Pulse Nightclub Survivor on Club Q Shooting

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: Now, our guest knows all too well the national scourge and the deep personal pain of a mass shooting. Brandon Wolf survived the Pulse Nightclub shooting in 2016. It was one of the worst in U.S. history. He has become a gun safety and LGBTQ civil activists since. He joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the terrible violence too often directed at that community.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARI SREENIVASAN, CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Brandon Wolf, thanks so much for joining us. First, I want to kind of get a temperature check, if I can. It was six years ago, back in June, you were in the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando. You survived, a couple of your best friends did not when — I guess, where are you at right now? I mean, grief takes different amounts of time for different people.

BRANDON WOLF, PULSE NIGHTCLUB SHOOTING SURVIVOR AND PRESS SECRETARY, EQUALITY FLORIDA: Yes. I mean, listen, first of all, thank you for having me again. I wish it was under better circumstances, but the truth is that this is a scar you carry for the rest of your life. It’s not a one-day healing process, a week’s long healing the process, it’s a lifelong healing process. And moments like this when another community is under assault, it brings it all rushing back, the first feeling I had was one of heartbreak. Heartbreak in part because I know what this community is going to go through. Again, not just for weeks or months, but for years to come. I was heartbroken for those who are going into Thanksgiving week and we’ll have an empty seat at their dinner table. I was heartbroken for those who are going into the holiday season who are going to have missing presents under the tree, a missing stocking on their fireplace. I was heartbroken for those who, like me, probably had to call their friend’s parents and tell them that their children were not coming home from a space that was supposed to be safe for them. And that last part is also what made me furious. I have been so angry over the last couple of days. And I think most of the LGBTQ community in this country and around the world is in that same place. And I’m angry because we have been subjected to years of right-wing garbage, misinformation, about LGBTQ people that has cascaded across this country. We have been subjected to horrible and disgusting tropes. We have been accused of posing a threat to children simply because we exist on planet earth. And all along we told people what the inevitable consequences of that unbridled hate would be. LGBTQ young people told us that their schools were less safe than ever. Two thirds of them, in a recent study, said that the recent political climate has had a detrimental impact on their mental health. All along we told them that someone would have to pay the price for their short-term, cynical, political goals of building careers on the backs of a marginalized community. And now, we have five dead. We have dozens injured. We have an entire community terrorized. They are the ones who ultimately had to pay the price for that hate.

SREENIVASAN: I want to talk a little bit about how it got here. But kind of backing up for, perhaps, our audience that might be overseas or elsewhere that don’t understand why these places are significant. What is the Club Q in Colorado Springs or the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando? What do they represent for the people that are there?

WOLF: For marginalized communities, for people under assault, safe spaces like Club Q and Pulse are lifelines. They are refuges we carve out in a world that threatens discrimination and violence against us every time we walk out the door. Listen, Pulse Nightclub was one of the first places I ever held hands with someone without looking over my shoulder first. Pulse Nightclub was one of the very first places I wore my skinniest pair of jeans and danced with both left feet without being afraid of what someone would call me. Pulse Nightclub was a place where I could exhale, where I could be all of myself in a world where people told me that that probably would never be, you know, a right or a privilege afforded to me. Pulse Nightclub was a place where I could be me. I know Club Q was that same way. And when you invade a place like Club Q or Pulse, it feels like you have invaded all of them.

SREENIVASAN: You know, in response to Saturday’s shooting, you tweeted, and I want to read, we don’t know a motive yet. But let’s be honest, the anti-LGBTQ hysteria being whipped up in this country has had me checking over my shoulder more than I have in six years. Tell me about that kind of, well, I guess, lack of safety that you feel. Why do you need to look over your shoulder right now? What is the fear?

WOLF: Well, it’s a scary time to be in LGBTQ person in this country. I live in the State of Florida, and it’s not just, you know, the extremists in different parts of our state that have been whipping up this anti-LGBTQ frenzy, it’s powerful people in our state. It’s the governor of the third largest state in the union who has trafficked in some of the darkest and ugliest tropes in the books. And by the way, he has continued to do that. People, right-wing influencers around this country, have continued to do that even as the temperature has risen. People are afraid because there are armed protesters showing up to drag branches (ph), places where, you know, we are just having a mimosa, eating eggs with our friends, have now become the front lines of a battle, a culture war. People are afraid because there are white supremacists being arrested outside of Pride Festivals in places like Coeur D’Alene, Idaho threatening to commit acts of mass violence. People are afraid because children’s hospitals in Boston and other cities have suffered bomb threats over the last couple of years, having to install metal detectors in airport security like terminals to keep people safe in those hospitals. And people are afraid because, at the end of the day, we know where this rhetoric takes us. It’s not the first time the LGBTQ community has found its back against the wall. And it’s not the first time we have seen the deadly consequences of this kind of hateful rhetoric. So, people are afraid because we know what happens next.

