2017, the worst year of my life!

2017 was supposed to be my 'come back' year. I had finally finished my first book (a short novel), published it, recorded a new single and my two charitable projects were ready to be launched; but my whole life came to a sudden stop, all because of malicious hateful lies from one person. 2017 turned out to be my 'annus horribilis', the worst year of my life, and I have had quite a few difficult years.

Almost 18 years ago when I started giving media interviews to the world's press; I knew that by being open and honest and talking frankly about my intersex medical condition, I was going to get ridiculed, mocked, laughed at, and I'd have to deal with a level of hate and ignorance; but I was prepared for it. My main aim for talking about my intersex medical condition was to create more understanding and acceptance, not just for myself, but for everyone who has an intersex medical condition, or for anyone who is different.

The level of hate I have had to deal with has shocked me, but for two different reasons. Firstly, because it hasn't been by as many people as I thought it was going to be, but secondly, the level of hate I have had to deal with has been more extreme than I could have ever imagined.

For me my bullying began long before anyone knew about my medical condition. I was just six years old and the bully at the top of my street made my life a living hell, and what started off as one person, soon ended up becoming hundreds. Years ago, if people heard about bullying they just assumed it was name calling, but in my case, and with lots of other people, it was a lot more. I was called all the usual 'gay' names like, poof, bender, faggot, sissy etc..etc.. but on top of all that I was also kicked and punched daily. I had people spit in my face, throw bricks and stones at me. There were gangs of boys who even found it funny to hold me down and take turns urinating over me. Some of the bullies would even throw dog shit at me, or rub it in to me. They also loved to accuse me of doing all sorts of things, like having sex with different boys, performing different sex acts on other boys, having sex with animals, and corpses, and one time they accused me of murdering some child! These things were always said to get more people to attack me. I left school a year early because on my last day a gang of boys dragged me into a room and tried to hang me! My parents even got fined for me not attending school.

Everyone says you should have told someone, but I did, I told as many people as I possibly could. I don't remember there being a week when I wasn't in tears telling a member of staff after one of the attacks; but because I didn't know my attackers names most of the time, the school said they can't do anything! When someone attacks someone they don't usually identify themselves before they attack. There were times I knew the bullies names, but that just made everything get worse. My parents even went to the police over 30 years ago to report the bullying, but the police wouldn't get involved, they said it's a school matter, even though it was happening outside school as well as inside school. Bullying wasn't the only problem I had to deal with, along with family problems, I also had to deal with two paedophile groups. When ever people hear about paedophile groups most people assume it's all men, but I can remember two or three women involved. One of them liked to take photos and video things. The sort of abuse I went through was completely different to all the other abuse cases I keep reading about. They would have group sex but not with the children, with the adults. The abuse wasn't really sexual except for the choking part; it was mostly about hurting us. They wouldn't stop until we were terrified. Crying wasn't even to get them to stop, crying just meant you were afraid, we had to be terrified! They also wanted to get inside your head. I remember they would sell us to another paedophile for 10p, they wanted us to know we were worthless, and we had to say we were worthless. They always told me they'd given me aids and I was going to die. I grew up believing I was diseased and toxic. I still can't get those thoughts out of my head even though I've had several HIV tests, and they keep coming back negative. To stop us from reporting them to the police they told us they had friends in the police force, and if we ever go to a police station we would get tortured in there. They also took photos of us and made us do videos, where we had to say or do something that made us look bad. They used these to prevent us from speaking out. I don't remember who these people are, I just remember that at one time they were friendly with a couple of people from my street.

All the abuse and hate I went through in my early years didn't ruin me. I just learnt to shut away all the memories and the more hate I had to deal with, the more determined I became to make something of my life. Other people's hate filled me with determination and ambition to succeed in life. I started to build up a career in the entertainment industry; because of my medical condition I decided to call myself 'Lisa-Lee' instead of just 'Lee'. I was taking ownership of the name 'Lisa', as it was one of the names the bullies called me. They called me this because when I was younger and thinner, a lot of people thought I looked female. The main reason I added the name 'Lisa' was just to annoy my bullies, I wanted them to see they meant nothing to me! I haven't had huge success yet. I have just had lots of little bits of success, but people have no idea how hard I've had to work just to get a little bit of success. I spend hours and hours everyday training, studying and practicing. Success only comes through hard work, and I have had to sacrifice lots of things, like having friends or any sort of social life. My old childhood bullies don't care about how hard I work, their only aim is to humiliate me, take away my dignity, ruin my life and destroy my career, and they'll do or say anything to achieve this.

