I woke up to the news from Orlando on Sunday 12 June and posted the BBC’s Breaking News about the attack at the American LGBT nightclub, Pulse, straight away. At first there were 20 reported dead, then as the day progressed, 49 slain and 52 injured by Omar Mateen, who many now believe might have been a closeted gay man.
As the day wore on, I checked into Facebook. The reaction from a lot of people on my timeline, notably some of the heterosexual folk I usually think of as allies, was muted. What? No rainbow flag meme with We Are Orlando scrawled over it? Nope. The outbursts of solidarity could be counted on one hand. At first I thought I was the only one, that it was only my straight friends who were slow to respond.
Perhaps some were in shock, unable to conjure up words to convey their deep sadness. Perhaps they found it hard to believe that things are still so precarious for LGBT people and that perhaps, in some way, hetero sexual people are complicit in this because they don’t have to live with, and benefit from the prejudice we face daily?