You Can Play is dedicated to ensuring equality, respect and safety for all athletes, without regard to sexual orientation and/or gender identity.
You Can Play works to guarantee that athletes are given a fair opportunity to compete, judged by other athletes and fans alike, and only by what they contribute to the sport or their team’s success.
You Can Play seeks to challenge the culture of locker rooms and spectator areas by focusing only on an athlete’s skills, work ethic and competitive spirit.
Pride Tape is a badge of support from teammates, coaches, parents and pros to young LGBTQ players. It shows every player that they belong on the ice. That we’re all on the same team. And with the support of over 1,000 Kickstarter backers, it’s now a reality.
Buying Pride Tape will help support LGBTQ youth outreach initiatives, such as You Can Play and the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services. That means every roll of tape will make an impact on and off the ice.
I don’t remember everything from my old home, but the memories I do have often haunt me nightly—especially those relating to my struggles with speech. Because my life is mine and private, I will only briefly explain a few key parts of my background. I come from an abusive home and the majority of the physical abuse came from my two older brothers. This is important to know to understand my story.
Think of a newborn baby, unloved and unwanted. Though I can’t remember it, I was told that I stayed in my crib nearly 100% of the time. It was my older brothers’ job to take care of me. One year old, two years old, three years old.... I can only remember parts of my life around that time. Because we never celebrated my birthday, I’m unsure of my age at the time of my memories. I didn’t learn when my birthday was until I turned twelve and that was only because the new school I attended announced students’ birthdays over the intercom at the beginning of the day. I know that around the age of three or four was when the worst of the abuse began (or at least those are my earliest memories of it).
I was forced to speak in my home, though I couldn’t speak properly. I have a stutter and a lisp and, when I do speak, you have to stain to hear me because my voice is so quiet. If I misspoke, I would be punished. If I stuttered I would be called names or punished. If my brothers heard me when I spoke, I would be punished. To make matters worse, if I cried, they would be punished, and I would suffer worse punishment if that happened.
So, think of a small three or four year old boy trying to say, “I need to go to the bathroom.” If I said it aloud, I would be punished for saying it wrong... and then I didn’t dare leave the room without permission. What could I do? Nothing. Either way, I would be punished. At ages five, six, and seven, it didn’t change.
Now, I can’t speak more than two word sentences because I struggle with keeping words in order. I can say “I’m hungry,” but if I try to say “I am hungry. Can I eat?” it will come out as “I am eat can I hungry.” I don’t know why my brain confuses words. All I know is that I say it wrong even though I wasn’t thinking it that way.
When I started school and I had to communicate with teachers and students, it didn’t take me long to figure out that writing was the best form of communication for me. Then later, when something very bad happened at home, I was sent away. I had to talk to police, social workers, and foster people. All of them were too busy to allow me the time to write everything out and read what I wrote; and speaking was never an option. At that point in my life, not only did I have speech problems, but I had a lot of fear to go with them. What would happen to me if I didn’t say what I meant to say to the police? Could I go to jail for that? I was scared of what they would do to me because my brother would beat me for it and the teachers sent me to the office for refusing to speak, so what punishment would the police give me? I know now that I wouldn't be in trouble for it, but I didn't know that then. I was so scared, and I felt so alone in this strange world.
The foster people I was sent to were worse than my family members, so I lied and said I made it all up - even though I had several broken bones - one so severe it required surgery to put my arm back together. Nevertheless, they sent me back home, and the cycle continued. Home or school, it didn’t matter where I was. I was bullied and abused because I couldn’t speak, and people were too impatient to wait for me to express myself in the only way I could: by writing. There was no hope for me. I was going to either make it or not in life. Nobody was going to save or help me. Teachers didn’t talk to me and my parents were never home. I was lost in a world that did nothing but abuse me. I was lucky if an adult even noticed me.
I don’t know if my life would have been different had I been able to speak, but what I DO know is it only took one little girl who cared enough and was patient enough to help me. I wonder why nobody else stopped and asked himself, “What’s wrong here? How can I help fix this? How can I help this kid who is clearly struggling?”
