That's the idea that started this story. I then started reading about the issues of LGBTQ persecution in America and all over the world. If you don't think being LGBTQ is still persecuted in modern world. Look how LGBTQ individuals are treated in South Africa- which is considered an "upper middle income economy" and "newly industrialized" nation. In South Africa women and girls can be "correctively raped" to try and rape the gay out of them. Below are some links to cite what I'm talking about:
I hope you enjoy reading it. My goal isn't to offend anyone just simple make you wonder what you would do in a world like this and how quickly our America- could turn into another one.
Another America
What happens when it doesn't "get better" :
I don’t think I really “knew” I was straight until I was maybe 13 but as early as I can remember I liked boys. My first crush in Kindergarten was a boy named James, he wasn’t very smart but he had the bluest eyes. I did at least; know I best not tell anyone. I knew to keep that hidden. Girls were for girls and boys were for boys. That was how it’s supposed to be. My strict atheist parents would never have heard of me liking a boy. I stuffed it all down as far it could go, swearing I’d never let anyone know ever. No one could know. I’m not even sure I fully understood the disappointment and pain that would come from my parents and family but I knew it “wrong” to be straight. Some of the “hetero rights” talks began when I was that little. I remember my Dad’s talking about it in disgust. How could those heteros pervert our culture, our children like that? Even when I didn’t understand the words, I knew the tone. It was wrong to be straight.
Middle school came around, and as the hormones hit me things got more complicated. I was attracted girls, but only emotionally. I tried to think of them like I was supposed to but I never had any sexual attraction to a girl, but I viewed it as me controlling myself and not being a jerk that only wants “sex”. So I thought I was just one of those nice girls that girls talked about and wished they had, and I always wanted to be that. I wanted to find a girl and treat her like a queen, marry her and have kids and just live a happy life. But that wasn’t the case. Still when I first had sexual thoughts about a boy I didn’t think I was straight. Just thought it was a phase or a fluke. It had to be.
In high school it crept up on me. It started out innocently enough. “Wow, Jack is such a nice guy, I wish I could be more like him: talk like him, have that confidence”- I then started to noticed just how attractive Jack was… then I caught myself once in a day-dream; him coming up to me after school, holding my hand- walking me home, the first kiss. When I snapped out of it I got whiplash. I started to panic. At first, I thought this was just a phase that I was going through. I thought to myself. “ I can’t like boys, I’m gay! He’s a guy and you’re a girl. You can’t have feelings for him. This will go away”. There was a never-ending battle going on in my head; like forcing down bile that pushes it’s way into your throat. I had to be gay, I was supposed to be gay, I needed to be gay.
I know there was some talk when I didn’t seem interested in girls my age. My Dad Greg would try and push me into dating, I know some part him was relieved that I wasn’t girl crazy like my sister was, but I could see some of worry in his voice when he’d ask. I did NOT want to like guys. I was so depressed. I just wanted to die, it was like something terrible inside that I couldn’t get out. I had no one to tell so I was just drowning it. I had never had anyone I trusted with this. My friends would all confide in me “secrets” and “crushes” and I just had to fake that. I don’t think it ever came across truly genuine but when we were younger it was never questioned. It was in those times of truth telling that I’d become the most depressed. I had a secret too, one that was weighing so deeply and part of me just wanted to blurt it out and scream it. I knew though, that I couldn’t. The fear would set in, being so rejected, being THE disappointment. I couldn’t handle that. I was in my head a lot.
I remember when Matthew died. That was all over the news. He was tied to a fence and tortured and pistol whipped. He fell into a coma and died. That was the first time I ever prayed. I knew I wasn’t supposed to believe in God either, but Matthew, he was like me and he was dying for it. The media accounts were graphic. His face was covered in blood, save where it was washed partially clean from his tears; all for liking a girl. This pushed me so far back into the closet I could see Narnia. The world was getting more and more frightening.
It was around this time that I read Cordie’s story online. I started to follow some underground hetero groups and message boards. I could never bring myself to comment or talk but it was at least good to read that I wasn’t alone. Cordie was from South Africa. He was drug behind a football stadium and raped by four men. “When we’re finished with you, you’re going to be a real man.” They told him. One by one they raped him, and then they beat him and left him for dead. He at least survived. Others hadn’t been so lucky. I read countless stories; some men were pulled from the streets, raped, beaten, and executed. Others were just boys, they’re parents paid someone to rape them; to cure the “straight” out of them. At times the “jackrolling” they called it, got more disturbingly violent, rapist’s using knives or sharp objects as if raping and beating or murdering the victims wasn’t enough.
