Acceptance has spread
Five years later, acceptance has spread throughout the area
Before Pulse, Orlando was the region’s gay-friendly oasis, but five years later, the community has expanded.
“You can’t tell me I haven’t won the lottery.”
Japonika Work says that’s how it always feels when she sashays out from behind the shimmering curtain to perform for patrons of The Parrot in Lakeland, as the drag queen did Wednesday, dressed in a bejeweled bodysuit framed by hot pink feathers and glimmering earrings.
“It feels like a million bucks for you to get out here and express your art and your talent and for it to be accepted and welcome in a place like the Lakeland area,” said Work, who lives in nearby Auburndale. “It feels like a lottery every time I put on makeup, my hair and my feathers and all of it.”
A small gay bar, the Parrot is the only LGBTQ+ nightlife establishment in Polk County, an area that remains deeply conservative. But in the five years since a shooter killed 49 people more than 50 miles away at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Work said her community has become more accepting.
The Parrot has recently started to host mini vogue balls and amateur drag queen competitions due to the demand. Work said she and the bar’s owner, Rich Dunn, came up with the idea for an amateur competition to showcase the community’s hidden talents.
“We’re building,” Work said. “It’s stepping stones that we’re trying to do. We’re trying to include everyone, whether you’re a big Black man like me in drag . ... I feel like if they can include me and love me for me, they can love and include everyone.”
Many of the victims killed or injured during the Pulse shooting didn’t live in Orlando — they came from nearby cities like Kissimmee, Sanford and Davenport to enjoy gay clubs they couldn’t find in their hometowns. Since the 2016 massacre, though, Central Florida communities beyond Orlando’s gay-friendly oasis have added or expanded LGBTQ+ resources and spaces, sometimes as a way of honoring those who died.
The LGBT+ Center Orlando opened a Kissimmee location in 2018 after realizing many of the people affected by Pulse were from Osceola County, particularly its Puerto Rican community, said Tommi Pritchett, the center’s development director and Kissimmee program manager.
“After Pulse, we realized that there was a huge disparity in services for the queer Latin community,” she said.
The Center in downtown Kissimmee offers mental health services, youth and senior groups, free HIV and STI testing, as well as other services. Most of their clients are from Osceola, but many come from Polk and Lake counties to access the free testing service because those counties don’t have LGBTQ+ centers, Pritchett said.
When she lived in St. Cloud more than a decade ago, Pritchett said, Osceola was not the friendliest place to be openly LGBTQ+. But today, it’s a “thriving and welcoming community,” she said.
Last month, Pritchett held Gus, the office dog, near a long banner with rainbow handprints pinned to the Center’s wall. It’s from the inaugural Kissimmee PrideFest, held in 2017, which included a memorial service to the Pulse victims.
The tragedy was a “turning point” for the Center and the community, Pritchett said.
“I’m really proud of where we’ve come in five years,” she said. “I hope that nobody feels that the lives that were lost at Pulse were in vain because they see the progress that we’ve made as a community, as a center, as individuals. I just really hope that it inspires people to love harder and do better and be kinder.”
The Pulse massacre also pushed Sanford’s LGBTQ community to start a pride parade in their own city, said Michael Foster, the organization’s director. Most city officials were supportive, including the late former Sanford Mayor Jeff Triplett.
Foster said another city commissioner, though, was not receptive to having an LGBTQ+ celebration in Sanford.
“His response was, ‘That’s all fine and good for Orlando, but why don’t you let Orlando just take care of the LGBT issue?’ ” Foster said. “And I looked at him and said, ‘Well that would be fine, except for one thing: We are this community.’ ”
Lake County held its first Pride in 2020 — virtually. The coronavirus pandemic forced the festival to go online, though its organizers are planning to try again this year, said Danielle Olivani, one of the event’s founders.
“With the LGBTQ community, there’s a lot of misunderstanding,” she said. “There’s a lot of just assumptions made about us and who are and what we’re about. And I just wanted to change that — to change the narrative.”
When Olivani first moved from New York to Lake County about two decades ago, she said she wasn’t comfortable being out and would drive to Orlando to party at gay clubs, including Pulse. The 2016 shooting left her “utterly devastated” and fearful of going out, she said.
But the killing also opened up a dialogue about antiLGBTQ+ hate, Olivani said.
“It’s made people acutely aware of the fact that there are people that actively want to harm us,” she said. “... That act alone increased everyone’s empathy and everyone’s understanding a bit, much more than beforehand.”
Earlier this month, Olivani said she pushed Mount Dora officials to sign a proclamation recognizing June as LGBTQIA+ Pride Month, making it the first city in Lake County to do so. She plans to approach county commissioners as well with the same proclamation.
Gay people were relegated to being “seen but not heard” in Lake until the Pulse shooting “lit a fire” within the community, Olivani said.
“We can never forget what they and their families went through simply because of who they were,” she said. “We cannot let anything like this happen ever again. And the way to cure hate is through education and advocacy.”
At the Parrot on Wednesday, drag performers of different genders and backgrounds did kicks, splits and flips to the music on the snug dance floor. Work said it’s important to make LGBTQ+ spaces diverse, especially for the transgender community.
Florida, which has seen a spate of high-profile killings of trans women, now bans trans girls and women from participating in women’s sports under a law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis this month.
Work has planned a Black LGBT Pride event at a Winter Haven club to draw awareness to the community. The Pulse shooting has “woken a lot of people up,” she said.
“I really do genuinely think it connected people and made people realize that we’re all human,” she said.