There are many kids like me and they depend on every adult to do one of two things to save their lives. One, help them! Two, show compassion. If your child, sister, wife, husband, anyone you have any sort of influence over belittles a person for their differences then you have failed as a compassionate person. Please stop them, talk to them, and TEACH them. Nobody can control another person, but (with the exception of your children), you can decide who is in your life. You may not have control over what your husband says or does, but what do you want him to teach your children? What would happen if it was your child who had the same speech problems that I do? Ask them to step into the shoes of the person they tease or belittle for one day. Every person is teachable if they have even the smallest kindness shown to them.
I have many speech problems. Some of them have been identified and some have yet to be identified. It’s very difficult not to be able to speak. If I’m hurt, scared, or upset, I have to depend on my writing and someone being willing to read what I write.
Over the past few days, I have seen the “Don’t Read This” challenge all over Facebook. It challenges people to go a whole day without reading anything in hopes you will understand how an illiterate person feels. I have a few challenges for you to try too. In truth, the only people who will try these challenges are people who truly want to know what people like me go through every day. You can say you understand, but trust me, you don’t understand the feeling of helplessness, hopelessness, and the feeling of being broken.
My challenges for you are to do two things on different days. On the first day, spend the day without speaking. You can make noises, but no words. That means no speaking to teachers, students, bosses, grocery clerks, police officers, NO ONE. Your only forms of communication are writing, typing, and body language. If you decided to take this challenge remember to have paper and pen with you. When I had to talk to the police, I was trying to talk about something extremely upsetting and I had to try to explain by writing. The second challenge is, the next time you are angry or upset, and I mean extremely upset or mad, express that only in writing. No words, no yelling, only writing and body language. After doing either or both of these challenges, you will understand on a small scale what I deal with every day.
According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) approximately 7.5 million people in the United States have trouble using their voices, and between 6 and 8 million people in the United States have some form of language impairment. It is also estimated by the NIDCD that more than 3 million Americans stutter, and more than 15 million individuals in the world stutter, most of whom began stuttering at a very early age. By the first grade, roughly five percent of children have noticeable speech disorders and the majority of these speech disorders have no known cause. To read more on this go to the NIDCD website. Thanks for reading this.~Timmy
I’m really scared today, it’s been a long day already and it just turned 7am. I had to wake and deal with a family that doesn’t understand me. They say they do, and they say they will protect me, but they look at me different then the they do each other. They send me off into the world that doesn’t understand me. As I wait by my bus stop, my stomach ties itself into knots. I know what is coming, and I can see it in my mind. I daydream about the quietness of my room, and the safety I find there. I try to imagine that I’m still warm and safe in my bed, but it doesn’t work. I know that the minute that bus stops, I will be entering their world. I watch the bus coming up the street and steel myself for what is to come. As the bus stop grows busier I hide behind a tree. It’s not hard for me to hide, because I’m small and easily overlooked.
When the bus stops I see all the kids running to get the good seats, which is easy because we are only the second stop. That means I have 12 more stops to sit through and 45 more minutes before I get to school. Most kids would think that was great. They have 45 minutes to hang out with their friends, but I don’t have friends. I have no one who will understand me and help me. As I enter the bus, I make eye contact with the driver. He gives me a little sneer and tells me to hurry up and be seated already. I immediately look down and try to hurry out of his sight. I have no ally there either.
Because I am still looking at the floor, I see the foot that pops out. I wish I wasn’t hustling, because I can’t slow down in enough time to miss the foot. As I fall to the dirty wet aisle floor, I hear the laughing and insults they fling at me. I bite back my scream and tears. I work hard trying to get up in the small space, all the while wishing it hadn’t rained today. Now, I will have mud stains on the front of my clothes all day.
I’m feeling lucky today, because there is an empty seat close to the front. Though the driver never helps me, at least the kids don’t hurt me as much if I’m in the front. Just as I begin to sit the driver hits the brakes hard, and I go flying across my seat and face-first into the window. “Retard!” I hear from more than one of the kids on the bus. It’s okay, I can handle this, I tell myself. Around this time the whispers start. I hear almost all of it because they don’t even try to whisper quietly.
“He can’t understand, because he’s a retard.”
“What a stupid little kid! I don’t know why his parents keep him!”
“I know his brother, he is nothing like it.”
“OMG! I think he touched me when he walked by! I hope I can’t catch what he has.”
It goes on and on, kids talking about me, like I can’t hear them. It hurts. There is this deep loneliness and sadness that I can’t make go away. Ever. I think about what they are saying and wonder why my parents keep someone like me around. I don’t even want to be around me. I disgust myself. I think if they were to send me away, I would understand. I feel sorry that I disgrace them like I do. I promise myself that I will try harder and work harder to be normal.