I knew it was hard being straight here in the US but it was completely terrifying to imagine being straight somewhere else. The world was a big and scary place. Why wasn’t it okay to love who you wanted to love? What was so wrong with me? I had tried everything I could on my own to make the “straight go away”. I couldn’t. I was angry- how could the evolutionary process decide to make me this way when it was so unacceptable? How could I evolve into this if it was so wrong and unnatural? I started to spiral and this is when the cutting started. It only got worse.
My Dad Greg began noticing my mood changes. I was having more and more difficulty hiding the storm that was brewing inside. The confusion and anger, I was still in great denial. Hoping that if I just wanted it enough I could make myself gay like everyone else. Finally after my sister saw some of my cuts and marks she told our parents. Then Dad got into my computer. It was here he found the websites I’d been visiting. The confrontation was horrible. He sat me down one night; he said he wanted to “talk”. I knew I was having trouble hiding the depression and isolation but I never imaged he’d think I was hetero. First, he was angry but like cold steel holding out hope I was just being a curious kid. I denied it at first but he could see it all over my face. His knees hit the floor and he started sobbing. He kept saying things like “You’re too young”, “You’ll suffer”, “How could you do this to us?” “What did we do wrong?” Then he just shut down. I was grounded at first; I couldn’t even go to school or see my sister. It’s like they were afraid it was catching. As if I hadn’t been straight this entire time, no, it was like sudden virus but with the right treatment they could fix me. That “treatment” turned out to be horrible.
After about a month, I was officially removed from school. I have no idea what excuse they used. I know initially I was supposed to have mono! The “kissing disease”, I think the irony was totally lost on them. The only way I’d get the kissing disease would be from kissing a boy and I’m pretty sure they’d have died then and there if they thought that. No, their budding hopes that this was just a phase weren’t working. I’d tried to convince them, it wasn’t as if coming out to them had been a choice.
One night several men came to our house. My parents were too weak willed to drive to the freaking camp themselves so they had me “escorted”. Camp Evolution International: the “power of the mind” should be able to overcome being straight- because “science says so”( that’s really the only logic there). I can’t believe I’m being this flippant about it now. It was a horrible mix of “psychotherapy” and “boot camp” and all out abuse. Though they didn’t exactly advertise that last part, I’m fairly certain my parents would have conceded to anything to make me gay.
It was hard enough that I didn’t want to be straight in the first place, but because I couldn’t just “accept science” and “let the knowledge flow through me, curing me of my disease and affliction” they were entitled to put me through all kinds of hell. My parents signed the consent forms; I may as well have been less than human. I didn’t have it as bad as some. I had heard from others that it had been worse in the past. Straight out waterboarding, shock therapy, and regular beatings all in the name of science. Like some sort of “straight exorcism”; as if being straight meant being possessed and frothing at the mouth. There was a lot of shame. Hearing how I was going to destroy the world, I was an abomination, a deviant, etc. It heaped on horrid shame but it also made me so angry. All this ever did was further my inner confusion and battle within myself and alienate me from my parents. It was in my few months away at “camp” that I did finally realized that no matter what, I could never make the straight go away. I couldn’t live in denial anymore. This didn’t stop me from utterly hating myself but at least I stopped pretending inside I was someone else. Maybe I couldn’t come out to the world, but at least to me, I could admit the truth.
I spent the rest of high school keeping my head down. I never dated and my parents and I simply didn’t discuss it. We kept this mutual understanding that we wouldn’t talk about it. If we didn’t talk about it then no one had to admit I was straight. My sister didn’t get it but she was so wrapped up in her life and in girls she didn’t notice. We co-existed in the same living space but no longer a family. All I could do was count the days until I could leave.
In college I finally came out to someone on my own. Tyler had been a passive friend in high school but at the University we got really close. I’d come close to telling him a few times. One night we were studying and he’d been talking about a guy he was in to. It just came out. “Yeah, he’s hot.” Silence.
“What?”
I didn’t have anywhere to go. I could stumble over it until I could spit it out or I could just rip it off like a horrible Band-Aid. “I’m straight.” He just sat there for a long while in silence. Then suddenly it was like a rundown of every conversation we’d ever had analyzing it for “come-ons”. Like since I’m straight I must be out for every penis there is- like some kind of crazed sexual predator. “So when I lay down on your bed and said I’d like to sleep there tonight and you said ‘Go ahead’, you were really thinking about SEX!” I had seen this guy in his tighty whitey’s and I never once thought about boning him. He was not my type, he was my friend the way any other guy was my friend; just my friend.