SREENIVASAN: You know, after the Pulse Nightclub shooting you decided to sort of change your life and dive into this topic. You work for Equality Florida, one of the largest civil rights organizations in the state. What made you take that step?

WOLF: A lot changed for me in the wake of Pulse. But one moment was really the catalyst. We had a funeral service for my best friend, Drew. He was my chosen family, my brother, six days after the shooting and his mom asked me to be a pallbearer that day. And I was helping to push his casket down the aisle and while I did that, I found my hand was gripping the side so tightly that my knuckles were turning white. And it’s because I did not want to let go of my best friend until I’d found the right words to say goodbye. We got to the front of the church that day and I looked down at his casket and I made him a promise. I promised him that I would never stop fighting for a world that he would be proud of. And that’s not just a world that Drew would be proud of, it’s a world that all of us can be proud of. It’s a world that treats people with the dignity and respect that they deserve. It is a world that tells young people they are perfect exactly as they are. It is a world where people can walk out of their homes without fear of discrimination and violence. And I took that promise really seriously. As you said, it’s why I quit my, you know, corporate career and went into the work of fighting for LGBTQ civil rights full-time. It’s why I launched another organization called The Drew Project in honor of my best friend, to get resources to queer young people across the country. I’m dedicated to that fight because I believe that, again, a world that Drew would be proud of is one we can all be proud of, and it’s one that’s worth fighting for.

SREENIVASAN: You know, this past summer, Congress worked on legislation, passed, bipartisan manner, that would enhance background checks that would — you know, for buyers that under 21. It would hopefully implement red flag laws and prevent people from getting guns who should not have had them in the first place. But in the wake of this tragedy, do you think that that legislation went far enough?

WOLF: Well, I’ve said from the beginning that that legislation will save lives, but it won’t solve our crisis. It was a really important step forward for the Biden administration to help get that over the finish line. That is the first significant gun safety legislation federally that we have seen in three decades. That’s a big win worth celebrating, but we knew from the beginning that we had a lot more to do. We still have to really address our Swiss cheese approach to background checks. Universal criminal background checks are something that 98 percent of Americans support. They are still not implemented here in the country. The red flag provision that you are talking about in that piece of legislation, the federal government offered a framework to states to encourage them to adopt red flag laws, but we did not implement a national red flag law. I think that is one way that we could solve this crisis. We have not raised the age of purchase across the country. And I think we really need to do that. And the president agrees that assault weapons and high-capacity magazines have no place on our streets. The streets of Orlando are not a war zone. People don’t need to be carrying assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. And I believe that on a federal level we need to reinstate the ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. And I just want to underscore that those things are not radical. Those things are not divisive. Those things are policies that a majority of the American people agree on. And if our representatives were truly in Congress doing the work to represent their constituents, these things would be easy and they would pass tomorrow.

SREENIVASAN: You know, you are very familiar with Governor Ron DeSantis and the law that passed in Florida earlier this year that essentially bans discussion of any gender issues for young children. What is the impact that it has had on the LGBTQ community in Florida?

WOLF: Well, I’m going to give you a really salient example of how this law could be applied. In second grade in Florida, students are required to complete the family tree project. That is when you get a little cardboard cutout of a tree and you draw your family members on it and you get to come in and do a presentation. If a student comes in and has their family tree and says, on this branch are my two moms, they sometimes take me to ice cream on the weekends. And another student says, well, that’s weird. You can’t have two moms. Where is your dad? The moment the teacher steps in and says, a family with two moms is of as much value as anyone else’s family in this classroom, they have technically engaged in classroom instruction on sexual orientation. And so, you asked about the impacts of that law would be, and we’ve already seen them across the state. Because school districts don’t want to test whether or not that is how far parents will take it. Remember, that the enforcement mechanism allows a parent to sue the school district without any mediation whatsoever. They’ve simply cut back on talking about LGBTQ people at all. We have seen books with LGBTQ characters band. We have seen teachers told to put their family photos away in desk drawers. We have seen pride flags and safe space stickers peeled from classroom walls. We even saw Miami-Dade County public schools refuse to recognize LGBTQ History Month this year because they were concerned that it could be in violation of the law. Those are the impacts that that law is already having. And we know that weighs most heavily on LGBTQ young people who are hearing a message loud and clear from their government that there is something wrong with them and that they don’t belong here.

