My Voice Counts Too

The Vision: Make available an all Accessible Platform for the Disabled Community to be heard
 
The Mission: To amplify the voices of Americans with disabilities  
 
Over my 47 years in this world, I have seen a lot. I have seen a black man become president. I have watched Black Lives Matter make an impact. I have celebrated with the LGBTQIA+ community for winning their rights to love. I stopped my watch when the ladies told this nation, “ Time is up.” When the MeToo Movement arose, I connected with the power of speaking out against sexual harassment. I am living in a period when the USA is recovering from poor leadership, fighting a pandemic, no longer tolerating systematic racism, and a woman of color is the Vice President. However, when Martin Luther King JR. said, “All God’s children..” I don’t believe he was excluding individuals with disabilities. I’m sharing my story to shout from the bottom of the mountain to those on top, “My voice counts too!”
 
 Christopher’s Story 
 
 Starting from day one it was said that my life would not count. After not breathing for 15 minutes the lack of oxygen damaged my brain. Doctors told my mother to put me in a home because I would be nothing more than a total vegetable for the rest of my life. But I mattered to her so she raised me with my twin sister and five other siblings. I was born during a time when:
  
• Women belonged in the kitchen 
 • People of color belonged in prison 
 • Gays belonged in the closet 
 • Individuals with disabilities belonged in the corner 
 
 Being the age of forty-seven, a person of color, a member of the LGBT community, and an individual with a disability I have seen so much injustice. I often wonder will I ever experience the feeling of equality and liberty. The difficult parts of my life story started at the age of seven. By then I knew I was different because I had Cerebral Palsy. During that time I was going to a school for the physical and intellectually challenged. 
 
 Not being able to talk put me in a very vulnerable situation with one particular teacher. I was invited to her smoking breaks. On these breaks, she would take me into the restroom, fill up the sink with water, with my wheelchair very close to the sink, and sit on the counter where she would puff her cigarette and dunk my head underwater in between the puffs. Back then I was too young and didn’t know enough about life to understand what was going on. Also during this time, I had very little control of my bowels or bladder. So many times I was sent home on a three-hour ride with dirty pants. I came home to six brothers and sisters, a loving mom, and an abusive live-in boyfriend. As a child that teacher and my mother’s boyfriend made me feel like my happiness didn’t count. 
 
 I’ve always believed that education was my way out of that life. I truly believe that enough education and accomplishments would overshadow my disability, and force people to see me in a new light. I did everything I needed to do to change the trajectory of my life at the time. I graduated top of my high school class. Became the first college graduate in the family and have multiple certifications and high educations certificates. During my college years is when I realized that I was attracted to the same sex. The idea of being a black disabled man in the south was overwhelming enough that I did not want to add gay to my plate. I knew it would be one more reason for society to discount me as a first-class citizen in America. My heart, mind, and soul wouldn’t count.
 
 In the late 90’s I relocated from Baton Rouge, Louisiana to Marietta, Georgia where I resumed my education at Southern Polytechnic University. There I got deeply involved in church and the Baptist denomination. I even started a career as a motivational and Christian speaker through my commitment to my faith. But also with the commitment came a lot of guilt. On top of dealing with an abusive upbringing, I was also struggling with the guilt of being attracted to the same sex and being a Christian speaker. I went to a counselor for a mega-church that I was deeply involved with to talk about the guilt of my sexuality. He firmly told me that my sexuality and Christianity cannot be mixed and that God hated homosexuality, and I needed severe counseling. There were even talks about shock therapy. They said they knew of a camp that will help me get over my sexuality. Being disabled and having seizures the last thing I would expose myself to was electric shock therapy. So I kept my sexuality quiet, continued to speak, and became a very prominent voice in the Baptist denomination. But the guilt did not go away. I can remember several times that I thought, that I would be better off as dead than to be a gay Christian. During those years I believe I became suicidal and began dealing with depression. From the age of 20 till about 38 I hid my sexuality and the depression. I believed my existence didn’t count. 
 
