Me, Myself, They

by Joshua M. Ferguson

  But I refused to be prey. I summoned all of the pain and suffering in my life: the abuse from my classmates in grade school, the bullies that tormented me in high school, the teachers and principals who looked the other way and wouldn’t help, the friends who turned their backs on me, the sexual assaults. I channelled it all into saving myself that day. It was all preparation. I was now a survivor in my early twenties. The nightmare that had been my adolescent life was now my weapon, my armour, and my spells, reworked in my dreams, where I wielded superpowers to fend off that monster invading my reality.

  My feminine gender expression has always evoked fear in others. I used to think that coming out as gay at age fourteen in the small town of Napanee, Ontario, was the cause of my being bullied, the reason for the harassment. Now I realize that the thing that incited the most fear in others, the most insecurity and the intense need to destroy me, was my gender expression. The bullies that entered my life at age fourteen, when I finally decided to express my gender openly in high school, targeted me mostly because of how I presented myself. People who are assigned male at birth but who present feminine are either seen as betraying some sort of unspoken order of patriarchy, or they are automatically labelled gay, and this presumed sexuality incites insecurity and perhaps unwelcome thoughts and feelings in others.

  I had, of course, experienced bullying in elementary school, and I had been haunted by the dehumanizing feelings instilled in me by Dr. Turner’s gender conversion therapy since the age of eight. During elementary school I felt like an outcast. Assuming the female roles from popular cartoons in the games we would play in the schoolyard (like April from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Susan from The Chronicles of Narnia) set me conspicuously apart. From grade three onwards, my repeated announcements that I was a girl born in a boy’s body sent shockwaves through the school. It set the stage for the joking and taunting that followed. This treatment darkened and intensified when I told my classmates that I had a crush on a boy named Matt, who was three grades above me. Matt was a beautifully handsome and rugged boy, and I was drawn to his athleticism. He was the school jock, but he seemed sensitive, and his face was really pretty.

  I couldn’t figure it out at the time. I could only feel the sharp loneliness that followed me every day. I could sense that my presence was unwanted, and that even the teachers and administration had singled me out as different. I was the odd friend, the weird classmate, the “difficult” child at home, and the “gifted” student at school. I felt alone even among most of my friends.

  Curiously, the school closed in 2009, a theme that seems to haunt many of the places I studied as a kid and teenager — they literally don’t exist any more. It’s strangely symbolic since I struggled to authentically exist in those spaces that now don’t exist themselves. Visiting these schools that no longer exist is a resounding reminder of the impermanence of suffering. It’s all going to be the distant past one day, one way or another.

  When I was five and we lived in Chapleau, in Northern Ontario, we were very close to the Fox Lake Reserve of the Chapleau Cree First Nation, and when we lived in Napanee, my elementary school was in the Ontario countryside near the unceded and ancestral land of the Tyendinaga Mohawk First Nation. I believe that being in close proximity to First Nations reserves when I was growing up helped me form a deep respect for First Nations people, and an awareness of the atrocities committed in the interests of colonization. Part of my discomfort with Napanee, and the lack of cultural diversity in my elementary school, could have emanated from a confusion about why white people, including my family, occupied Indigenous land. I stand in solidarity with the First Nations people of Canada. The privilege afforded to me as a white person is one that I will never take for granted. The land I lived on as a kid, both in Chapleau and Napanee, always felt uneasy to me.

  Napanee is a very small town. I don’t know why we tend to rationalize ignorance by characterizing a town as “small,” but many people in town were indeed small-minded when it came to people like me who appeared to be different. I don’t want to paint a bad picture of Napanee; it’s a lovely town, and it still holds a special place in my heart. I’ve learned in my adult life not to judge people based on where they’re from or where they live. It’s wrong to generalize that all people who live in rural areas or small towns are ignorant, but rural life can exacerbate fear of the unknown and the foreign. Some of the people who lived in Napanee certainly weren’t kind to me.

