THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

One year later we moved away from that small town where I knew everybody and where my friends were people I had known my entire life and we moved to the capital of the state. The city of San Luis Potosi was a frightening and enormous place where I feared I'd get lost, but the prospect of a new place was exciting; after all, hadn't I been praying that my dad would get that job so we could move there? So I pushed aside my fear and gave into the excitement of a fancy new school. Little did I know what was in store for me. The friends I left behind never seemed to notice I was different, but one week before I started the 9th grade at the new school a perfect stranger walking by my new house yelled "faggot!" at me. It was an omen for the hell I would encounter at my new school.

I was short and skinny and apparently I had the word "sissy" tattooed on my forehead. Every day of that school year I was called names and pushed around by all the boys in my classroom. I would cry every Sunday night in my room because I knew what morning would bring. My catholic upbringing and the thought of the pain I would cause my mother kept me from taking my life but I wanted to die. I couldn't understand how people—including my gym and shop teachers—could be so cruel to another human being. How can a society make it acceptable for someone to be tortured and ostracized simply for being different? Only three people were nice to me that entire year. One night I accidentally left a candle burning in my room close to my bed, and in the early hours of that May 7 the corner of my mattress started smoldering and filling the room with smoke while I slept, and I was dreaming that my neighbors were smoking and that I couldn't breathe. I remember asking them to please stop smoking when suddenly I woke up and realized what was happening and immediately went into a panic mode and rushed to get some water. My dad was away and my mom woke up when she heard me coming and going. We have always been very close, so together we took the mattress to the backyard and hosed it down. After the whole ordeal was over we sat there and I started crying because I thought I would get in trouble for carelessly leaving a lit candle, but she was just relieved I had woken up in time. And then it hit me: I was also crying because I had woken up; because my life wasn't over like I wanted it to be; because I would have to go back to school in a few hours; because I would have to endure hell for another two months.

When you are that age and you are being tortured every day it's hard to see the end in sight, but eventually the last day of class came and went. While everyone else was excited about graduation and the dance and their dates I was over the moon with the fact that I would never have to see those people again. I didn't attend any of the "festivities" and have never set foot in that hellhole again, not even on the sidewalk. I went on to high school and met new people, and made new friends and little by little put that year behind me. And although the scars and the memories are there, the healing and the pride of having survived are stronger within me.

In time I and my family came to accept who I was and who I am. I am extremely fortunate to live in a place where not only I am accepted for who I am, I am celebrated for being who I am and that has no price! To think I would have missed out on all this love and all the amazing experiences and people I've met in the last 15 years if I had died that year...

It is sad to think that someone out there could be going through something similar or worse in this day and age. Hang in there ... it gets better.