The Fate We Share, 2: On These Streets
24 Feb 2022Meowers
Jacqueline's voice was quiet, worried, she still looked anxious, and her eyes darted around each corner of the room as if she was making sure we were alone. So, firstly, she said that I should keep it secret from everyone, don't talk about it even with her, as people might overhear us. Then she took a long pause, looked around the room once again and walked closer to me. I asked her if she was ok. Looking fearful, and as though she was trying not to cry, she told me, even more quietly, that the colonists had some quite bigoted views and extreme laws, and that same sex relationships here were illegal. She said that anyone the authorities found out was gay, even visitors, would be taken away by force for conversion therapy, to cure them as if it was some kind of disease.
I was shocked. I felt angry and disgusted. I had an instant flashback of my late teens and early 20s, spent in the awful backward place where I was born and raised. Ross 210, a peripheral Federation system. The system itself wasn't that bad, but back then I was living in a small community, where people had those bigoted, narrow-minded traditions. When I was growing up, becoming a teenager, nobody has told me about sexuality, that topic was a taboo, even calling someone 'homosexual' was considered a severe insult. Those flawed views were just..everywhere in that society.
I thought that I was strange, wrong, like something was broken in me, like I had no future. When other people enjoyed a complete freedom of expressing their feelings, I had to think about why I have a strong willing to do something that was so 'bad'. Nobody to ask, nowhere to find answers, even a slight mention of having those tendencies was dangerous. You couldn't tell a person who will listen to you from a person who will harm you, physically or by spreading rumours that could ruin your life.
It was even dangerous to have any opinion other than open hostility, if you wasn't hostile, people most likely thought that you're one of 'those folks'. I heard about young people been harmed or abandoned by their own parents, bullied in schools, thrown from their homes, considered sick, perverted. Any useful information was scarce, hard to find. It was a complete taboo. It took a few years to realise who I am and few more years to adapt, to develop my own way of living in that society, trying to stay safe, searching for a way to run...
My stream of thoughts was interrupted by Jacqueline, she was asking about what's happening, and... Said I was standing there, before her, for a pair of minutes, completely silent. Uh... Had to tell her that I was okay. So then she told me that if a colonist had received conversion therapy and was caught engaging in same sex relations after that then they would be arrested and imprisoned for it. She said that was a fate worse than death, as conditions in the colony prison were terrifying. Cold, damp and dim cells, bug-ridden bunk beds, bad synthetic food and dirty water, endless hours of toil... And a complete loss of any sense of self.
They were trying to break the will of every prisoner, abusing people and sending them to the hardest jobs. People were disappearing without a trace, and everyone here knew they were dead, tortured to death or perished due to working or containment conditions. It was an endless nightmare. And even if you survive this... Your life, your mind will be broken, you may return home, but you'll never truly return from there.
The prison was an awful place, but local laws and views were even worse. Jacqueline told me about people being dragged out of their quarters at night, by armed enforcers, or even by their neighbours. And they were taken to that prison without a trial. Just a denunciation or a slight evidence were enough to make you face such a fate. No matter the reason, it could happen because of anything that is contrary to the traditions, and then any other night you may find yourself dragged away. So this is how their society functioned. Through many years and many generations.
I just couldn't process that properly. Modern society left those prejudices in the past, centuries ago, only some small and troubled societies were prone to them, due to traditions, degradation and all that stuff... This is why I never tell others where I'm from. I wasn't a part of that community and never wanted to be, both of my parents are immigrants, but I had no chance to choose a place for my birth.
After a pause, Jacqueline asked me if I could help her. I said that of course I would, and asked her what she needed. She said there was young person, a boy of 18, who was a student at the settlement school. She had treated him recently for injuries he had sustained after being attacked at school by a group of other students. They had beaten him, then pinned him to the ground and torn his shirt open, and then discharged a deodorant aerosol can at point-blank range against the skin of his chest causing a severe burn. When Jacqueline asked why they had done this to him he told her it was because they thought he was gay. She noticed whilst treating him that he had cut marks on one of his forearms.
Jacqueline asked him about the bullying and the self-harm, and the boy admitted that what the other students suspected was true, and that he was so afraid that the authorities would find out. He had hidden it for so long, fearing the consequences of being found out, and he had endured the bullying almost daily since a classmate of his began to suspect him and spread the word around the school. Even without having any evidence. Feeling so isolated and alone, the boy had begun cutting himself.
She said that the boy might benefit from speaking to someone like me. That had experienced prejudice and gotten through it, and also had seen many other settlements and communities and could share the experience. So she asked if I would meet with him. I agreed, and Jacqueline said that she would go to work for her shift that evening and summon the boy for a follow-up check-up appointment.
And so I waited in Jacqueline's quarters for her call. Thinking of my own experiences, and trying to work out what to say to him...