  The school was a short distance from our home. I could see it from my front yard, about a ten-minute walk away. I could never get away from the school’s presence in my life. The feelings of isolation, being bullied, treated like a freak travelled home with me. I eventually had to come to terms with how my classmates and teachers would look at me. The unconventional child. They would look at me with doubt and suspicion, as if I would somehow destroy their “quiet and comfortable” lives with my uniqueness.

  I don’t think much of their suspicion and disgust was intentionally directed at me. People can’t help themselves sometimes, and it’s easy for one child to stand out from the rest. I was the outsider in my school. People talked about little Josh. They whispered about me, had meetings about me, and tried to figure me out. Trying to figure out little Josh never ended, I guess; it continued on until I finally figured me out, and now I find that people trying to figure me out in my adulthood isn’t so discomforting.

  I was depressed when I started puberty. The thin moustache growing above my lip, the body hair, and other changes created a heaviness in my mind and my feelings about my body. I was carrying the changes in puberty that were meant for someone else. But I had a moment of clarity when I turned fourteen. My trans truth, hidden and confined, broke through the cracks, and I wanted so much to be me. It was the weekend, and I decided that I would go to school on Monday in an outfit that was entirely silver. I thought that duct tape would do the trick, so I used up every last piece we had in our house, and then I went on a hunt for more in our neighbourhood. I knocked on two dozen doors to ask for duct tape to complete my outfit. I was determined to see it through. I find it ironic now that almost every family in my neighbourhood contributed to my duct-taped silver outfit. They had no idea what they were contributing to! I spray-painted my shoes silver, and, like a spell, I also painted my initials on the back of my bedroom door (which was met with a nonplussed reaction from my parents). That day, I began to gather the chrysalis of resilience that would eventually save me. The duct tape was both a representation of my rebellion and my armour.

  I wanted to wear this outfit to school to come out to everyone by declaring my diversity on the surface of my body. I used the word “gay” at the time, but I don’t think I was ever gay. I just didn’t have the word “queer” at the time (other than it being using as an insult to wound me), so “gay” was the next best thing to say. I had come out as gay to my parents, my grandparents, and brothers a few months prior. My family was generally accepting, though they expressed a deep worry about the hard life that I would have to face. None of my friends knew.

  I woke up that morning emboldened by my silvery gender expression. I wasn’t nervous. My distance from fear was necessary to avoid being trapped in its grip forever. This was the first time in my life, since my early days of childhood freedom before the gender conversion therapy, that I’d felt free in my expressive spirit. For the first time in years, I had found the courage to be me. I got on the bus with a brave face. And that moment changed everything for me.

  Other people’s fear, bitter insecurity, bigotry, and rage almost ruined me. I can still feel the sting of their disgust as I stepped onto that bus and sat there for what seemed like forever as we made our way to school. I can still feel the intense energy of stares pouring over my shoulders. “Faggot.” “Freak.” “Homo.” “Fairy.” The words would soon become an everyday part of my life. And there were other words, words that used my surname with personal insults to wound me even deeper,
like “Faguson.” Yes, this highly unimaginative term became the label for me and members of my family. This offence was perpetrated by some very unhappy kids that likely came from unhappy homes in my neighbourhood. I won’t name them, though. I won’t do to them what they did to me, and they certainly don’t deserve to be lifted up in these pages.

  The bullying and harassment didn’t stop with verbal assaults. When I stepped off the bus, more than a thousand other teenagers awaited me. Why did I think that I would be safe dressed in such an outfit? I was naive to expect kindness from my friends, classmates, teachers, and community. I was so wrong. I underestimated the hate that swiftly accumulated, that was directed towards me that day and for so many days to follow. I was pushed into lockers, tripped walking down hallways, spat on, and verbally assaulted on a daily basis, even in front of teachers who were supposed to protect me. Not one teacher ever stepped in to stop the abuse. The bullying was open and explicit. It wasn’t happening in the shadows. No one came to my defence. I was alone, and pushed severely to the margins, a place no human being should ever inhabit. I was treated inhumanely. The school and faculty need to hold that shame for not taking action.