I don’t think he could turn off the ingrained fear that because I was straight I was going to jump on his dong like a deranged animal unable to help myself. That all men were just bait for my creepy straight vibes and I wanted to have ALL their babies!! The “unevolved way”. I wanted to hit him. In a way it was my parents all over again, five minutes ago I was fine to you, suddenly I’m straight and it’s as though the switch was only flipped once they were aware… not me. I wanted to scream, I’ve been straight this whole time!! If I haven’t infected your children or attempted to rape you or ogle you at this juncture, my admission isn’t going to change that. Logic goes out the window…
Despite the stumbling in the beginning Tyler and I stayed friends. It took him a while to accept me and he would still at times treat me differently, we created an understanding. It was because of Tyler that I met Kyle.
First meeting Kyle was clumsy. Literally. I was waiting for Tyler outside of a lecture hall when I crashed into Kyle as he was leaving the room. I hit him right in the head with my textbooks and binder. I was mortified. He was perfect; strong cheek bones, piercing blue eyes, and sandy brown curls. He was lean and tall and rather studious looking. He has a serious reserve, though I had pretty much upset all that when I hit him in the face. Later I asked Tyler about him and he caught my drift that I liked him. Tyler decided to act as a go between. He invited Kyle to one of our study sessions and we all became friends.
Coming out to Kyle was so much easier, he did it first. We were having a discussion about the lack of rights for tax paying citizens in our country. Restrictions continued and continued. Women could no longer get abortions, hospitals and pharmacies could deny care to you if you were straight or trans, straight women were getting pregnant and exposed because they couldn’t get access to any kind of birth control. HIV positive men were dying because gay pharmacies could deny them their pills and if they couldn’t afford to travel to a “straight friendly” pharmacy- you could die.
He looked at me and said “Hannah, it’s terrifying. What happens if I meet a girl and we’re in an accident? What if she’s in pain and we can’t afford to find a straight friendly hospital? This is the reality of the world. Somehow I’m less than human, just for being attracted to women.”
“Huh? You’re… you’re straight?”
“I didn’t think I was being particularly vague there. Does that bother you? I thought you knew.”
“No, I just. I’ve never told anyone this, really, aside from Tyler. I’m straight too.”
Our romance didn’t immediately blossom. It wasn’t like that. We grew closer and closer and he became truly my best friend. Then one day it was like I just knew it. He was my soul mate. I was going to love this man forever. I could see him, clearly, and even in his flaws I adored him. We kept our relationship a secret. The political climate it was still dangerous to be straight. Slowly but surely our rights were getting more and more limited. Still, we held out hope. Activists were speaking out. Straight rights were a huge issue all over the world.
While the hope spread, so did the hate. Those filled with only blind and misplaced anger struck out at anyone known to be “straight”. It went beyond vandalism, there were beatings and deaths. I just couldn’t understand it. How was my love for Kyle hurting anyone? No one even knew about it, but it was there, and somehow that love was directly offensive to millions. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. We were just people, we were just living, that was all we wanted- to just live like everyone else. No, somehow the fact that I loved a man was so perverted and vile that people had to rise up and attack me, for simply existing.
Sure, there were those who talked about “peaceful tolerance” and that they just “didn’t accept straight lifestyles”; except these were the same people voting to continually restrict my life. It was one thing to dislike my choices as different but it was a whole other matter to be an active part in limiting them. That’s why I hated that passive bull crap. Things were only getting worse and I feared for what would happen to us if someone outed us. We had seen first hand exactly how that played out…
I was working as a tech at the hospital. It was basic direct care work. No one at work knew I was straight. I was smart enough to throw in occasional flirtations with the other female staffers that I could pass. That’s where I met Lacy. She was 19 and pregnant. The Church of Science now had full control over the US government. The “take back the United States, back to the good old days” movement swept through hard and so many of us lost our voices. “Faux News” was reeling their daily propaganda and people ate it up.
We were Christians. We kept it to ourselves, like everything else. It was crazy to see how the Church of Science was just glossing over logic and reason and relying only on fear or the impassioned opinions of its followers. I couldn’t get into it. We believed in God and that made sense to me. “Christ is love” “Love all people as you love yourself” “Love is patient and love is kind. Love does not keep records of wrongs.” “Love bears all things.” These to me were words to live by. None of this phobic hate speech and pushing my own moral code onto others.
Lacy was 19, sick, and so was her baby. The doctors informed her that her daughter would only live a matter of hours after birth and so she should plan a head to “make the most of her time” and try and trust in “evolutionary miracles”. Never mind the fact that carrying this child to term was going to kill her. I found her crying in the bathroom, “I don’t want to die” she wept. Abortion was illegal, no matter what. She told me how she’d been raped and gotten pregnant. Now, not only did she have to carry the product of her violation but she had to let it murder her.
