lingo, rainbow ticks and pride flags in windows fool you. Our community is under attack.