  With time, the verbal assaults developed into more direct and aggressive behaviour intended to rid the school of my presence. I found the spitting to be the most dehumanizing form of hatred directed at me. I don’t know how anyone can spit on another human being, or anything that is sentient, for that matter. But people began to viciously spit on me as I passed them in the hallways, or even as I sat in class. They would also spit gum into my hair on the school bus. I would have to stand at the mirror later, my vision blurred by swelling tears, and cut out the gum along with parts of my hair, freeing myself of their saliva. But I wouldn’t bow down to the hate, and I continued to attend school throughout this abuse.

  And then the vile words, the comments about my genitals, the pushing and shoving and spitting weren’t enough. Some people were now saying that they wanted to kill me. I began to receive death threats. My peers, fellow human beings, thought about ending my existence, and they told me about this desire numerous times.

  In the early 1990s, I was one of very few openly gay people in Napanee. I developed a reputation because of my outspoken identity and expression, and it followed me everywhere. My classmates felt emboldened by the inaction of my teachers and principals. Their inaction provided the warrant to mistreat me. As the death threats became more regular, my parents scheduled a meeting with the school principal. Sadly, I don’t remember the names of these people, the teachers and principals. They are just spectres to me now, which is fitting, as they didn’t really exist in my life other than as apathetic shadows who ignored the inhumanity of my situation. Their silence only made things worse. I was placed in the care of adults who were supposed to protect me and guide me, and they failed. It’s shameful.

  During the meeting with my parents, the principal told them that the school had never faced anything like this before, and that the faculty weren’t prepared to deal with it. Her suggestion — that my parents find another high school for me to attend — only made things worse. The school effectively made me the problem, when I was the victim. I had no real choice but to leave the school.

  I feel bad for my parents. The school and the community left them alone to face this issue. It couldn’t have been easy for them to know how to help a child who was being verbally and physically abused and threatened daily. My two younger brothers, Adam and James, also had to face the sting of this abuse in their own ways, because my reputation carried over to them. They were attached to the pain and suffering indirectly, and had to attend a school that had forced out their older sibling. Adam, two years younger than me, protected me and my younger brother James as best he could. Beginning to grow into the hulking warrior physique imagined in the role-playing games we used to play in his adolescence (his favourite character was the Incredible Hulk from Marvel Comics), Adam embodied a protector energy, but the number of bullies in our high school was too much for one person to handle. He is also emotionally sensitive, with a bright imagination. It must have been painful for him. I regret that members of my family had to feel of the effects of bigotry. Adam was visiting my Mom and me in Kingston on the night that I was attacked. The image of him hovering outside the police cruiser, in protector mode, while I sat inside being interviewed by the attending officers still makes me feel safe, despite the fact that I was scared to death that night.

  When I left the high school in Napanee, it felt like an expulsion, even though none of this was my fault. I was just being me. What came next was a dark time in my life. I was forced to attend a new high school in a much smaller town located between Napanee and Kingston. My experience there ended up being even worse. But, for the first time, people also started coming to my defence. I wasn’t completely alone, as there were other “freaks” there who were also marginalized. But I was still a very visible target, even among the other outcasts.

  On the final day of my first semester at the new school, the bullying culminated in a dramatic event with hundreds of people outside on the school grounds. About one third of the people outside that day wanted to protect me; mostly they were young women, some of them punks, goths, or geeks, who bravely stood up for me. The rest of the crowd was made up of people who bullied me and wanted me to leave the school, even if it meant taking violent action. These two groups faced off against each other. Screaming and yelling ensued, and then the bullies started to throw things at us. Administrators from the school intervened, and my parents were once again called into the principal’s office to discuss my future.

