A layoff, death in the family, a violent assault—in 1999, the hits just kept coming for Antoine Craigwell, then a young adult trying to make his way in New York City.

And so, one November day, he inched toward the edge of a Manhattan subway platform and prepared to take matters into his own hands: He would jump in front of the oncoming No. 1 train and end it all.He steeled his nerves—then he thought of his family, including his adopted mother, who’d buried his sister just months before. Craigwell backed off.

Ian L. Haddock, 35, Executive Director of The Normal Anamoly Initiative, vividly recalls the strange dichotomy of his late mother, Valerie Walker, hurling anti-gay slurs at him. But as hurtful as her colorful language could be, she was steadfast in her determination to keep him away from the illegal drug activities and prison sentences that consumed the lives of his two older brothers in Texas City, TX.

An effeminate Black queer child raised in a trap house with his mother and brothers, Haddock says he played football for a while to prove his masculinity. But he ultimately immersed himself in the Black church experience as one of two options given to Black boys in the football-centered Texas town as alternatives to the less desirable and dangerous elements chosen by many Black men in his orbit for survival.

"I knew I was different," Haddock says. "Showing up as any part of myself as a young kid was very difficult because I was really smart. But I was bullied for being a geek. I was bullied for being poor and dirty, and I was bullied for being feminine."

The bullying wasn't isolated to Haddock's experience with other students at LaMarque High School, where he attended. It was also a constant presence inside his home.

"My brothers tried to beat it out of me," he says. "My mother tried to ridicule it out of me. When I was younger, I was very much in fear of my brothers. My brothers would fight my mama. They didn't care. It was a very abusive situation."