On June 12, 2016 a far-right mass shooter murdered 49 people and wounded 53 at the Pulse nightclub. This Orlando, Fla. spot was known as a gay club and haven for the community, widely seen as a supportive and safe place for everyone. This night in particular was Latino Night, a gathering focused on the intersection of Orlando’s large queer and Latine communities.

This shooting, explicitly racist and queerphobic, sent waves throughout Florida’s — and America’s — queer and Latine communities. Countless people have stories of where they were that night, who they knew, and how they grieved in the years since. This massacre is an unequivocal tragedy, and one that is still felt locally and beyond to this day.

In 2017 a rainbow crosswalk was constructed outside Pulse to honor the victims. This was put in by and recognized by Florida’s Department of Transportation (FDOT). Yet, in late August 2025, FDOT erased the crosswalk under cover of darkness, painting it completely black. In comments given to Fox 35 an FDOT spokesperson justified this as removing “social, political, and ideological interests,” calling the rainbow “street art,” saying that the street was restored to “proper form.”

In its place Orlando officials greenlit a permanent Pulse memorial, which is supposed to be completed by mid-2027. But as of last month this memorial is still going through a bureaucratic slog for funding, according to Fox 35. No memorial is in place as of the writing of this article.

In response to the removal, protesters immediately started gathering outside of Pulse, holding signs and using chalk to draw a rainbow on the crosswalk once again. They stood out there for days, only stopping after police arrested nearly three dozen of them, something that especially escalated after the arrest of Sebastian Suarez, the first person to be detained.

This is not the only rainbow crosswalk removed in the U.S. due to fascism’s growing influence at the governmental level. The Texas Department of Transportation removed a memorial rainbow crosswalk in Houston, with protesters responding almost immediately, prompting huge backlash from conservative officials. Chron’s Gwen Howerton reported in detail on the scene, photographing protesters sitting on the crosswalk and blocking officials from further modifications.

Trans News Network conducted an exclusive interview with one of the protesters from Orlando, Melody Short, an Army veteran and current Twitch streamer. Short was arrested shortly after Suarez, and was subject to numerous human rights abuses and transphobic insults, including one cop who tried to convince her to convert to Christianity and to detransition.

She was nervous throughout the interview, owing to the difficulty of recollecting recent trauma. Nevertheless, she emphasized that she wanted to do this, and to go into as much detail as possible. “I need to tell the story,” Short told TNN. “I’m afraid that whatever I’m saying could… lead to people coming after me. But I’m not afraid of these people. I think more people like me need to step up against them.”

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Mira Lazine: Could you tell me a bit about the day you got arrested and the prior protests outside the Pulse Nightclub?

Melody Short: Well, I was there for two and a half days. I didn't leave Pulse. Not even to take a shower. I was there for the long haul, like a lot of these folks were. What started it was the arrest of Sebastian. I think that was the tipping point of the movement, whenever Sebastian was arrested. I witnessed that arrest. I was there when he was arrested. He didn't even cross the crosswalk, he was just arrested for putting chalk on his shoe.

After seeing his arrest, it kind of moved me. I knew I had to act, I just didn't know how. What drove us to do the things we did was for freedom of speech. Protesters wrote that the First Amendment shall not be infringed in rainbow colors. I was arrested for allegedly participating in that.

Can you tell me a bit about Sebastian? Who was he?

Sebastian was this very white guy from Georgia. He was just visiting Orlando and he wanted to come and protest with us, with his wife. He was arrested on his birthday. I got to really know him before he got arrested. I kind of hope he's doing well [Suarez was released the next day, on August 30]. Seeing the fear in people's eyes when Sebastian got arrested, that's what made me do what I did.

I feel like people today take freedoms for granted. I think we are in a time and age where we, the queer community, have to stand strong and protest. Our whole existence peters on people giving us our rights. And I won't stop fighting for our rights.

And this is interesting! I spent seven years in the army defending our rights for other people to live their lives the way they want to. Why the hell should I be submissive and just let them rule over what they want me to do? I'm going to do what I'm going to do in order to make sure everyone has the same rights as me.

Can you tell me a little bit about what prompted the protest?

To my understanding, the police in Orlando — and by extension the state police in Florida — had erased and mandated the erasure of the memorial Rainbow Crosswalk outside the Pulse Nightclub, prompting people to push back. Is this a correct understanding?