SREENIVASAN: What is the connection between that law and what very quickly became a talking point, that if you oppose legislation like that that you are automatically what’s called a groomer, and you might want to explain that to our audience too?

WOLF: Yes. Well, thank you for calling that out. Because it’s not just about the legal ramifications of HB 1557, the don’t say gay law. It’s also about the rhetorical ramifications. And the instance you are talking about, the governor sent his press secretary online, because the bill was floundering in the legislature. It was deeply unpopular. It was being railed against across the country. And he needed that political win. Remember, it only serves one purpose, and that is to propel him towards the 2024 presidential bid. And so, his press secretary went online and began trafficking in this age-old groomer trope. Now, a groomer is someone who essentially takes a young person and manipulates them until they are able to complete sexual abuse against them. And when you are accusing someone of being a groomer, you are essentially accusing them of being complicit in pedophilia. And so, you have the governor’s office of the third largest state in our union calling anyone who supports the idea that families with two moms should be acknowledged and recognized alongside everyone else as a pedophile. That’s an age-old trope that has long been used to justify discrimination and violence against LGBTQ people. That same language has been used to block us from becoming teachers, to stop us from adopting children, to try to block us from marrying the people that we love. And it’s also been used to carry out acts of violence against people. That language then festered across the country, being repeated by right- wing talking heads, people on Fox News, it then it showed up on protest signs with right-wing extremists. And, of course, it shows up in the manifestos of those carrying out acts of violence against the LGBTQ community. Again, I come back to this idea that, this was inevitable. This was predictable. And this was exactly the circumstance we warned about from the beginning.

SREENIVASAN: Brandon, I just want to remind our audience that this is not an issue limited to Florida. According to the human rights campaign, a record 340 anti-LGBTQ bills were filed this year in 2022. 25 anti-LGBTQ bills were enacted around the country. And 17 anti-transgender laws were also enacted across 13 states. And I want to, you know, hear a little bit about specifically the focus on transgender laws focused on teens, focused on individuals. Why do you think that is right now?

WOLF: Keep in mind that a lot of the right-wing strategy is baked in confirmation bias. It is baked in the hope that people don’t understand what it’s like to be someone else. And so, the right-wing, specifically extremists, can make up from whole cloth what those lived experiences are, and they can reduce those people, stripped of their humanity, and turn them into in -ism, right? They can turn them into an ideology that is attempting to indoctrinate and persuade your children. This is not a new phenomenon. And really, the right-wing did not go to sleep after LGBTQ communities won progress across the country. It’s not like in 2015 when the Supreme Court decided that marriage equality would be the law of the land, that all the people who were vehemently opposed to same sex marriage suddenly went away or disappeared. They went back to the drawing board. They went back to their focus groups, their war rooms, and began to ask the question, how can we turn back the clock on LGBTQ equality? And so, they began to make up from whole cloth stories about transgender people to scare people. And I also want to underscore that these stories they’ve made up, the hysteria that they’ve whipped up across the country is simply not true. The things that they say are happening in schools are not actually happening. The things that they accuse transgender people of being, transgender people are not. They are your neighbors. They are your family members. They are small business owners. They are doctors. They are performers. They are the people who live in our society every single day. And by the way, they are the most likely to be the victims of hate violence in our country. It is shameful that, once again, we have right-wing actors in America who are hoping that everyone else doesn’t know what it’s like could be transgender, and as a result, they can make up stories to turn them into the boogeymen of tomorrow.

SREENIVASAN: Sunday was supposed to be the Transgender Day of Remembrance. And this year, according to the Human Rights Commission, at least 32 people, trans people, were violently killed. Why is the violence affecting trans people, and really trans people of color, so particularly?

WOLF: I — my heart breaks for the transgender community because they have been saying this for a long time. They have been begging for people to see them, to hear their cries for help, to treat them with dignity and respect. And the way we combat it, again, is to humanize them. I think about, you know, the way which people see transgender people, especially black trans women, when they are applying for jobs. The way that people see transgender people, especially black trans women, when they are visible in the public, when they are owning businesses, when they are dropping their kids off at school. The fact that they face such vitriol and hatred every single time they walk out the door means they are at risk every single time they walk out the door. And that is made worse when powerful people in this country continue to inflame that hatred. All of that violence is weighing most heavily on that community because we have fostered a hostile hateful environment toward them. And we have to do some serious self-reflection about what kind of country we want to be moving forward if we believe that their lives to really matter.

SREENIVASAN: Brandon Wolf of Equality Florida, thanks so much for joining us.

WOLF: Thank you.