Brandon Wolf never intended to be an activist. But the tragic mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, changed his life and career.

Wolf was in the restroom at the club in the early morning hours of June 12, 2016, when a man walked into a nearby room with an automatic rifle and started shooting. When it was over, 49 people had died, including his best friend, Drew Leinonen, and Drew’s partner, Juan Guerrero. The event is called an act of terrorism against the LGBTQ+ community.

Wolf visited the University of Delaware on Tuesday, March 11, to share his journey from growing up feeling like an outsider in his own hometown, to surviving the country’s second deadliest mass shooting, to becoming an LGBTQ+ rights advocate and gun control activist. He works with national leaders to create new policies and to defend existing rights from threats.

Wolf prefers to call himself a storyteller, and the audience in UD’s Mitchell Hall listened intently as he walked across the stage, talking about hiding his true self as a Black, gay teen in rural Oregon. They smiled when Wolf shared that, after moving to Florida to work at Walt Disney World, he had finally found “his chosen family,” a community of people who “lived like me and loved like me.”

The auditorium was silent as he replayed the events of the day that led the three friends, nicknamed the Three Musketeers, to Pulse. Several audience members wiped away tears as he spoke of hearing the gunshots that “ended normal life in Orlando.”

“I wish I could tell you that that’s the moment that I got off the couch and into the fight,” Wolf said. “But the truth is I couldn’t imagine a future worth fighting for in that moment.”

It was after watching the mainstream news coverage and seeing the outpouring of support for his community both in person and on social media that he realized he needed to get involved. He tells Drew and Juan’s story so they won’t “be faceless victims on America’s long list” of deaths from gun violence.