On February 14, 2018, I hid inside a classroom for three hours trying to keep 15 students safe while a gunman terrorized my school; by the time the SWAT team released us, it had become one of the deadliest school shootings in American history (open in new tab). Seventeen lives were needlessly, senselessly, and horribly taken that day.

Nearly three years later, I can still see Building 12 (also known as the freshman wing where the shooter broke in) from the same classroom at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. I can see it every time I open the door. There are people on campus who can avoid it because they walk a different way or their classroom is in a different part of campus. I don't have that luxury.

There are people who will never experience what we experienced at MSD, or what my dear friend Abby Clements (opens in new tab) and her community experienced at Sandy Hook. Those people are very lucky. They will never forget what happened that day. I also can't get over the idea that people can say "it never happened."

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green (Republican), a QAnon conspiracy theorist who rose to the U.S. House of Representatives with a truckload of false claims (opens in new tab), racist and anti-Semitic ideology (opens in new tab), and Trumpian rhetoric (opens in new tab) has made a name for herself as a school shooting denialist. She believes the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, was staged (opens new tab). She believes that the shooting at my school was similar and was a "false flag" incident designed to gain support for stricter gun control. [Editor's note: Green has not publicly denied these beliefs, despite reportedly telling the mother of a Parkland victim otherwise in a personal phone call (opens in new tab), and despite recently speaking to lawmakers at a House Republican conference (opens in new tab). Green has publicly targeted and harassed David Hogg, who survived an incident at MSD as a student, was a co-founder of the March for Our Lives, and now attends Harvard University. She has refused to meet or speak with Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jamie (opens in new tab) died on February 14, 2018.

In the weeks immediately following the events at MSD, I began work on a book. I edited and contributed two pieces to Parkland Speaks (opens in new tab), published by Random House and released in January 2019. I have read these stories. I know their voices. It is truly dangerous that anyone could be so stupid and insensitive as to say that what happened that day, what is captured in the pages of "Parkland Speaks," did not happen. The venom that Green spews every time he lies hits the survivors of gun violence and their families. It's like opening a wound over and over again.

Green is a danger not only to survivors like myself, but also to her own colleagues. Before she was elected, Green had shown support (open in new tab) for running Democratic politicians. Recently, Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-N.Y.) had to move her office (opens in new tab) away from Green's office due to safety concerns. Even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has denounced Green's "ludicrous lies and conspiracy theories" as a "cancer on the Republican Party and our country." Still, there are Republicans like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) who not only won't condemn or refute her statements until pressured to do so (opens in new tab), but also try to elevate her standing in Congress by putting her on a committee (opens in new tab) There are many members of Congress. Shame on them. Shame on all of them.

Not surprisingly, Green has not condemned those who stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (opens in new tab) on January 6, 2021. But the irony is that the legislators on both sides of the aisle, not knowing who was there and what they might do, fled to their offices behind barricaded doors, or in the case of the AOC, hiding in the bathroom (which opens with a new tab). Because that's what happened to me on February 14, 2018. Everyone who was in the Capitol that day, with the exception of the rioters, was a victim of violence, or more specifically, gun violence (opens in new tab). Green doesn't see it that way.

To dismiss Mr. Green, who has spouted conspiracy theories about staged shootings, Jewish space lasers (opens in new tab), rigged elections (opens in new tab), aka "The Big Lie" (opens in new tab), and paused Twitter (opens in new tab) as a result, as a simple-minded and ignorant person It's easy to dismiss Mr. Green as simple-minded and ignorant. Except that there are those who look to Green for leadership, guidance, and answers. As a legislator, she is given the sobriquet of "honorable" before her name and official title. She has no integrity at all. Chris Hixon (opens in new tab) was honorable. Aaron Faith (opens in new tab) was honorable.

Gun Violence Victims Week is February 1-7, ending one week before the anniversary of the events in MSD. The community is still healing after three years. I see a psychologist once a week and have been diagnosed with PTSD. I get very nervous in crowds. I do not like to be surprised. I do not like loud noises. Dislike fireworks. I do not sleep well. I come to work at MSD every day because I know it is what I have to do for myself, my students, and the community.

I can never go back to the person I was before February 14, 2018 at 2:20pm. I am forever changed because of one person's actions. That is why I refuse to stand idly by and let Green continue to make false statements to her constituents and the American people. She needs to be admonished. She needs to be removed from all committee appointments. She needs to resign from Congress (opens in new tab). We need to know that her lies and conspiracies will never take away from our lived experience as survivors. The 17 lives we lost will live on in our hearts forever.