The LGBTQ community is still reeling following the tragic massacre at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando on June 12, in which 49 people were killed. After gay celebrities including Adam Lambert and Boy George voiced their frustrations and condolences across social media, elusive rapper Frank Ocean has penned an incredibly personal and powerful reflection on the shooting.

Posting to Tumblr, the same platform he used to come out back in 2012, the artist opened up about his thoughts on Omar Mateen's attack, religion and his father's own hatefulness and transphobia, as well the the intersections that exist between these complex concepts.

"Many hate us and wish we didn’t exist," Ocean wrote of the homophobia running rampant in the United States. "Many are annoyed by our wanting to be married like everyone else or use the correct restroom like everyone else. Many don’t see anything wrong with passing down the same old values that send thousands of kids into suicidal depression each year."

Read his thought-provoking essay in its entirety below:

I read in the paper that my brothers are being thrown from rooftops blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs for violating sharia law. I heard the crowds stone these fallen men if they move after they hit the ground. I heard it’s in the name of God. I heard my pastor speak for God too, quoting scripture from his book. Words like abomination popped off my skin like hot grease as he went on to describe a lake of fire that God wanted me in. I heard on the news that the aftermath of a hate crime left piles of bodies on a dance floor this month. I heard the gunman feigned dead among all the people he killed. I heard the news say he was one of us. I was six years old when I heard my dad call our transgender waitress a faggot as he dragged me out a neighborhood diner saying we wouldn’t be served because she was dirty. That was the last afternoon I saw my father and the first time I heard that word, I think, although it wouldn’t shock me if it wasn’t. Many hate us and wish we didn’t exist. Many are annoyed by our wanting to be married like everyone else or use the correct restroom like everyone else. Many don’t see anything wrong with passing down the same old values that send thousands of kids into suicidal depression each year. So we say pride and we express love for who and what we are. Because who else will in earnest? I daydream on the idea that maybe all this barbarism and all these transgressions against ourselves is an equal and opposite reaction to something better happening in this world, some great swelling wave of openness and wakefulness out here. Reality by comparison looks grey, as in neither black nor white but also bleak. We are all God’s children, I heard. I left my siblings out of it and spoke with my maker directly and I think he sounds a lot like myself. If I being myself were more awesome at being detached from my own story in a way I being myself never could be. I wanna know what others hear, I’m scared to know but I wanna know what everyone hears when they talk to God. Do the insane hear the voice distorted? Do the indoctrinated hear another voice entirely?

Celebrities React to Orlando Nightclub Shooting:

Kevork Djansezian / Frederick M. Brown / Ben Gabbe, Getty Images
Kevork Djansezian / Frederick M. Brown / Ben Gabbe, Getty Images
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