Chet Kabara - Fairy child that did not expect to live long enough to grow up

Chet Kabara - Fairy child that did not expect to live long enough to grow up

 

My parents were physically beautiful. Drawn to each other by desire, they foolishly thought they could create a family together. They were wrong. Wrong to think they could. Wrong for each other. They were simply wrong people.
 
Their first born son, me, was too sensitive, too bright, too talented. To them, it seemed they were robbed of their rightful offspring and were given fairy child instead. It was as if they were raising an alien being. They could not love such a strange creature and could not find the will to take care of it.

I knew from an early age that I did not belong with them. But children are dependent on their parents and I had to find a way of living with them that would minimize their violence to my being. I did not know what I was, but I knew I was in danger.
 
Back in the 1950's nonconforming children were a shame the family. They were thrown to the savages to toughen them up, or better yet, not survive, creating a sad story of loss for their family, making their neglect somehow noble.
 
Yes I was a gay kid. There was no place for me. As far as I could tell I was not supposed to exist and there were no others like me. It was an isolation that would be hard for an adult to bear, but devastating for a small child. I did not expect to live long enough to grow up.
 
I was ostracized, abused, neglected and molested. I did not know that all of it was an abomination. There were adults throwing away their human decency for the chance to feel powerful and superior at the expense of a defenseless child. One woman berated and slapped me for being molested by her husband. I remember her gleeful smile at my tears.
 
Growing up I had no idea that life would get any better. I heard rumors of queers who had sex with children to recruit them into their ranks. They were evil depraved monsters. I cold not see myself joining the company of such deviants. I wasn't like that at all.
 
I tried to hide who I was, not very successfully. But it seemed that if I did not own my sexuality it was a little more acceptable. People would leave me alone.
 
I was not the only one living like this, but none of us knew about the others. It was in this dark stinking rot of intolerance that the seeds of "Gay Pride" began to take root.
 
As we grew older we began to be aware that there was a secret underground of homosexuals that existed just out of sight. We began to see signs in one another that we knew were in ourselves. The radical idea that someone else would desire us because we were gay was life changing.
 
In high school, as my hormones kicked in, I began to believe that I had a right to exist and that the ignorant bulling around me was not worth ruining my life over. I was not inferior or sick, I was special. I was going to have a life of my own, away from all of it.
 
When I heard about the Gay riots in New York on the TV, something in me just bubbled up and in my mind shouted "Yes!"
 
I knew that change was coming.