 An individual that is born with a disability or illness is not exempt from the challenges that life brings to everyone. I still had to deal with losing my home in a fire, the early death of two of my brothers, an ill mother, and people who saw me as an easy target. When I say easy target I mean an assistant who robbed me, people who broke into my home to steal and cause me bodily injuries.
 
 Shortly after the fire, it was discovered that I was attracted to the same sex. I didn’t come out I was outed by a religious friend. Individuals whom I considered my best friends and members of my extended family disowned me. This was bad for my mental health and I had to be hospitalized. Within three days of getting out, I got a knock on the door. Religious people and their pastor, who had no affiliation with my nonprofit organization demanded that I do nothing for six months. As if they had authority over me because of my disability. I didn’t speak or make any income for over a year. Not due to a lack of trying. I was blackballed from speaking in churches with no regard to how it would affect my ability to provide for myself. It takes the same amount of effort for an individual with a disability to build a middle-class life as it does for an able person to become a self-made millionaire. That fact was disregarded because someone didn’t agree with whom I find to be attractive. Over the next two years, I had to sell my accessible home, move into an apartment too small for a person who uses a wheelchair and began repairing my life while rebuilding the nonprofit. My livelihood didn’t matter to those religious people. 
 
 Before moving out of this home and community that was perfect for me, I decided to enjoy living in a GLBTQIA+ community and open up to the possibility of dating. Still working on the whole relationship with a disability thing. But one night while going home I was thrown out of my wheelchair and knocked around by two people. The investigator could not find this on the street cameras and the news reported it as if this individual with a disability had pretended to be harassed. No one took into account that there were religious people who hated me for being gay, a black gay man was found hung in a park half a block from my condo, the KKK had a rally in another park nearby, and a woman in a wheelchair was attacked in a nearby Target, all in a period of two weeks from the night I was indeed attacked. I didn’t feel like my safety mattered.
 
 Nevertheless, I started over. I moved into a smaller town and apartment. Was involved with a gay-friendly church and continued with my beliefs about who God is. Renamed and rebuild the nonprofit. I was reinventing myself. I started dating a nice man. I even found a doctor who dealt with gay men's health issues. I hoped that at the age of 45 the worst was behind me. Then one Sunday morning the pastor of my current church asked me did I know a person from a church I used to be a member of. That morning I was informed that the counselor who brainwashed me into thinking I was better off dead than out as a gay Christian, had left his wife, and was out and engaged to a man. Everyone thought I should be happy that he was living his truth. But his refusal to accept his truth all those years ago; almost resulted in me taking my own life. He negatively affected the core of my spirituality. When he visited my church he acted as if his past role in my spiritual life didn’t count. 
 
 As if that wasn’t enough; remember that doctor that specializes in gay male health? Well, his male nurse made me feel uncomfortable from day one. His flirtation ways began to cross the line. I knew from past experiences no one would believe me if I said something about his misconduct. So I decided maybe I could record what was happening. After two audio recordings of both nurses talking to me inappropriate and long pauses when the male nurse touched me in personal places; I just knew this time I could prove it and justice would be served. When I reported it the first time the officer insinuated that I didn’t understand what I was saying. After three attempts the report was filed. An investigation was done and an arrest was made. I was so happy for once in my life I could stand up for myself. I hired a civil attorney to make a claim to the doctor. 
 
 Two years later, it all has been swept under the rug. The D.A Office never has an update. The doctor refused to respond to my lawyer’s letters and hasn’t reported it to their insurance. Unfortunately, the law firm has given up and dropped the case. All I can do at this point is file a small claim suit and hope the Atlanta Judicial System takes actions that will communicate that my physical health and mental healing counts. 
 
 So why am I sharing my hardships and defeats? Because it’s time for individuals with disabilities to come out of the corner and be heard. HHelp me launch the movement. Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter: @myvoicecounts_2 and sign up for Updates .