Hurt by hate, fighting for pride

As a bespectacled gay black nerd growing up in a rough Houston neighborhood, I’d been a target for bullies since I was 6. I learned the hard way how to spot the cautionary signs.

This time was different. I was walking one sweaty summer night back in 1996 near the Houston Museum District, not the “ghetto” where I had grown up. It was a yuppie haven with artisanal coffee shops and art galleries. It was 9 p.m. on a Wednesday when I was sucker-punched without warning.

The first blow stunned me. The second hit, accompanied by the slur “queer,” knocked me back. The third strike was a kick that drew blood.

The blows rained down so fast I lost count. I instinctively curled myself into a ball to wait out the assault hoping I’d have all of my organs intact when they were done.

The two white men who jumped me weren’t satisfied beating me up. They stole my wallet, my shoes, and my sense I could ever be safe. After their fists smashed into my flesh, they straightened their clothes and walked away. I stayed on the ground, dazed.

After an hour, I staggered down the street with tears flowing, my front tooth broken from a kick to the face. I stopped a police officer who was driving by. I told him how I’d been attacked.

“If you weren’t out spreading AIDS, you wouldn’t have gotten your ass kicked,” the cop said. He drove off, leaving me trembling with frustration.

I’d been pummeled with vicious slurs like “sissy” and “punk” since elementary school. I’d witnessed followers of Christ exclaim their disgust at gay people.

My father expressed Southern Baptist revulsion at having a fag for a son, with warnings that if I didn’t repent for being a queer I would go to hell. That was what he said to me the night before my mom was to be buried.

My father, an evangelical Christian salesman, had made an unannounced visit to my grandmother’s house where I was staying while in town for my mother’s funeral.

From the doorway, he slowly looked me up and down. It had been five years since we’d seen each other. Instead of offering comforting words, he urged me to “get right with the Lord” by giving up my “homosexual lifestyle.”

Wary of reverting to a scared little boy, I said calmly, “You have to leave. I don’t let anyone talk to me like that anymore.” He stumbled backward and mumbled an unapologetic apology shocked by how much I’d changed.

My first steps into activism in Houston had become a selfassured sprint when I’d moved to D.C. I worked with the Human Rights Campaign to pass nondiscrimination laws. As I became stronger, I played a leading role in legalizing marriage equality in D.C. in 2009. I left D.C. for New York to help win the freedom to marry nationwide.

I didn’t think we’d still be fighting for basic civil rights 20 years after I was bashed that night in Houston. But we are.

We are working to pass a national law so that gay and trans people can’t be fired from their jobs.

I’m confident we’ll get there. Scar tissue I earned from years of being beaten and mocked by bullies has solidified into armor.

Now it’s a protective shield I’ll wear on Sunday as I march in New York’s Pride Parade.

Scar tissue has solidified into armor

Crawford is a writer and campaign director for a non-profit organization.