‘It’s my Florida too’: Pulse shooting survivor Brandon Wolf on being Black, gay and the anti-Ron DeSantis

Brandon Wolf details his journey from a childhood in a conservative white community in Oregon to finding his voice in his adopted Orlando in his memoir, A Place for Us. Photograph: Mary F Calvert/Reuters

Seven years after surviving the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, and dealing with the guilt of losing his best friend there, Brandon Wolf is living life to the fullest. He belongs to an energized generation of young Democrats. He is a prominent gun safety and LGBTQ+ civil rights activist and, at just 34, is a newly published author.

But in Governor Ron DeSantis’s Florida, he does not always feel safe.