Antinoüs,
your majesty, what happened? Why don’t they leave us alone? Why is
that when we express our loves in the same ways they do, they react
with revulsion and contempt? Why do they say we should be executed.
Why do some actually carry out these acts?

I know, Antinoüs
the Liberator, there are not any acceptable answers to my questions.
That this should happen during Pride month, reinforces the need for
our Pride events even as those events show to our would-be destroyers
where we can be found.

Antinoüs
the Healer, you and I both know that not all wounds heal. Grief can
be one such type of wound. And, I don’t want to heal. Not from
this, and not from the yearly repeating griefs of the Transgender Day
of Remembrance. If I heal from them, scar tissue will form over these
hurts and I could become desensitized to these horrors. Do lot let my
heart be hardened. Instead, let it soften. Let it be permeable to
these horrors. Give me the strength to absorb these acts of naked
terror so that I may be an agent of change and hope for those under
the Rainbow.

Ave, Antinoüs,
sovereign of the Beloved Dead!

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