Trigger warning: This article includes a description of rape and sexual violence. If you or someone you care about has experienced sexual violence, assistance can be found through the National Sexual Assault Hotline at (800) 656-4673.
When Justin Terry-Smith talks about what happened to him in 2001, his words and demeanor have a certain detachment. It is a story he has repeated many times, to everyone from law enforcement to emergency room workers to the many friends with whom he has confided over the years.
“I’m a compartmentalization person,” Justin says. “Feelings and facts are kept separate.” He has good reason to deploy that defense mechanism.
Still, Justin isn’t coy about telling the truth plainly. He simply calls it “the rape.”
“I went on a date with someone, just one time,” Justin begins. “It wasn’t the best or the worst date I’ve ever had. But I decided not to go out with him after that.”
A year later, Justin saw the man at a nightclub, and they agreed to grab a bite to eat together. Later that night, though, in Justin’s car, the man pulled a knife on him.
“He pressed the knife to my skin and told me to kiss him,” Justin says. The details are uncomfortable to hear, even if Justin’s voice is clear and deliberate. “So, I kissed him. He told me to pull down my pants and he raped me in the car. Afterwards, he told me to give him my car keys. I said no. He grabbed the keys from me and exited the car and walked around to the driver’s side.”
Justin’s use of the phrase “exited the car” sounds like something you would say in a police report. Something about the formal nature of it, of Justin’s verbal distancing from the event, reveals his protective defenses.
Justin knew that if the man got back in the car and took the wheel, his life would be in further danger. As the man began to open the driver’s door, Justin kicked it hard, plowing the door into his attacker and knocking him to the ground. Justin leapt from the car. There was a struggle for the keys. Justin was bitten on the hand. Finally, Justin was able to break free with his keys and run away.
“My clothes were ripped, and I was beat up,” he explains. “I made it to a bus that was stopped nearby, and the driver said the police station was on his route. He dropped me off there.”
Justin was so traumatized from the attack that police officers thought he was on drugs. “They treated me like a second-class citizen,” Justin says. “Like I was the criminal, not the victim.” Eventually, Justin was transported to a hospital where he endured more distrustful glances and a painful rape kit procedure.
Once police had sufficient evidence, like fingerprints from Justin’s car and DNA results, Justin wasn’t needed for the prosecution of his attacker. That part of his ordeal was over.
Except that Justin was an airman first class in the United States Air Force and living on a base nearby. At the time, the military was under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the absurd military directive forcing LGBTQ+ service members to stay closeted, so Justin was unable to tell anyone else in the military about his rape. He was even afraid to tell a counselor for fear of being discharged, thus denying him crisis intervention when he needed it most.
Justin found himself the victim of a violent rape and unable to speak about it. He was 21 years old at the time.
Justin kept his mouth shut. Weeks turned into months. Secrets, though, have a way of festering into something more dangerous.
“I started to get into trouble,” Justin admits. He drank too much. He lashed out at co-workers and was constantly late for work. They sent him to anger management classes. It didn’t help.
A full two years after the assault, Justin decided to see a military therapist since his enlistment was ending anyway. “It was the first time I told someone,” Justin says. “He was really good. He told me I suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I thought that was something only war veterans had.”
Sometimes, though, identifying the source of trauma isn't enough to wash away the repercussions. Justin continued drinking heavily and began experimenting with drugs.
“I wanted to feel numb,” he acknowledges. “I slept with a lot of guys. I wanted to feel love and I didn’t want to feel pain.” His days and nights became fraught with dangerously self-destructive behavior.
And then one morning in 2006, Justin woke up drenched in sweat. “I was very sick,” he says. Soon, Justin would receive a positive HIV test result.
It was the latest in a chain of crushing events that began late one night, years earlier, during a fateful drive in Justin’s car.
Without emotional or clinical support for his untreated trauma, his self-destructive behaviors continued. “The HIV diagnosis was not the wake-up call,” he says.
Some of the support he dearly needed came in the form of Philip, a man Justin met who would help him feel worthy of love. “When we got serious, my behavior got better. But I also realized I need to live for myself.”
By 2008, Justin had started therapy again and was seeing real results. “I was allowed to speak my mind fully, to really cry about what happened,” he says. “I had not cried about the assault since that night. Nothing in my culture as a Black man allows that kind of emotion.”
Today, Justin’s life is very different. He has been married to Philip for 15 years and they live on a ranch in New Mexico. They have raised two kids.
Justin’s reversal of fortune extends to his military service as well. After an internal review more than 20 years after his service, the Veterans Administration extended full disability benefits to Justin due to his PTSD. “It felt as though after all those years of pain and suffering, that someone finally listened to my truth,” he says.
Justin spends much of his time speaking out as a gay man living with HIV. He participated in the recent documentary, Serve with Pride, about LGBTQ+ veterans, works with several HIV/AIDS organizations and speaks to community groups about HIV.
On World AIDS Day last year, Justin spoke at the VA hospital, volunteering his service to the very military institution that once muzzled his freedom of speech. He sees the irony and has no regrets.
“Today, it’s about moving forward,” he says. “I don’t feel any shame about my HIV status, and the attack does not dictate how I feel about myself. Not anymore.”
MARK S. KING is the author of the essay collection, My Fabulous Disease: Chronicles of a Gay Survivor.