The gay, lesbian and transgender community has seen violence before, from Harvey Milk to Matthew Shepard, and an ever-lengthening list of transgender women.
But never anything like this.
Yesterday's massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, grimly changed the equation, stirring communal fears and swiftly prompting tighter security at gay pride events.
The gunman, identified as Omar Mateen of Fort Pierce, Florida, told his father he had been disturbed by seeing two men kissing in Miami.
The attack on the Pulse nightclub, which killed at least 50 people and was the deadliest US mass shooting to date, occurred amid numerous events nationwide celebrating LGBT Pride Month.
In several other cities hosting events yesterday including block parties in Boston and a festival in Washington authorities beefed up the police presence.
This "is a tragic illustration of the legitimate safety fears that those in our LGBT community live with every day," said Mike Rawlings, the mayor of Dallas, where extra police were assigned to a neighborhood that is a hub of the local gay community.
In a separate incident yesterday, a heavily armed man was arrested in Southern California even as Mateen's attack was ongoing, telling police he was on his way to attack a gay pride parade. Twenty-year-old James Wesley, of Indiana, had assault rifles, ammunition and chemicals that could be used to make an explosive, according to police, who said there was no evidence of a connection to the Orlando massacre.
Before yesterday, the most prominent incidents of violence against gays claimed one life at a time. The highest profile of these included the murder of Milk, a pioneering gay politician in San Francisco in 1978, and the 1998 murder of Shepard, a gay college student in Wyoming at the hands of two men who beat him into a coma while he was tied to a fence. A federal hate crimes law bears Shepard's name.
Investigators were still trying to determine Mateen's motives. He pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in a 911 call before the shooting, according to according to a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
But LGBT activists had no doubt that their community was the intended target.
"Our practices and institutions may change in light of this tragedy LGBT gathering places may have more security now," said Rev Alisan Rowland, pastor of the LGBT-welcoming Metropolitan Community Church of New Orleans. "But we will never, ever go away. We will never be cowed."
Rachel B Tiven, CEO of the LGBT-rights group Lambda Legal, said the continued vilification of LGBT people by their detractors, and the continued resistance to expansion of their civil rights, was "an invitation to violence.
