There is no greater need for funding in the LGBT community than there is for our youth. All across America, LGBT youth are struggling to come to terms with the way society casts them out and rejects them. The rate of suicide among LGBT teens is double that of the rest of the population. I know this, because I was homeless, and in the street, at a very young age. Even as Wayne Besen, the founder of Truth Wins Out, a non profit gay activism charity, is publicly bashing me for my past, I am not ashamed. I went through hell, and quite frankly, it’s because of people like Besen, and organizations like TWO, which divert funding from those who need it the most, that I experienced a harder time than I should have. Until we gays get our act together, and focus on the weakest among us, we will never be strong, as a whole. While I realize that I am arming Besen, who is attacking me daily, on a Christian website, I feel I must share my story. My hope is that you will take a few moments to picture yourself in the shoes I once wore, as a gay teen, and take with you, an understanding of what it’s like to feel that nobody, anywhere, gives a damn.
To give you the full picture, I have to go back to when I was only 12 years old, living with my mom, in a government subsidized apartment complex in a town called Eminence, Kentucky. I was the eighth, of ten children my mother raised, with the help of social security and food stamps. When a neighbor boy introduced me to his Uncle, a known child molester, I became an innocent victim. The man, whose name was Harry Hardin, had targeted me, specifically because I was gay. I didn’t know I was gay, but apparently, most everyone who met me did. Sensing my insecurity and shame, Harry gained my trust by giving me gifts and taking me to theme parks. One night, during a sleepover at Harry’s house, I woke up to find him performing oral sex on me. It’s hard to describe the combination of feelings I had when this happened. There was guilt, for sure, combined with the excitement of sex, and the fear of the unknown. You see, I didn’t feel very loved, at the time. There was little attention paid to my needs by anyone, and so, I was willing to let Harry do what he wanted to me, because my young body, mind and soul needed nurturing, and I believed that this was the only way I was going to get any of that. A lot of people like to blame their child molester for making them gay. In my case, it was the opposite. My molester chose me because I was gay, and he took advantage of the silence that my shame afforded him, again and again. It took four years for me to understand that I had even been molested. By that time, I was sixteen, and on my own in Chicago, using my body to survive on the streets.
Initially, I was very naïve. I’ll never forget my first trick. I had been to the beach with a gay youth group that I had joined, when a friend asked me to walk to the store and get us some chips and soda. He handed me a couple of dollars and I walked a few blocks to Broadway and Belmont, in Boystown. As I walked along, I noticed a car, slowly following me, with an older man checking me out. He smiled. I smiled back. He asked if I wanted a ride, and I said sure. Getting into this mans car could have been the last thing I ever did, but he was kind of cute, and I didn’t value my life as much as I did getting laid. The man proceeded to drive around to the back of a hi rise building and park in a dark corner of the parking lot. He asked if he could go down on me, and I said, sure. He did his thing, and when it was done, he reached into his pocket and pulled out nine dollars.
“This is all I have.” he said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
I didn’t understand. This man seemed to feel obligated to give me something for my time, and who was I to refuse. I returned to the beach, a little while later with two bags of chips and a 6 pack of soda. I told my friend about it and he said to me.
“You stupid bitch! You could have got fifty bucks!”
And that’s when I realized that I would never have to go hungry again, as long as I had something that someone was willing to pay for. The next few tricks were hit and miss, with customers ripping me off, insulting me, and leading me to believe that I was only worth whatever they chose to pay me for my body. This was the height of the AIDS crisis, and some of my clients explained safer sex practices to me. Somehow, I made it through all this without contracting anything worse than crabs. I still consider that to be a miracle. I am now 42 years old and HIV negative.
At seventeen, I let the manager of a bar called Normandy suck me off in the basement dressing room of the bar. I begged him for a job, and he hired me as a stripper. I would get up on the bar, strip down to a thong, and then dodge ashtrays, cocktails and ceiling fans, as I worked my way from man to man, gyrating in their faces, for tips. Some of the older men were generous. Some of the younger men were mean. Eventually, I ended up working for tips only, as the manager was taking my $20 base pay and putting it up his own nose. I’d try to get my money’s worth in free drinks, when patrons weren’t buying them for me. It was easier to wake up with a hangover, than it was to wake up to the reality that I was a teenaged whore in a thong.
By the time I was 19, I had left Chicago for the warmer climate of Miami Beach. Life was much harder there, as I found myself competing with straight boys, hustling the streets for crack. I was lucky and smart enough not to get pulled into the drugs. The sporadic, hundred dollar tricks I turned on the corner of Collins and 21st street, were barely enough to feed me, and did not keep a roof over my head. I spent many nights sleeping near the boardwalk, trying not to get arrested. Desperate for security, I said yes to the first wealthy man who would have me. It didn’t last long, but I did get an apartment out of the deal. In order to pay the rent, after our first break up, I turned to the gay porn industry. My younger brother William, having ran away from home, after coming out to my mom, would stay with me, whenever he didn’t have his own boyfriends taking care of him. This only added to my desperation, and forced me to set a bad example for him that I continue to beat myself up for, long after his untimely and tragic death in 2000. Had I been able to set a better example for him, would his life had taken a different path? This is a question that will haunt me for the rest of my life.
For the record, I did work regular jobs, whenever my living situation lasted long enough to apply for a job and get hired. I was a dishwasher at a pancake house. A waiter at a steak house. I even worked for a market research company, calling people and performing consumer surveys. I wasn’t lazy. I was simply desperate. I didn’t graduate from high school until I was 21, but I did graduate. I never gave up on trying to educate myself, even when there were no available resources for me to do so.
Finally, at the age of 22, after a string of cheap porno video gigs, I met the man I live with today. He offered me security and love and more luxury that I had ever known. I haven’t left his side, since the day we met. On October 6th, it will be our 18th anniversary. I had always promised myself that, if I ever got a chance, I would pay it forward, and help prevent a child from going through the hell I experienced as a desperate child. When the opportunity to foster a baby boy presented itself to us, we accepted, and a couple of years later, we were blessed to be able to adopt him. Shortly after the adoption, his mother gave birth to his baby brother. Without questioning it, we took him in as well, and our family was complete. They are now 16 and 14 years old, healthy, happy and well cared for.
I tell you all this, not to make you feel sorry for me, but rather to encourage you to do your part. If you’ve read this far, and are moved, in some small way, by my life experience, my hope is that you will help a homeless youth today. I’m not asking for your money. I don’t run a charity. What I’m asking you to do is give a damn. In my own opinion, we can cram all the dollars into organizations like Truth Wins Out, and GLAAD, and HRC, but ultimately, until we fix the problems that our gay youth are facing, there will never really be equality. These groups may serve a purpose, but they will be serving a lot less of us, if we don’t prevent these young people from killing themselves, or putting their lives at risk, in the sex industry. And that’s why, without any official connection, or direct, personal benefit to myself, I whole heartedly encourage everyone I know to click on the following link, learn more about ways that you can help, and get involved. It only takes a minute to join Cindi Lauper, Lady Gaga, and other famous celebrities who have added their voices to this campaign to help homeless, LGBT youth. I can’t think of a more worthy, or affective way to ensure our equality than by taking care of those who will be actively fighting for it, in the future.
http://www.wegiveadamn.org/
