Today is Orlando Pride. To mark the special occasion, Queerty asked Orlando lesbian transgender photographer Melody Maia Monet to share a sampling of her amazing photos of the local LGBTQ community along with captions, taken before and after the Pulse Nightclub massacre of June 12, 2016, in which 49 souls were lost.
Aftermath: Pulse Nightclub Memorial
July 2016
After: Pulse Vigil
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Candlelight vigil Lake Eola July 26 honoring 49 souls lost
Before: MarcoMarco Party at Pulse
Fashion show at Pulse April 2016
Before: Leather Night
Leather Night at BarCodes March 2016
Before: Sunday mingling
Sunday Surrender in March 2016 Ember Sunday afternoons
VAiN Nightclub
The place to be on Sunday the hours before heading home for the night
Before: Girls in Wonderland
The lesbian event during Gay Days. Here are the ladies who love ladies at House of Blues in June of 2016 one week before the tragedy
After: Mural Center
Mural memorializing the tragedy, painted on the side of the LGBT center in the Mills 50 district. Photographed July 2016
After: FlexFriday
The men of Flex Fridays at the club Southern Nights Orlando, showing love for Pulse on June 17, 2016
After: Southern Nights Orlando
The girls at Southern Nights Orlando show their love June 18 2016
After: Benefit
A September benefit at The Abbey. The hood of the #49 police car lists the names of the 49 Pulse victims.
After: Survivors Benefit
Massacre survivors at the Abbey benefit in September
Before: Pride, 2015
Crowds gather to catch beads thrown from floats during Come Out With Pride in October 2015
After: Pride, 2015
The view from a float as it travels through the Thornton Park neighborhood of Orlando during Come Out With Pride October 2015
About the photographer:
Melody Maia Monet is transgender woman and lesbian living in Orlando, Florida. She is also a professional writer, photographer, singer, and YouTube personality. She writes an opinion column for Watermark, the LGBT magazine of Orlando, which you can find at www.watermarkonline.com. Her photography website is monetphoto.com, her band maintains a website at madtransitband.com, and her YouTube channel is youtube.com/user/melodymaia
leobaga
The real threat to the LGBT community: radical Islam, which is consistently protected by the Left’s misguided focus on “Islamophobia”. Muslim extremists, with guns, murder us, and on the left our only response is to bleat about ‘Islamophobia’ and jump through hoops trying to explain away the self-evident religious motivation for the killings.
Trump is the only candidate saying anything about putting the brakes on Islamic extremism, and in light of what happened in Orlando, that is the only issue that really matters when it comes to the health, well-being and safety of our community.
pisces-boi
@leobaga: Stop it with the bs. Radical Islam is not a problem to America as it is to other countries. And I find it funny how YOU people on the far right bitch about radical Islam, but dismiss police brutality in America .
Baba Booey Fafa Fooey
@leobaga: Well said. Liberals need to acknowledge radical islam in 2020 – if they don’t, they’ll lose again. If 2020 is a throwaway year, then hopefully by 2024 Democrats have thought long and hard about their position on Islam. They have to in order for the party to win – ever again.
Xzamilloh
@pisces-boi: You ever stop to think that it’s possible that some of us can be on the left and call out radical Islam for what it is? Or even Islam in general, which is just as homophobic, misogynistic, and as backwards as Judaism and Christianity, but with the unique claim of being the last message from “God” and being centuries younger than the other two, so it is nowhere near as reformed as the former two, with Judaism accounting for the worst doctrine of the three abrahamic faiths. I personally don’t like having my intelligence insulted, because I actually put in the time to learn about religions that I don’t particularly care for, and I don’t like being dismissed so easily by someone who clearly hasn’t.
With that said, I agree. Islam isn’t a threat to America… now. And if we want it to stay that way, calling a spade a spade is the first way to do that.
Stilinski26
@pisces-boi: Yes it is the problem just like Christian extremism is the problem. You can’t criticize Christianity but at the same time defend Islam. thats hypocritical.
Hudson_2406
@leobaga: The real threat to the LGBT community in the United States is the Republican Party. Period. Every “religious freedom” bill, every anti-gay piece of legislation in the past 25 years has been put forward by Republicans and right wing Christian extremists. Stop with this crap about Islamic extremism in America – gay people are under assault right here in this country, not by radical Islamic extremists, but by Republicans and the Christian extremists that support them. Wake up.
Hank
Homophobic aggression news only increased in america after the pork trump was selected. I sincerely hope the bitter queens who voted for him enjoy to pay the price.
Xzamilloh
@Hank: That bullshit is the fallacy of correlation equals causation. News of racism and r@cist attacks increased tenfold when Obama took office… that doesn’t mean Obama is to blame for that. Besides, I’m about done with the “doom and gloom” accounts because it’s fear mongering nonsense that we would be laughing and ridiculing the other side for it they were claiming it. Fucking hypocrites on the left, man.
Hank
@Xzamilloh: Be grateful when it’s your turn to be beaten!