Yes, the protest was because of the removal of the crosswalk. You got the premise down. Why we actually showed up is because they weren't supposed to remove that crosswalk. It was on the Florida Department of Transportation's list of non-removable memorials, and they still did it in the middle of the night. We felt like it was disrespectful to the 49 dead who suffered in the terrorist attack.

That's what inspired me to pick up a sign and protest. It was mainly because of the dead, and it transformed into something much more crazier.

From what I understand from both friends in the area and people I’ve talked to for old stories, the Pulse shooting is still remembered today in the broader Orlando community.

I was in the area during the Pulse shooting. I still remember the gunfire, or the gunshots. I was looking at the Pulse building, and I swore I heard the gunfire.

That's awful. I'm so sorry.

It's just a shame. It wasn't for just us, the queer community, it was for the people who died. I think a lot of people don't understand that message anymore. I still remember going into school, coming into class, listening to people talk about the shooting.

You mentioned that some folk like Sebastian came from out of state. How many people were there? How quickly was this organized?

It wasn't an organized protest. It just upset community members. And it wasn't even just queer community members. There were a lot of straight people. Just all upset the memorial was taken down. God, right before my arrest, there must have been probably 50 people there. There were a lot of people.

How many got arrested?

Three, not including Sebastian. I don't know them that well though.

Can you tell me about your experiences getting arrested and while in jail? How did the cops treat you?

I got arrested, put in a cop car, the whole shebang. They were talking to me until I got out of the cop car and actually got into booking. I guess it's the reception area where they're doing the paperwork with the lawyers. It was just weird. It was just fucking weird. Then I got into booking or it's like an in process place where they ask you your medical history.

As I was entering, they were misgendering me. I asked them to please stop misgendering me. I don't like it. And they said, ‘well, you're a man, right?’ And I said, ‘I'm not a man.’ A higher-ranking officer was handling most of these things. As she was leaving, she told me I needed to put my hands on the glass behind me. So I tried to lift my arms, and me being a disabled combat vet I had difficulties raising my arms. She got very mad at the fact that I couldn't raise my arms and left. Like she was so disappointed in me.

They then gave me shoes that were way too small. And the moment they did, they put me into this like, I want to say six foot, tiny ass cell. I was isolated. Guards would look at me like I'm a zoo animal. They'd come just to look at me and to laugh. Like, you know, I call, I get in process, eventually through booking. And they take me to like the psych cell where they place me into an even smaller confinement, because they think I'm crazy because I'm declaring that I'm a woman, so they think I'm crazy. At no point was there anyone else in my cell. I had no idea why I was in that room. I was completely shut off from the guards.

Throughout the entire day, they were asking me, ‘would you rather be with a man since you have a penis, right? You’d be more comfortable with a man?’ I said, ’no, I don't consent to that.’ And they still had a male guard search me. And he made comments about my fucking body. I was alone with this man. I've been transitioning for years. As a trans woman I look the part!

Also, because my shoes were too small, my feet started to bleed. I didn’t receive medical treatment. How could I? The guards weren’t really checking on me. They were only watching me. So eventually I just ditched the shoes.

This is horrifying, I'm so sorry.

When you go through something horrific like that, it's easy to lose your way. It's easy to just submit and just to be… I don't know, going through the motions. But when I got arrested, I realized in the society that they're hoping for, we are like that. They're hoping that we are scared and we are terrified of these people… it’s terrifying.

But it wasn't until I got to my final cell that the guards really started getting very comfortable with this. They were really coming after me. They eventually moved me to a main population, protective unit. So they placed me into a special unit for celebrity captures because I am a high note, high valued prisoner – something like that. So they placed me in another isolated cell.

I went from three different isolated cells to my final one. I was very hopeful before the trial happened. I was told I was free originally. The guards were laughing at me through the glass, so I just, you know, didn't really pay them too much attention. I knew the judge said I was able to walk, get out of here without paying bonds, so I was excited. I didn't really give a shit what they saw of me at that point.

I was just ready to get GTFO. And I was literally ten steps away from my freedom. I was already in my dirty civilian clothes. But as I was walking out the door and that's when I was told, ‘hey, [deadname], you're under arrest.’

I was the only one they re-arrested.

Did they say why they did?

No, they never told me. They didn't tell me until I got to the pre-trial phase of booking, because that's the only people who would know why you're arrested. I finally got an answer after an hour of waiting. It was when a clerk told me that I was arrested for writing ‘trans rights are human rights’ in chalk on the side of a building.

That’s it?

That's it. I was re-arrested and had to go back to the same cell I was released from.

How long were you detained in total?

