http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/04/magazine...ne/04LIVES.html
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By AARON VAYS as told to DANA SHAPIRO
When you're out there on the ice, you're scared, scared to fall, scared to fail. But it's a good fear. Double axels, double lutz combinations, double flips, triple toes, triple salchows -- it's a hard sport. There are so many people looking at you, and all the judges. When I'm skating, though, I forget about everything, and I feel like Batman, as if I have special powers to get up in the air and spin.
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I started figure skating when I was 4 1/2; other kids didn't even know what it was. But things started to change in fifth grade. Everyone started talking about girlfriends and boyfriends instead of not liking girls and cooties. They said that figure skating is ''for girls'' and ''stupid'' and called me a ''mama's boy.'' Then they called me ''gay.''
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I was coming home from school with fat lips or bloody noses, and I'd tell my parents that it was from basketball. I knew it would get worse if I told.
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My parents had no idea. When they went to the school district, teachers said, ''Our hands are tied; we can't do anything.''
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I'll go to my fourth school in the fall. We might be moving a half hour away, where nobody will know me. I'm going to blend in. I learned my lesson. I still love America, but there's too much freedom here. You shouldn't be able to do what they're doing to me right now in school. In Russia, if you did something like that, you'd be hit with a stick.
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[ August 06, 2002: Message edited by: twin58 ]