an lgbt survivor story
A Survivor Story
“Faggot!”
“Why don’t you go suck dick somewhere else?”
“Yah, well . . . I bet you just want me to fuck you!”
These are words that permeated the hallways of my middle school. The first time I had ever heard the word faggot, I was ten years old and had no definition. I only learned what it meant when people decided I was one. Switching to a public school induced a culture shock of hostile language and the demonization of gay people. I’m sure most from my generation remembers at some point being called or calling someone else gay as a slur, but this hit extremely close to home for me.
I hated myself for being gay.
I knew I was gay by the time I was seven years old. Let me rephrase that: I knew I was broken since I was seven years old. When I went to public school, I was excited by the prospects of new friends and adventures; instead, as an emotional child, I was slapped with the stigma of being ‘gay’ — the worst thing you could be. Faced with the thought that people would hate me for being gay, I hid and hated that aspect of myself.
But I had other reasons to hate myself for being gay.
I had more than a predisposition to hate men, to hate myself for liking men. When I was eight years old, I was raped and molested by a man I was told I could trust with my life, a man that had seen my growth for all those eight years, a man that I was taught to love — my father. Under the guise of ‘this is just how men show affection to each other’, I was forced to ‘show affection’ multiple times throughout that year. Then, my father disappeared, leaving only memories to stifle and bury.
How could I be gay?
How could I love the gender that abused my trust for personal gain? How could I trust that all men weren’t like that? How could I subject myself to the actions I was forced into with a predator and call that an expression of love one day? These weren’t the thoughts someone who hadn’t been taught what a condom was by the school system should’ve been having; these weren’t the thoughts anyone should have been having.
I still can’t believe that I am gay.
I still am baffled that I came out when I did, that I have found and lost love as a gay man so many times, and that I have trusted men. I won’t lie, it took a lot of therapy, a lot of suppression, and a lot of fear to get where I am today. People tell me I have an ego, that I am pompous and full of myself. But the truth is, despite the swamp I had to trudge through, despite the hell inside my head, I came out on top of everything. The truth is . . .
I am proud that I am gay.