I don't know. It's a blur, I'm going to be honest with you. I didn't have access to sunlight. I didn't know what time it was in general in the jailhouse. Time deprivation is something they definitely use as a torture tactic in the jail system.

I want to say a day and a half or maybe two days if you count being released at like nine or ten [p.m.] being a full day.

So you were arrested the same day as the protest, held for about two days, and during that time you were re-arrested?

Yeah.

What happened after you were re-arrested and you found out why they re-arrested you?

I was upset. I was understandably angry. Yeah.

I think any rational person would be angry when you're told that you're free but then you're not. Yeah. And what's worse about it is that it's crazy. It's fucking crazy.

Like the things that they can just do and the things that the law enforcement, the power that they have just to do is crazy.

That's where I started to really get into trouble with the commanding officer. Because I think she was the officer because I saw the two stripes and in the army that means you're a corporal. That means you're armed. You're a non-commissioned officer. That means you have rank. So I told the officer, ‘hey, I've been told that protesters paid for my bail. When am I getting out?’

She laughed at me and said that ‘it doesn't matter if they pay your bail or not. I'm not releasing you. There's nothing that you can do that will ever let me release you.’ It's just horrifying.

Could you tell me a bit about when they eventually did release you, the experience of that and the timeline of it all?

So I had this guy. Let's just call him Officer Jones. I don't know his name. Officer Jones was so adamant that he could convert me to Christianity while I was being arrested for the second time. So I had this guy the entire time tell me how much I'm a sinner and how I need to repent and turn my life to Jesus and how I need to be detransitioned because that's what Jesus would tell me to do. And that guy is allowed to enforce the fucking law.

He was telling you this while you were detained?

Yeah, while I was detained.

That's awful!

God. And I can't talk back to him. You know I can't. He has the power in the situation. If I say something that he finds offensive, like how I wanted to say to him that there's a separation of church and state, right? But I couldn't because I was afraid that he would just re-arrest me again or find something stupid to arrest me for. At that point, I just wanted to get it over with.

When you did get released, what happened? What charges were still put on you by then?

The misdemeanor, for writing trans rights, and the felony, for the alleged crosswalk involvement.

After you were let out, I understand you were going through a bit of a hefty court battle. Could you tell me a bit about that?

It looks like [the misdemeanor] is being dropped. I showed up to the court date for the misdemeanor one. The prosecutors never actually shut the fuck up. But yeah, it seems like they don't really want to bring charges against me. It's more looking like the city doesn't want to actually charge me. They just want me arrested.

Was it just a scare tactic then?

I think so. I angered some very rich people because a lot of rich people live in Winter Park [an Orlando suburb]. I allegedly went through a rich part of downtown Winter Park and wrote ‘trans rights are human rights’ in chalk. It's crazy, right? In Winter Park, they prohibit LGBT protesters from protesting at the library.

How are you faring after everything that happened?

I don't trust people. I really have a hard time trusting anyone that says that they're from the government, I immediately just don't trust them. It's gone to the point where I just can't trust the government anymore. And I don't really have a lot of money, so I want to go to therapy.

And I just haven't yet because I've been so scared to tell people what happened to me because I'm so scared that people are going to come after me. I’ve had a lot of white supremacists message me like, hate shit and death threats saying how, you know, a T-slur like me has no place in this world. And I just think the reason why they're coming after me very harshly is because they know I have the means to protect myself. So all they have is their word.

What are your next steps forward after all this?

I'm an optimist. I don't think things are going to get worse. I think this proved to me that the LGBTQ community is strong. I just think that our community needs to step up and actually go to these protests. That's just my personal opinion. We need to stop being scared.

We need to protest until they do something. We don't need protests that are a day long that do nothing because they know that it's only going to go away. They're counting for the protest day before it even starts. That's what they're telling us. That's what our haters were telling us when we were protesting. We shouldn’t leave until something happens. We need peaceful action for a peaceful society.

What would you say that readers of this interview should do? What steps should they take?

Get out with your friends. Find a protest organization. A protest organization that says go in your local area and protest. And be relentless. Be fearless. Only through adversity does someone grow as a person. And unfortunately, protesting is an adversity. I just ask for people to be strong. You'll be very surprised at how many people actually supported us. We have way more people support us than we do the haters.

People want to support us. They want us to succeed. Society wants us to succeed. We just need to grab it.

—Edited by David Forbes

Update 10/24 - A transcription error resulted in the number arrested being incorrect. The correct number of people who got arrested at the protest is 3. This article has been updated to reflect this.