Advocate NL 6/12/26

Hello folks, Audience Editor Edgar Ramirez back in your inbox to close out Week 2 of Pride Month.

What's usually a celebratory time for the LGBTQ+ community, today marks 10 years since an extremist gunman walked inside Pulse, a gay Orlando nightclub at that time hosting Latin Night, killing 49 people and leaving 58 injured.

May we never forget those whose lives were tragically cut short.

Also in our thoughts are the survivors, as many of the hundreds touched by the then-deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history still seek solace, Jacob Ogles reports.

“There’s no handbook on how to survive after surviving,” Christopher Hansen, who crawled his way out of the crime scene to help others that night, tells Jacob.

But in the intervening decade since what remains the deadliest attack on mostly LGBTQ+ victims, many of those navigating pain and darkness in the aftermath of the shooting found their way along healing paths toward justice, reflection, and positive action.

The shooting drove Brandon Wolf, then a barista and theme park employee in Orlando, toward political advocacy. He attended Pulse with Drew Leinonen and Juan Guerrero, a couple who ultimately died together in the shooting.

"I promised my best friend that I would never stop fighting for a world that he would be proud of," Wolf says.

Fighting for a better world for our community, too, is U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride, as documented in "State of Firsts," now in theaters. The film arrives at a moment when McBride has become one of the most visible figures in America's battles over transgender rights — a reality that neither she nor the filmmakers could fully have anticipated when production began, Christopher Wiggins writes.

We'll for sure be checking it out, and hope to see you all back in your inboxes Monday. Have a great weekend, folks!

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Why are San Francisco gay bars scanning patrons’ faces?

As attacks on trans Americans intensify, Sarah McBride’s story reaches theaters nationwide

Ten years after Pulse shooting, survivors continue turning unimaginable grief into action

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New York Republican governor candidate faces questions over the antigay company he keeps

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