The fight for LGBTQ equality was born when men and women spoke out, stood up and demanded change for a better tomorrow. It’s why we celebrate Pride: to remember our plight and assert that we’ll never be silent again.
Powerful movements often begin with conflict or tragedy, as witnessed more recently at the Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. In February, the school became the site of the country’s latest mass shooting, prompting student survivors to speak out, stand up and demand a change of their own.
Within weeks, “March for Our Lives” demonstrations were announced for March 24 in Washington D.C. and across the country, including in Tampa. Although Tampa Pride had been scheduled for the same date long before, community leaders saw an opportunity to honor the 17 lives lost and to bring the two movements together.
One of those leaders was Kayden Rodriguez, who reached out to both groups. “The older generations with Stonewall and the first Prides, they really paved the way,” Rodriguez says. “We have so much to be thankful for with the work that has already been done.”
Rodriguez asserts that there’s still much more to do, but sees the potential for today’s youth to finish much of the job. “They’re taking what has been built and are now an unstoppable force. They are bringing new identities, freedom to self-identify, pronouns, language evolution… and most importantly, with things such as Tampa Pride and March for Our Lives, they are bringing intersectionality.”
Intersectionality is the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class and gender, as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.
“I could not be more proud of our youth today working together no matter what differences they have,” Rodriguez notes, “to see change in the betterment for each other’s lives.”
To spread awareness, Rodriguez worked with Reverend Jakob Hero-Shaw, senior pastor of Tampa’s Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) and one of Tampa Pride’s 2018 grand marshals. Hero-Shaw organized an Interfaith Service featuring youth on March 19, and also invited students to join his church for this year’s parade.
“It should not be hard to see the relationship between the Parkland shooting and another mass shooting that greatly impacted our community,” Hero-Shaw says. “Let’s not forget that the weapon in the Pulse massacre was the same type used at Stoneman Douglas High School. However, the call for solidarity with the March for Our Lives should go even deeper than that.
“Pulse is not our only connection to this movement,” he continues. “We must stand in solidarity with the March for Our Lives. When we live in solidarity we honor the validity of the fight, we honor people of different paths and life experiences.”
The reverend’s empathy led him to address a letter to youth participating in Tampa’s March for Our Lives. “The March for Our Lives will happen on the same day as the LGBT Pride Parade and Festival,” Hero-Shaw wrote. “Any participants who would like to take part in the Pride Parade are invited to walk with MCC Tampa.”
Hero-Shaw noted that he and his husband are the proud parents of two high school students of their own, offering an ear to parents who may have questions or concerns. “We welcome and encourage any signs and t-shirts with the March for Our Lives logo, or slogans such as #ENOUGH,” Hero-Shaw wrote, “and other messaging that honors the victims of gun violence.”
During this year’s Diversity Parade, Tampa Pride’s official community tribute will feature an in memoriam for the lives lost at Stoneman Douglas, something Tampa Pride president Carrie West says stemmed from an emergency meeting between the two organizations. “It will have 17 picture posters representing the people killed,” he says, “held by 17 people in Tampa Pride’s tribute to the community event at noon.”
It’s at that time that Ren Joseph, an 18-year-old student at Blake High School will discuss bringing the two movements together and introduce the vigil. “I think it’s important, even though it is Pride and it is about our community that we connect with the people who were affected by the shootings,” Joseph says. “Obviously, Pulse happened [nearly two] years ago and it’s the exact same issue that needs to be dealt with today. Even though this recent event wasn’t about us, we still consider them as part of the community.”
“I think our generation in general is just far more accepting and we’re open to change, we’re open to being different,” Plant High School student Brooke Shapiro, 18, agrees. “We embrace our uniqueness and our differences.”
Shapiro, along with fellow Plant student Macie Lavender, 17, organized Tampa’s March for Our Lives. “We immediately jumped into how we could organize a sister march,” Lavender says. “We want to not only show recognition to the victims of the Stoneman Douglas attack, but also we want to honor their legacies and try to promote change in the most active way that we possibly can.
“Living in Tampa, we are not that far from Parkland,” Shapiro notes. “I actually know some of the survivors, so this issue itself is just very close to me personally. I think it just affected a lot of the students in Florida and nationwide. They felt compelled to do something, and the two of us are very active in politics and in our school in general, so we felt like we would be the right people to do this.”
The duo saw the connection between the LGBTQ community and their cause right away. “We have a very close relationship to the Pulse attack,” Lavender says. “Our communities are linked. There are obviously students who are in the LGBTQ community and Orlando’s even closer to Tampa than Parkland.
“We want to work together with Pride,” she continues. “That’s why we’re doing the joint vigil to recognize the victims. We’re hoping to encourage a lot of our marchers to go to Pride, and let them know that they can march with Jakob’s church and participate in both. We want to show that the communities are aligned.”
It’s something that echoes the very mission statement of Tampa Pride. “Equality, diversity, inclusiveness and celebration are values that we all share and enjoy,” West says. “Diversity creates community, our 2018 theme, stems from what Tampa is all about.”
Local Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) will also be marching during Tampa Pride with GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. “I’ve got five clubs officially signed up through me,” co-chair of the organization’s Tampa chapter Lora Jane Riedas says. “We’ve put it out there as a general thing. We may have students who do both the March for Our Lives and Tampa Pride. Ideally I would love to see kids do both, that would make my heart happy.”
Riedas, a teacher at Riverview High School, has been with the Tampa chapter of GLSEN for nearly four years. “The local chapter tries to be a support system as much as it can to the GSA clubs in the area, whatever they call themselves—whether it’s an alliance club, a pride club, common ground… but whatever club is trying to bring that diversity peace to their school culture, we want to be a resource for them.”
She says the organization works as a placeholder for local GSAs who wish to participate in Tampa Pride. “With teenagers a lot of it’s sort of this ebb and flow where we’ll get a big wave of kids doing a lot of stuff and then it’ll die back and then come forward again,” she says, referring to 2018 as an “up year.”
“We’ve had a lot of kids contact us about different things,” Reidas notes. “There were a couple of different clubs started this year. We’ve seen groups and clubs individually try to do more stuff within their school, with some that want to step outside of their school and make change within the community itself.”
“I think it’s important for students or kids in general to participate in things like Pride or the March for Our Lives because it’s something we care about,” Gulf High School student Audrey Vilaihong, 17, asserts. “Any form of political activism or saying that you care about something and not being afraid to say you care about it, I think it’s freeing for people.”
Vilaihong says that “the younger you are when you get involved, the more likely you are to vote and to get out there and make sure that the laws that are put in place are what you want. The younger you start out, the more change you can make when you participate.”
Plant High School student Savannah Lowry, 18, agrees. “It’s very important that youth are involved,” she says. “We are the future and we have a fresh perspective on everything that’s going on in the world. You see a bit of everything that goes on as you grow up, as you get older, and in a way we’re more inspired than a lot of people who’ve been voting for years and years.
“People need to realize that we can make a change,” Lowry asserts. “We will make a change, and that’s what we’re here to do.”
“This whole youth movement is really exciting, especially for a high school teacher,” Reidas says of the participating students. “The kids stepping up, everything they’re doing after Parkland, it’s really an exciting time to watch teenagers come into their own again.”
