Outside the LGBT Center of Central Florida in Orlando on Monday the rainbow colored Pride flag and the American flag both stood at half-mast.



Around the world, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people have stood in solidarity with the victims and survivors of the Pulse nightclub shooting, which left 49 people dead in the early hours of Sunday morning. It is the worst mass shooting in US history and a crime that has also surpassed the death toll of the 1973 arson fire at the Upstairs Lounge – in which 32 people were killed – to become the country’s largest mass murder of LGBT people.

Large numbers turned out in rallies and vigils from San Francisco to the Stonewall Inn in New York and expressed anger and frustration, as well as love and support. On social media, many changed their profile pictures to one of two queer people kissing, in a direct defiance of Omar Mateen’s father saying the gunman was upset by such an image.

But inside Orlando’s LGBT Center, symbolism gave way to a flurry of activity.

Ken Terrell, the center’s seniors program manager and volunteer coordinator, was overseeing a massive operation of volunteers and staff, providing water and food for those gathered here, and deploying drivers around the region to deliver a huge amount of supplies. The program also coordinates the deployment of bilingual mental health services to support survivors, friends and families. The attack happened during Pulse’s Latin Night and most of the victims were of Hispanic heritage.

After sending out a fleet of trucks to deliver donations, Terrell stepped into his office and paused for a moment to remember his friend, Xavier Serrano Rosado, 35, whose death had just been confirmed on the city’s official list.

“He left behind a seven-year-old,” Terrell said, grimacing, before his expression switched to one of irrepressible joy, because “he was just so adorable. He was always willing to do anything for the community.”

Terrell also recalled Serrano Rosado – also known as Emani Valentino – as a dancer at Pulse and at other clubs in the area. Closing his eyes, Terrell said the first thing he thought about when he remembered him was “his smile. He had the greatest smile.”

Serrano Rosado had taken part in a fundraiser for the LGBT Center a few months ago, Terrell said, a version of TV show The Bachelorette in which men could bid on dates to raise money for the Center’s various social programs. “And, boy, did they bid on him!” he said with a laugh.

Terrell said he was holding it together “by doing my work”, so that “someone else can cry on my shoulder. And then, at the end of the day, I can go home to my husband and cry on his shoulder.”

Others in Orlando’s LGBT community also remembered the victims.

Starr Shelton told the Orlando Sentinel her ex-girlfriend Kimberly Morris, a bouncer at Pulse who died in the shooting, had been “so excited” to start working there. “[She] told me how she was thrilled to get more involved in the LGBT community there,” Shelton said.

Her friend Narvell Benning described Morris as a kind, sweet person. “I can’t think of a time when I did not see a smile on her face,” Benning told the Sentinel. “I’m so thankful of the good memories I have of her. This is just unreal.”

Three regular visitors to Pulse who happened not to be there on Saturday night said they were angry that their community had been attacked.

A photo of victim Amanda Alvear was placed at a makeshift memorial in Orlando on Monday. Photograph: Chris O'Meara/AP

“There were never any problems in Pulse,” said Amy, 28, who did not give her surname. “It was never dangerous. Gay people don’t care what straight people do in their beds, so why does it matter in ours.”

“This was the first club I’d ever been to where we were welcomed,” said Janice Rivera, 24. “Everybody would dance with each other – straight, bisexual, trans, anything. It doesn’t matter who you were, everyone will love you in there.

Barbara Poma, who founded the club in honor of her brother John, who died in 1991 of Aids, said in a statement: “From the beginning, Pulse has served as a place of love and acceptance for the LGBTQ community.”

Xiomara, 24, who also did not give her surname, said: “Now we have to go in fear. We have to hope this doesn’t happen to us again. We aren’t bad human beings, we just love our own sex. So why so much hatred?”

In San Francisco, Andy Veluswami described the scene in that city as the rainbow flag flew at half-mast. “The Orlando shooting victims were innocent, young men and women,” he said. “Many were 22. We were them. I remember being 22 – and going to my first gay bar. Hoping to belong and be in a safe, accepting space.”

He added: “I met the love of my life at a gay bar – our first kiss was the happiest moment of my life. No one should feel unsafe to be themselves in a gay bar. A little bit of me died In Orlando … And a little part of me got stronger – we have to keep giving kids hope.”

The attack on Pulse happened during Pride month, and some events are still scheduled – with cities taking extra precautions to ensure safety.

New York’s Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed the city’s annual pride parade would go on as planned, and he also vowed to increase security at New York’s LGBT venues. This news was not universally welcome by some people, as it was abuse by the NYPD that triggered the 1969 Stonewall riots. Some people at a vigil outside the Stonewall Inn were openly hostile to NYPD officers, according to witnesses.

Online and in social media, many LGBT people around the globe also used the occasion as a call for peace and against Islamophobia.

“I will also not call this ‘radical Islamic terrorism’, no matter how hard the right pushes that phrase on me,” wrote Rick Bettan, a New York City attorney who worked on the legal team that successfully argued that California’s Proposition 8 anti-same-sex marriage case was unconstitutional. “It is not ‘Islamic’. It is a perversion of Islam. It is people acting in the name of Islam who do not practice that religion as millions and millions of peaceful people do.”

Additional reporting by Ed Pilkington in Orlando and Nadia Khomami