I've always been scared more than others. It doesn't matter if it was being scared about death, about something small, like a test in school, or about being myself. It took me quite some time to finally be happy with myself. To accept, who i am. Yet, I still haven't been able to hold hands with the person I love outside, or to kiss that person outside. Or to bring them home.

But after recent events, I'm even more scared. A neonazi guy executed 2 people in a gay bar just because they were in a gay bar. But guess what. They weren't gay! One of them was bisexual and the other one was nonbinary. All they did was live. And not live by someone else's standards. 

The day after the shooting, a girl was beaten up in a train just because she stood up for us. She was wearing a rainbow ribbon and a group of football fans started shouting at her that they're gonna shoot at the gay bar again. So she called them dicks. And then they beat her up. 

I've been wearing a pride bracelet for a few months now and every time I'm in a dark alley alone, I hide it. Because I'm scared of getting beaten up. And now, I'm even more scared. I'm scared to wear it in public, no matter what time it is. And so are my parents.

Even our politicians hate us.

The leading political party here is catoliban and all they do is say how we shouldn't exist. Other political parties do the same. They call us sick and they basically make others hate us too. And then someone, who's mentally ill, starts shooting. 

The only politician in power who stood up for us was our lovely president. She even said that our politicians should stop using words to hate us, because words can be used as guns

So, how are we supposed to feel safe in our country? How are we supposed to be ourselves, if there's a chance that we're gonna get executed in our safe space? Or that we're gonna get beaten up just for having a rainbow ribbon? How are we supposed to love?

This is not just me who's scared. Most people are scared now. Slovakia is not a safe country anymore. And unfortunately, it's only getting worse.

However, we can't show them that we're scared. We need to show how strong we are. How we can fight for ourselves.

There's been marches all around Slovakia (and even in other countries, like Czech Republic, Germany, the UK, Australia and others) that show that we won't let this happen.

Together, we are strong.