I was doing a book event a while ago and someone in the audience asked me why I do this every year.
Why I re-released an episode that I originally wrote a few days after the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando,
Florida on June 12,
2016 where a gunman killed 49 people and wounded 53 more one night when they were just going out.
Why I have done it each year for nine years now.
And part of the answer is that I have a deep love and profound respect for places where people become the people they are.
where they find out who they feel most comfortable being,
where they go again and again to be that way.
It could be some art space, or all ages matinee hardcore show,
or support group, or the library, or a sci-fi convention,
or a dance floor, or group therapy, or a church basement,
or the rec room at a temple, or some clearing the woods.
But I love these spaces and intentional communities that people have chosen to build and maintain as a means to offer,
I suppose, different ways to live in this world.
And the Pulse Nightclub like the White Horse was one of those.
But the rest of the answer is simpler.
Because it still feels necessary.
People's rights, people's personal safety, people's health, people's health care,
people's identities are under attack in the United States and people deserve to be safe.
We need these spaces.