I often wondered what my life would have been like if I had been a kid in the modern age where being gay was so much more accepting than it was for me in the 1970s with Anita Bryant spewing her hatred and lies about people like me.   Then I remember that today there are the Libs of TikTok and the red state governors / republican fundamentalist Christian legislators who are doing to LGBTQIA kids what was done to me back in the 1970s by Bryant.  Spewing lies and hate to make us hated as much as possible.  

But there is another part of my thoughts.  Like the boy in the short video I couldn’t find the spoken words to tell of my abuse and the signs I was showing people either they couldn’t hear or did not want to.  What if I had had the words to say as a four-year-old what was happening when I was asked to go next door, that even though the man was nice, kind even, it left my butt sore, and the hell spawn I lived with would make fun of me for it.  They knew, which makes me now believe the adoptive parents knew also.  Maybe they pimped me to him?  After all, someone had to tell me to go over there, to give me permission.  Yes the man was raping me.  But he was kind and nice to me.  Unlike at home.

Imagine as a 6 yr in first grade, in torn clothing who had bruises all over me who in class just put my head down on my desk and went to sleep because I knew there it was safe to do so because no one would hurt me.  To my little boy mind that was shattered when the teacher took me to what seemed to me a large room with some other adults.  Both male and female.  They asked me to remove my clothing.  I started to obey as I had learned not to disobey that demand … but when they told me to remove my underpants I started to cry, to sob.  I promised to be good, I promised not to sleep in school anymore, I begged them, I even said as I stood there after taking off all my clothing and they had me move in different ways while touching me to make me stand or show what they wanted to see, that I promised I wouldn’t tell as they asked me questions I dared not answer.  I kept repeating that, hoping they knew that I would cooperate and not tell so they would be nice when they used me.  They did not understand what I was saying when I said I promised not to tell.  I knew the punishment for telling, I did not know they were trying to help.  They scared me, because these were adults I did not know and the few times before with adults I did not know first what they did hurt really bad.    I simply did not have the words, I did not understand what they wanted, and I had no way to tell them what they wanted to know, yes I was being abused, I was being hit, I was being …  In a way that was somehow more traumatizing to me because in my 6 yr old mind I was about to be forced to please and give my body to these four or five adults … If I was lucky and they did not want to simply hit me to make me hurt even more. 

If only I could have heard them, and they could understand that which I had no voice to say.   I am really tired, I hate that just watching a short YouTube video can bring back such strong memories, making me feel those feelings, relive those events.    Hugs.  Scottie