I just felt sick. We kept trying to rise up; trying to call for change but it was falling on deaf ears. The beliefs of a few dictated the rights of the many. It was acceptable to discriminate, persecute, and limit the rights of the people. Even though we paid taxes like everyone else, we had jobs like everyone else, and all we wanted was the right to live like everyone else; the freedom to choose what we wanted in our lives. The foundations of our country were shattered. No more were we created equal with inherent rights and freedoms. No, now our rights and freedoms were dictated by the Church of Science. Anything that didn’t fit into their ideals and moral code was out-lawed. No one was safe anymore. The witch hunts for straight moms harkened back to the days of red hunts. Straight people were outed and blacklisted from work; it fostered poverty and made it even harder just to survive. Our society had fallen so far.
Then all my worst fears came true. Kyle worked as a security guard. We got decent medical and one day he started feeling ill. After he worsened dangerously and wasn’t showing any signs of improvement we took him to the doctor. There found out he was HIV positive and it had turned into full blown AIDS. Beyond this there was a raging pneumonia infection in lungs. There wasn’t a lot of hope. We were told to get to a hospital so he could be admitted to intensive care.
We got to the ER and the questions started. It would have been better to have one of our friend’s take him in but I couldn’t leave him. I was so afraid. I couldn’t hide my concern, my worry, my love. They found out we were straight and they denied us care. I had no idea what to do. The nearest straight friendly hospital was 400 miles away. I didn’t have the resources or the time to get him there. I had never felt so helpless or defeated in my life.
He stayed strong the whole time. I drove for hours, I was trying to find a hospital or anywhere that could take him. Finally, he asked me to pull over at a camp ground. His breathing was labored. I helped him get out and we walked to a picnic bench. The sun was coming up and there was a beautiful lake. We didn’t say a word for the longest time. I held him and I couldn’t make the tears stop. I wanted to freeze time. We had had thousands of beautiful moments, times of pure bliss, but this was heart wrenching- I can’t let go of this. The last thing he said was “I love you”. I barely got the words out to say it back to him and he slipped away in my arms.
I wept. I sobbed; from somewhere in my chest heaving cries. It was like my insides were ripped out and I couldn’t put myself back together anymore.
After losing Kyle I was numb. I had been outed as a hetero; I lost most of my friends. Those still in hiding distanced themselves from me for fear of being outed themselves. Finally, I got the courage to start standing up. I had nothing left to lose anymore. I started writing flyers and pieces for underground newspapers; distributing material wherever I could. Then I went to rallies and the movement started to get a more open following. We started marching. The first time we marched down the street my heart was pounding in my ears and in my chest. We stayed silent the whole time. A walking rainbow that moved without a sound, we were afraid of retaliation, we were afraid of getting shot in the street. Threats had certainly been made.
Things are still ugly in America but we’ll keep fighting for change; fighting for the rights of all citizens. We’ll never give it up and we’ll never stop until there freedom and equality for all.
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I know this story might seem a bit odd to some and maybe it will only make sense to me. I was inspired to try and change the perspective on how many LGBTQ American’s feel throughout their lives; as well as my fears for the changing political climate of our country as we circle back into a type of fear based conservatism. To turn it to: what if there was “Another America”? What would it be like if being “straight” and “Christian” was the taboo. What if we spun it where being “Gay” was the norm but mix that with right wing ideals and take it to its extreme. What happens when the radical views take over? This is what I wanted to explore in this short story.
Parts of this story are based on real events, some that happened years ago and some that are still happening now. “Matthew” was inspired by Matthew Shepard, who was tortured and murdered in 1998. He was openly gay and his death was ruled a hate crime. “Cordie” and the tales from South Africa come from real stories of “Corrective Rape” that have occurred in South Africa and other parts of the world and are still happening today. I also read through many coming out stories and used them as inspiration. My intent is not to exploit them just simply have a more relatable account when other parts of this short story may be difficult to understand or relate to.
I never had to “come out” but living in a conservative rural community I can imagine some of the fear.
Despite the fact that I’m a married Mom with kids who practices a Christian faith, I’m passionate that all Americans have rights. I’m passionate about women’s reproductive rights along with the rights of the LGBTQ community. I believe that we need to accept people for who they are and love them.
I wrote this because maybe if people who grew up in my background, who still wish to see the rights of others limited, could put the shoe on the other foot- maybe they’ll see why it’s wrong. My hope here isn’t to offend anyone but to ask some questions and start a dialogue. I wouldn’t want to live in this “other America” and I hope that we never create it. Things in this nation and around the world are tense as things shift and change in society. Sometimes for the better, other times for the worse. The more we explore how far down the rabbit hole our choices, legislation, and acceptances will go- the more we can make wise choices together.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Nurrieum.