  And they heard it all again. The administration there couldn’t handle the problem that I presented. Of course, they weren’t officially expelling me, but they told my parents that schools in Kingston, a larger city, would be better able to protect me from the bullies. So, another move to a new school, my third in the span of a year. I felt completely rejected and lost. My depression worsened. I started to fear for my life, but I also started to experience suicidal ideation that increased with the intensity of being dehumanized. The truth of my gender identity and expression suffered because of this abuse. I started to shelter myself, my truth slipped away from everyone: my parents, my brothers, my friends, and myself. I just couldn’t be me. I wouldn’t allow myself to be me any more. I had to be something else to exist and to survive, and it made me psychologically, spiritually, and physically sick.

  I went back into the closet, not figuratively but literally. The closet in my bedroom became one of the only safe spaces where I could escape from the suffering. I would turn off the lights, crawl into my closet, and just shut myself down. I was so hurt, so deeply damaged, that I barely found the strength of spirit to cry. But eventually tears stung my eyes and flowed down my face as I sat in the dark. I wouldn’t bother to move anything, and I could often feel the sharp edges of toys beneath me digging into my skin. This space comforted me by relieving the powerful, overwhelming pain I was experiencing. The darkness inside the closet swallowed me up whole. I couldn’t see myself, my hands, or my body. The closet became a prison for the screams that I could hear internally shouted out in confusion about the way people were treating me. I would sit for hours in that closet, moving into the corner where I could feel the walls around me. There was nothing and everything in that space all at once. It was my emotional home in pitch-black, where I couldn’t see, but I could feel in waves of suffering that overcame me.

  Around this time, age sixteen or so, I also began turning to drugs and alcohol to relieve the pain and numb my existence. It’s devastating to experience daily verbal and physical abuse. It digs into your soul and drowns your spirit. I was suffering. Throughout my high school years I wanted desperately to just be myself, but other people wouldn’t let me. So I stole my parents’ pills, took all of the drugs I could find in the schoolyard, and drank to excess. This left me vulnerable in often dangerous situations, and ope
ned me up to another form of abuse — sexual. I’m not saying that substance use automatically creates spaces for sexual assault. But, in my case, it did, and more than once.

  The only way to find romantic or sexual connections when I was a teenager was through the first gay chat rooms, simple black-and-white interfaces with the odd picture here and there of a user. I embarked on dangerous encounters initiated in these chat rooms at ages fifteen and sixteen. I would always lie about my age by a few years, and I had no difficulty getting men in their forties and beyond to meet me. I was obviously a teenager, but my age didn’t stop them from taking advantage. I was preyed upon multiple times by men in their thirties and forties who jumped at the opportunity to be with me, to sexually control another human being.

  One dark night in Belleville, Ontario, when I was sixteen, a man in his late twenties sexually assaulted me while I was unconscious after a night of drinking moonshine. I woke up while he was violating me and hazily told him to stop. I remember seeing through this mist, a fog, that seemed to be fused to my vision. I didn’t have the strength to make him stop. I didn’t give him permission. I felt the force of him on me, big and strong, leaving me completely powerless in my drunken state. All I could do was watch the light flicker in the background, numb to what he was doing to my body. I knew that he was acting without my consent, and without my involvement. I recall passing out again, and then waking up in the morning alone in this house where a family was living. I don’t remember if he was a friend of that family’s, or if I had invited him there. The trauma of the event has blacked out the parts of the assault that seem too impossible to bear.

  I had no idea what I was doing. I thought drinking would reinforce my rebellious nature and hopefully numb the pain. But instead it created more pain and psychological wounds. I thought that I was making things better by finding distance from my home, from Napanee, and by meeting these men who would take me away, even if just temporarily. I know that what happened wasn’t my fault, even though it felt like it at the time. I was sexually assaulted that night. There was nothing that I could have done about it. I will always carry the assault with me.