Right from the start of my solo career I have had to deal with different hate campaigns from a small group of old childhood bullies. To begin with they started trying to blackmail me, demanding I give them anything from £2,000 up to £50,000, one blackmailer even demanded a recording contract, and if I didn't give them what they wanted, they told me they'd go to the papers and sell stories about me having sex with other boys, sex with animals, performing strip shows in my garage and everything else the bullies used to accuse me of doing. Every time they tried to blackmail me I would tell them to go and sell their lies. I never worried about what they were saying because I knew they'd have to have proof, and there is no proof because it's all lies! Once that didn't work, they then tried to get me sacked from my opera company by phoning them and making complaints about me, but that didn't work either. Then in 2009 they started their cruellest hate campaign. After I gave a very open interview in my local newspaper, 'The South Wales Evening Post', where I spoke more openly about the abuse I went through and how I was dealing with 'Complex PTSD'; I started to receive hate mail and later death threats. On top of all these hate campaigns, once people started to know about my intersex medical condition, several of my old bullies had decided that it's now ok to try and sexually assault me; a few times I began to lose weight and I started to look better, but my attackers then told me, 'because I'm starting to look pretty, they can rape me now!' Due to these comments I have gone out of my way to make sure I gained as much weight as possible, to look more masculine and less pretty, but that is just making me ill. I have got so ill with depression due to the hate, I had lost my voice and was unable to work, so I took a long break from the spotlight to try to get better and rebuild my voice.

After my long career break I had finally started to get my voice back, and I had finally built up enough confidence to return to work. I released my first short novel, 'The long journey to Paradise', available internationally from Amazon; but just before I was to begin promotion on it, I had to deal with yet another hate incident. One evening while I was online trying to stop a young man from Gaza / Palestine killing himself, I had someone trying to break into my home threatening to kill me. This person has been harassing me for years, but this evening when he was clearly drunk and on drugs he was trying to physically harm me. Thankfully in the past, on a few occasions, I have recorded him being aggressive toward me and threatening me; he was calling me all the usual names from my childhood; but this time I decided the best thing to do would be to call the police, even though I was afraid of the police because of what I had been told, I felt it was my only option, so I called them and told them everything.

To try to get away with his crime, this person tried to accuse me of a false incident from over 25 years ago. Sadly today, people think they can say anything they want to say about someone, and because they don't have any proof, they just say it happened 20, 30 or 40 years ago, because they believe there's no evidence needed or available; but that only works if there is no evidence on both sides. For me this is not the case because my story and experiences are so unique. I was bullied and attacked so often my parents went to the police, and even though they didn't get involved, they still advised my parents on how to keep me safe, and my parents followed their advice to the letter. That is how I'm able to prove this person is lying, and everything the bullies were saying about me was untrue too. I even have enough evidence to take civil action against anyone who says these lies. My record company want me to sue my attacker, but I have decided not to at the moment.

Going to the police has been the best decision I have made. I have nothing but praise for the officer who dealt with my case. Detective Sergeant Richie Gray (CID), from Swansea central police station, was a complete professional; he treated me with kindness, respect and dignity. He went out of his way to make sure I understood everything, and explained how important it was that I report everything, so the police are aware of my situation. The most important thing that Detective Sergeant Richie Gray did was listen to me. For the first time in my life someone in authority actually listened to me. Over 30 years ago I had tried to report things, but not one person ever listened to me. I spent years telling people, and in the end I just learnt to keep it to myself and suffer in silence, but after all that time someone finally heard me.

Once the Sergeant understood everything that was going on he classed the incident as a hate crime, and he gave me the opportunity to press charges against my attacker.  Sergeant Gray also made sure I was offered counselling once he understood how ill and distressed I had become from this and past attacks. The way Sergeant Gray treated me gave me the confidence to put my trust in the police, although I lacked the courage to do it alone. I didn't know how I was going to report over 30 years of bullying, abuse and attacks; so I contacted Victim Support, and with them I was able to talk openly about everything. My case/support worker Josie has been amazing, she has listened to me, talked through things and helped me get through this truly dark and difficult time. Josie helped arrange for me to talk openly with the hate crime officer, PC Martyn Jones. Through Josie with Victim Support and PC Martyn Jones of the hate crime, I have been able to report everything and my hope is that I can put an end to all the attacks and malicious lies.

My goals now are to finally restart my career, get my two charitable projects up and running and promote my book. I am also releasing a digital single and giving my earnings to Victim Support to thank them for all the help they have given me. Not only do I hope to rebuild my career, I hope to rebuild my life. I also hope that something positive can come from this horrible experience, and for me that is for more people put their trust in the police and report things. If your child is being bullied in school and you aren't getting anywhere with the school, then go and report it to the police. Like wise, if you're a victim of bullies and you're being harassed by them, go and report it to the police, even if you don't know their names, and it doesn't matter if its been going on for many years, by reporting it to the police you're making them aware, so if anything bad happens they'll have an understanding of what's been going on. If like me, you don't feel confident going directly to the police, you could always go and report everything to a third party, like Victim Support, and they can help you report your problems to the police. If you are being harassed by someone, there is also the 'National Stalking Helpline', they're able to advise you on what you need to do. Some people think 'stalking' is just someone following you around, but there's more to it; if someone is telling malicious lies about you, to get you in trouble or get other people to hurt you, and if they try to harm you or break into your home, and if they'll do things to get you to notice them, that is stalking too. I have had to deal with five obsessive people, and two of them, including my most recent attacker, would be classed as stalkers! Please don't suffer in silence, report everything.