Warrior for the Tribe

OUTRAGE Marvin trembled as he told his story. "When my parents realized I had feminine tendencies and made the presumption that I'm gay, they placed me in the state mental institution, whose staff claimed they'd professionalized conversion therapy [let's make the gay person straight]! At the age of fifteen, I was given a single occupancy, well-furnished and decorated room that had heavy metal mesh over the windows. It was a comfy bedroom in a prison! Thus, Marvin gave me an introduction to conversion therapy and his resulting emotional trauma, including nightmares. As staff performed their "therapy" involving sensory deprivation, each time Marv would exhibit a feminine gesture, they would remove a piece of furniture or decor from the room. It got to the point that all that was left was a thin mattrass. Returning stimulative elements to his room was contingent on the disappearnce of feminine gestures. To escape the institution he told me that, "I practiced every butch behavior that I could muster just to get out of that hellhole! I became an oscar-bound actor who kept my emotional crushes, which included one of the male staff, deeply secret and buried in the deepest part of my being!" And so it is. The story of one is the story of many.