The asterisk after "Trans" is antiquated and you need to stop using it. If you don't know this, you need to stop writing about trans issues. Have some respect for the people you're writing about.

http://www.transstudent.org/asterisk

Any good estimates of the crowd size? My amateur effort suggested it was somewhere between 2000 and 4000. The crowd was pretty dense, and filled that grass slope in Cal Anderson, overflowing onto the sidewalks surrounding.

What happened in Orlando was a sickening tragedy, just like others before it. Whats even more a sickeningly tragedy is our scripted, repetitive "do-nothing-weepy-vigil-coordinating" response to the uptick in this kind of violence. "Stop the hate"? Really? You cant stop hate anymore than stop a left from being part of right, or up from being part of down. Its an ingrained emotinal response to our basic human nature that clicks on when we feel threatened for a way or life or for our survival. Do we really think we could have won WWI or WWII with "Stop the hate" t-shirts? In part, we have done this to ourselves. The more our microcsm communities stay microcosm, there will be hate because we refuse to be inclusive on a daily basis, as a whole. When microcosm communities via the mindless bombardment of technological tyranny ram "black lives matter", "gay marriage", "womens rights" and every other issue down someones throat who cannot relate, there is going to be hate. Maybe if people, didnt come across being a sole identifier such as "a man", "a woman", "black", "LBGT", "asian", "latino", "republican", "democrat", "muslim" or "christian" and identified themselves as just being human, we actually may reduce the violence and work together. But that is just a pipe dream to the reality as long as the masses are being spoon fed their compulsive, "knee-jerk" ideas and concepts that pander to their emotions by corporate television media, Twitter and Facebook. We should be angry, we should be flipping angry at this tragedy, just like Sandy Hook before, and many others before that, but instead of actually doing something productive like pressuring those we elect, we cry and weep exploitatively for the cameras, buy flowers, light candles and are told how business (key concept here) is worried about security during upcoming "microcosm" Pride Festivities. Why? Because its easier. It doesnt take any real effort. You can sit on Facebook and Twitter all day, but cant look up the email address of a senator, future presidential candidate, or anyone else we elect to office to to state your open disgust at this waste of human life- yet again! That is democracy and that is how real change happens. The only thing anyone is doing is showing those who promote this disgusting act that we are a bunch of emotional disasters, that like to keep florists and candle makers in business and be targets for the next go-around. To me, this isnt respectful to the deceased and it certainly isnt going to help prevent the next person who gets an itch to go on some rampage out of the blue. People need to forgive the past, to heal from their grief, and we the people, as a whole, need to unite and that means work, it means education beyond technology, and it means putting unending exhaustive pressure on those at all levels of elected offices, and not to let their pandering, scripting stop us from building a country that we want to leave for future generations to build upon.