My name is David Bond,
and I'm a gay male.
After the Pulse shooting, there was a
candlelight vigil in the Castro.
I was living in San Francisco at the time and
just seeing so many beautiful diverse
people come out and complete strangers
hugging each other
consoling each other
crying in each others arms
I myself did the same.
It was startling more so than anything I had
ever experienced because it hit really
close to home like
those people look like my friends
they look like the people I saw on the street
said "hi" to out
it was a over flowing
of warmth and love and togetherness
in a time when we really needed it
to have complete strangers like embrace each
other cry on each other's shoulders
offer some kind of words of support to
each other that we're all beautiful
important valid parts of this rainbow of people
I think it was really important to
hear that and hear community leaders say
the same thing and bring the 7 by 7 mile
stretch of city together in one spot
regardless of like religion, race, gender
it wasn't just queer people,
it was straight people
it was you know white people
black people
everyone.
I think that was the warmest I've ever felt
by far.
I was born and raised in Los Angeles
and I have very open-minded parents.
Really acclimating a place to
find myself as a teen, especially,
wasn't exactly the most difficult but there
were people in my day-to-day life that
you know directly antagonized and challenged that.
You know it's like walking through
the halls of my high school and hearing
people whisper "faggot"
you can have the thickest skin
and you can be a thousand percent sure of yourself
but to hear that over and over
that can break anyone down and you
definitely feel it
it's tangible
it like kind of gets that knot in your stomach
when you're like "ugh, that word is so ugly or
this person doesn't like me just because I'm like this way"
it's really hard to understand
too when you're that age.
You know I don't look back at that with anger
I don't look back at it with any resentment or hard feelings
I mean I ultimately became more
comfortable in my skin
I became a lot stronger
when those people
they're not comfortable in their own skin
they're just there to make sure that you
feel bad about yourself.
So last year I helped fundraise for my
friend Juanita More's annual Pride Party
which was at the end of June in San Francisco
and I mean San Francisco was very special place
it will always be home to me
even more so participating in that
helping set up
getting the outfits and the looks
and getting people like really hyped about it
and you know raising the money for this
awesome beneficiary "Queer Life Space"
which has a sliding scale payment system
for mental health services for queer people
that's an issue that hits very close to home for me
it really made me feel like I had a voice
like I had a place in something
like I was a part of a real community.
We often get kind of caught up
and like separating ourselves
or like removing ourselves from things
and this was a way to like really band
together like we were all the same
at the same venue you know
being our most beautiful free self.
I think it's really important to feel comfortable
in a setting like that and just be a part of
community to really embrace togetherness
and not this "us v. them" kind of thing.
As a gay kid growing up I would
just say it's so important to just be
yourself and to be happy with yourself
and do what you need to to be happy with yourself
and you know except yourself
because there's so many external factors that
are just there to make us feel bad
and to say that we're wrong.
I think it's important that no matter what you face
and what challenges are what people say
or whoever says what you in the hallway of your high school
you are you and that's a beautiful thing.
There is an idea that we are not a part
of this nation that we don't belong
we're against the "norm"
it's a great thing being queer
it really is
I think it's a beautiful thing
I think being different is amazing
but we are still human
and I think it's really important to acknowledge
that like now more than ever
our most vulnerable and marginalized groups
need as much love
support and warmth as possible
we need to stand up for them and each other
in the face of adversity and there
is going to be a lot of it there always
will be but it's important to never lose
sight of that and lose sight of ourselves
and understand that like we are in this together.
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