Thousands of people gathered in Soho’s Old Compton Street last night to honour the 49 people who lost their lives on Sunday morning in the biggest mass shooting in U.S. history.
At 7:00 p.m. the sound of a single whistle pierced the tension, and silence fell across the crowd, which spanned the entirety of the street, for a minute’s silence. Wild cheers, applause, and streams of tears followed as a rainbow of balloons were released into the sky, one for each fatality of the Orlando nightclub shooting. The sound of the gay men’s chorus echoed off the houses with their rendition of “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”
“I have never been a rainbow kind of lesbian,” one friend said through tears, “but right now I feel like part of that rainbow.” It is incredibly infrequent that so many people who fall under the umbrella of LGBTQIA+ have cause, and a space, to congregate. In a community that experiences so much continued oppression and can feel so fractured, last night’s vigil felt like a moment of unity.
When spaces of sanctuary like Pulse are attacked and invaded, it is up to the LGBTQ community to come out in force and recreate our own sanctuaries, and on Monday night that is what London did, in a global act of solidarity with Orlando.
Click through for photographs from the vigil, and reactions from the crowd.
Julius Reuben
“I came tonight to show hate that love will always win. And to show our support to the LGBTQ community in Orlando, and to show that we’re still a long way away; there is so much left to fight, and we will not stand down for anything. We will stand united until we win.”
Photographed by Christopher Bethell
Vanity Von Glow
“I’ve always maintained that my cultural identity is queer before it’s British, queer before it’s anything else, queer before it’s gendered. And so for that reason, it doesn't matter that what happened in Orlando happened thousands of miles away, it has gone to the heart of our community. Today was about standing shoulder to shoulder, and hand in hand, with the people who understand the emotional impact of these events. It’s an opportunity to show people across the world that we care deeply.”
Photographed by Christopher Bethell
A woman holds a poster that says “Queer Muslims against homophobia & Islamophobia.”
Many LGBTQ people were sharing the sentiment last night.
Photographed by Christopher Bethell
Sarah Styles & Vicky Adamski
Vicky: “It’s amazing to see so many gays, lesbians, queers, transgendered men and women, and straight people coming out together. Standing together.”
Sarah: “I used to work at G-A-Y, and Orlando could have been any of us. The age range was 19-50, in their most comfortable place, with the people you can be free with. It’s heartbreaking.”
Photographed by Christopher Bethell
A boy poses for the camera, proudly holding his rainbow flag.
Many attendees dressed up for the event in slogan T-shirts, the "uniforms" of their gay tribes, and pride flags were dotted everywhere.
Photographed by Christopher Bethell
Akowsa Korateng & Alison Winter
Akowsa: “We had to be here tonight, for the gay people who lost their lives in Orlando, for the families of the people who lost their lives, to show that we care about ending hatred. We need to be together, we need to do more things like this, to show that we are here and we won’t go away. And to show that love is love.”
Alison: “Love will win. It’s scary and people are on edge, and it did cross my mind: Is this the smartest thing to do? I think everyone thought: Do we want to congregate? But if not, when? We have to come together, because without that, there’s nothing else.”
Photographed by Christopher Bethell
Alice Dean
“As a queer woman, I don’t feel separate here tonight, or when I think about my LGBTQ siblings in Orlando. Maybe just for tonight, but all the borders which separate us in the LGBTQ community have fallen away tonight, and any animosity has been disintegrated, which is amazing.”
Photographed by Christopher Bethell
Public figures, from Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to newly elected mayor Sadiq Khan, attended in solidarity. Channel 4 presenter and journalist Jon Snow reported from the scene, as pictured here.
Photographed by Christopher Bethell
People wrote in rainbow chalk, lit candles, and sung "This Little Light of Mine," reflecting on the lives lost. Here, a merchandise T-Shirt from Pulse was laid out on the ground.
Photographed by Christopher Bethell
Hugh Wyld, 24
“I work a lot in the HIV community, and hate fuels the epidemic. It’s important to note that the gay population were some of the worst hit minority groups out of the AIDS epidemic, and moments like this remind me of vigils for those who died from AIDS. I want to take this moment to pay my respects to those people, the people in Orlando, and all the communities that are still fighting stigma today.”
Photographed by Christopher Bethell
Two young people embrace during the vigil. Waves of singing and chanting phrases like “love means love” passed through the crowds. People’s eyes were filled with tears throughout the night.
Photographed by Christopher Bethell
Guy Woolf, 26
“I watched the Sky News clip with Owen Jones, and I thought it was disgusting. I mean, from a Jewish perspective, if something like that happened in the Jewish world, it would be considered an anti-Semitic attack, and if something like this happens in the LGBTQ world, it’s a homophobic attack. That’s so obvious. I couldn’t understand where they were coming from.”
Photographed by Christopher Bethell
Sadhbh O’Sullivan, 23
“This day has been so filled with sadness for so many people that I know. And this is the most painful rallying cry, because it’s an act of violence against us that accumulates from all these micro-aggressions and side-eyes and misapprehensions and mis-genderings we experience. And everything that marks us as ‘other’ has culminated in this atrocious act of violence against the Latin LGBTQ community, and their LGBTQ siblings in Orlando, with effects felt around the world. I felt so much reading that news, and reading the comments from the killer's father; every LGBTQ person knows why he did it, feels why he did it. It was an assault on our sanctuaries.”
Photographed by Christopher Bethell
Tyron, 24
“There’s a sense from a lot of white queers that a lot of battles have been won, particularly for those from a middle-class background; and I think this has shaken a lot of people out of that view. It’s really important now for the LGBTQ community to self-analyse. We are making things difficult for each other. Something which has been glossed over in the press is that this was also targeting people of colour, trans men and women of colour, Hispanics, Black people who went to Pulse nightclub. And you know there’s still a lot of bigotry against our fellow queers within our own movement; ‘no fats, no femmes, no Asians, no Blacks’ — we see that all the time.”
Photographed by Christopher Bethell
Sarah Moore, 24
“In all honesty, I’m not sure why people are reluctant to name this an LGBTQ hate crime. I think people are reluctant to think that hate crimes still happen, but in reality it’s an incredibly prominent occurrence. More than a hundred LGBT people still experience a hate crime every week in the UK, and many more go unreported. Violent hate crimes are rising, and the sad thing is, not on this scale of course, but hate crimes happen every single day."
Photographed by Christopher Bethell
Once the vigil had finished, the streets remained full: People were voguing, lighting candles, and singing their odes to the lost lives in Orlando. Spirits were shattered at the atrocity of the shootings, but raised by the remarkable sense of cohesion among the LGBTQIA+ community. As queer people, our lives are a fight and a continual cycle of forgiveness against those who attack and oppress us. It is times like London’s vigil for Orlando when people who belong to this community have the chance to feel proud of who they are, to feel solidarity with our siblings across the world. If London’s vigil proved anything, it’s that love, togetherness, strength in numbers, and forgiveness will conquer hate. After our collective mourning is over, however, we must look forward and ask what changes have to happen globally to prevent attacks like Orlando from happening to our community in the future. We need to mourn, but we also need action.
— Tom Rasmussen
Photographed by Christopher BethellLike what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
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