At the 5th stop, my stomach clenches, because that means it’s Chris's stop. At the beginning of the school year Chris told me we could be friends. I was so proud of myself! I had a friend! It was the best thing that happened to me in my whole life! I wrote notes to him, and he talked to me. I thought he really understood me. We were going to be best friends forever! Then the real world caught up to me and showed me what friends did to each other. Chris had used all the notes and letters I wrote him and made a small crude looking book. He had pasted them all on papers and stapled them together. I guess he made copies because there were about 50 of these books going around school. He named the book, A Day in the Life of a Mute Retarded Gay Boy. There it was for everyone to see, in my own handwriting. They all knew I not only couldn’t talk, but that I was gay.
For some reason that I can’t fathom, the fact that I have a speech impediment meant I was also retarded. I believed this for many years, until one day I decided to look up the word. And this is what I found.
Definition of RETARDED:
slow or limited in intellectual or emotional development or academic progress
re·tard·ed
adjective \ri-ˈtärd-əd\ (Medical Dictionary)
Medical Definition of RETARDED
sometimes offensive : slow or limited in intellectual or emotional development : characterized by mental retardation
That did not resemble me or the problems I had but everyone, including my family, has told me that, yes, I am a retard. So I go with it. Who am I to argue? Besides I see kids calling other kids “retard” all the time. So, maybe it wasn’t a bad name? I tell myself this, but it still hurts when they say it to me.
Anyway, it was Chris's stop and, any minute, I will be in my personal hell. I see his red hat first as he climbs the stairs. I loved that red hat. It used to be mine. It was the only gift I ever remembered getting from my dad. Chris took it about a week after his book went around school. I was so upset, I cried for hours that night. I still feel something crushing my heart when I see him wearing it. I thought I loved him. He was my hero. My first crush and my best and only friend. He knew how precious that hat was to me. Well, now the whole school knew it as well. It is a big joke and everyone laughs when they see him wearing my hat. And just like a rehearsed chorus, all the kids on the bus start laughing. I feel the tears beading up in my eyes, and quickly look down at my folded hands in my lap.
I swallow back the vomit rising in my throat, when I feel his arm come around my shoulder. He knows I can’t handle being touched. He does this to see if he can make me vomit today, as I have in the past. I wish I had the nerve to vomit on him, but he warned me what would happen if I did that. Not to mention, the bus driver who allowed this to continue always made me clean up my vomit. So, I was humiliated for being bullied.
At this time we have 28 minutes left on the bus. By the time I had made it to school, I was numb. I moved on autopilot and had turned my brain and emotions off to protect myself. I’m assuming this is where people get the impression that I am retarded in some way, but what I’m really doing is trying to survive. And now the easiest part of the day is done and it’s time for the real hard stuff, I must live through another day at school.
I want you to do something for me. I want you to go back and read this again. Only, this time, I want you to use yourself as the “I” in this story. Then think hard of all the times that you were one of those people laughing and calling names. Most people won’t admit to being one of them, but at some time during your life, you will have laughed, sneered, or made someone less fortunate than you feel low. Just because they can’t speak for themselves (for whatever reasons) doesn’t mean that they can’t be hurt.
The moral of this story: Kids are mean, and they grow up to teach their kids to be mean. If any of the kids on this bus stood up to these bullies, maybe I wouldn’t have spent hours thinking that ending my life would be better than going to school the next day. Teach your kids not to hurt others. Explain to them what the words they say mean. It may be “just a joke” to them, but it is a hurtful thing to the people who feel that the words represent what they really are. Tell them that laughing at what the bullies do only encourages them to continue and do worse. HELP the kids like me by teaching your kids about people with differences. Talk to their teachers and find out if they are bullies. Take the time to get to know the kids they hang out with. KNOW what your child is up to in school.
This is one of my true stories. Thanks for reading it. ~Timmy
This story inspired Liliana Li's artwork for the You Will Rise Project and a "Stop the Bullying" meme for Unity Against Bullying Day created by Timmy from Anna Lund's artwork. This meme took on a life of its own on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest and became the profile picture for many. Take a look at the wonderful merchandise you can purchase to support the You Will Rise Project and join us in our fight to stop bullying.
