'We need to lead the charge' -- 'Talking only to each other is not enough': The pulse Orlando mass shooting and the futures of queer criminologies

Many people woke up on June 12, 2016, in the middle of LGBTQ pride month, to conflicting reports: an attack on a nightclub, a terrorist attack, an attack on LGBTQ people, an attack on Latinx LGBTQ people? At Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, a club self-described as a “Latin Hotspot,” a single shooter killed 49 people and injured dozens more. In America, it became the deadliest mass shooting, attack on LGBTQ people specifically, and act of terrorism since 9/11. The massacre had far-reaching impacts on numerous communities. The shooter, who was born in America and previously had been investigated for potential terrorist ties, pledged allegiance to ISIS in a call to 911 before the shooting. Thus, the attack was highly politicized, with some political figures framing it within the context of gun control, while others framed it primarily about radical Islamic terrorism (Alvarez and Pérez-Peña 2016). There were speculations about internalized homophobia, and ambiguity as to whether the shooter had been a patron of Pulse. Much of the media coverage, domestic and international, focused on this more as an act of terrorism than as a hate crime perpetrated against LGBTQ people..