Bullying is a form of psychological abuse and when bullying begins in the home, a child is predisposed to being bullied in school, and later, at work, in social settings, in life. My good buddy Timmy joins me over at Love Bytes Reviews with his third installment on bullying. Today he talks about bullying from within the family unit and what one might do about it.
Victims of abuse often can’t defend themselves. They have poor self-esteem, a very low sense of worth, and feel, among other things, shame, humiliation, guilt, isolation, loss, anger, betrayal, but most of all, fear. They are afraid to defend themselves for fear of reprisal and that they’ll be further abused. If you know of or see someone being bullied within the home or by relatives, step up, make your listening all about them, speak out, and help a friend. YOU may be the one person who will make the difference between survival and not for your friend.
Join me over at Love Bytes Reviews to kick off the Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia with a special post on Self-bullying and applying the Golden Rule to yourself! HAHAT is an incredibly important event each year intended to raise awareness and inspire LGBTQIAP individuals. Along these lines, we don’t only wish to inspire others, but also wish to inspire ourselves. That’s right. OURSELVES.
My good friend Timmy wrote about bullying… but a type of bullying we don’t often think about: self-bullying. Timmy’s insightful words will have us thinking well and often about how we treat ourselves and how we can be better to ourselves. As always, thanks for a wonderful post, Timmy!
April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month and in honor of it, I did a special two-part post on child abuse and bullying on Love Bytes Reviews. Of greatest import, take 3 minutes of your the time to watch this video.
I joined the two issues in one post because to bully is to commit an act of violence and it is the most prevalent form of abuse in society.
My young, insightful friend Timmy, who has endured horrific bullying at school, recently took note of how adults treat each other. Check it out.
All of the memes in this post were created by Timmy.
So, in the middle of all this craziness with two releases coming out and Jamie Mayfield's "A Broken Kind of Life" adapted from J.p. Barnaby's awarding winning novel, Aaron, - JUST RELEASED LIKE SECONDS AGO from Harmony Ink Press! GO BUY IT! READ IT! CHERISH IT AS I DO! - um, yeah, so here's the gig.
I wrote a brief blog post for Hamony Ink's blog and it centers around the fact that ONE friend who reaches out and listens to a friend in distress can make the difference between survival and not for that friend. Three minutes of your time could save someone's life. Check it out. Right here. Reach out and help a friend.
100% of the author's royalties are being donated to help homeless LGBT kids find safe shelter.
I'm excited to announce that the very first mini-chapter of my free read, FAIRY, appears in the May, 2013 Inklings Newsletter from Harmony Ink Press! Check it out!
Chapter 1
“Hey, Merry fairy! Still got your cherry?” Rick yelled loud enough for everyone in the locker room to hear as he snapped a wet towel at Merry.
Merry dodged it by a hair’s breadth and quickly put his boxers on. He wanted to kill his parents. How they could have named him after a damn hobbit was beyond him. Continue reading here.
I'm excited to announce that the very first mini-chapter of my free read, FAIRY, appears in the May, 2013 Inklings Newsletter from Harmony Ink Press! Check it out!
Chapter 1
“Hey, Merry fairy! Still got your cherry?” Rick yelled loud enough for everyone in the locker room to hear as he snapped a wet towel at Merry.
Merry dodged it by a hair’s breadth and quickly put his boxers on. He wanted to kill his parents. How they could have named him after a damn hobbit was beyond him. Continue reading here.
In looking through the blogs that I follow this morning, I found an incredibly touching post by Matty at 2 Boys in Love and had to share it. People don't realize that bullying (an attack of any kind) scars for life. You don't recover from it. You simply compensate for it when and if you are able. You try to get beyond it and it is an excruciating process. Check out Matty's post. 2 Boys in Love: Bullying by Any Other Name
• 450,000 people are bullied each week at schools last year. • At least 16 children are successful in committing suicide each year. • 20% of all children experience some form of bullying. • 50% of all pupils attracted to the same sex find themselves being bullied. • Child line has received 37,000 calls in the past year from bullied students a 12% rise from the year before.
You Can Play is dedicated to ensuring equality, respect and safety for all athletes, without regard to sexual orientation and/or gender identity.
Pride Tape is a badge of support from teammates, coaches, parents and pros to young LGBTQ players. It shows every player that they belong on the ice. That we’re all on the same team. And with the support of over 1,000 Kickstarter backers, it’s now a reality.
