1.2K comments | 12K retweets | 17.4K likes
Michael Parker says he was violently attacked by #MaudeToPenetrate but many remain skeptical.
—CBS News
8K comments | 81K retweets | 404K likes
Everything you need to know about trans criminal Michael Parker, formerly Michaela Parker.
—Christian Daily
36K comments | 222K retweets | 800.1K likes
I’m sorry has anyone seen the arrest sheet on this lady Michaela Parker before she decided not to be a lady anymore? She is a former homeless prostitute. Fake News won’t tell you this. #MaudeToPenisRape
—Alex Jones
199 comments | 2.3K retweets | 4K likes
Trannies are mentally ill people who need psychological help, not your sympathy.
#MaudeToPenisRape
—Gavin McInnes
2K comments | 12K retweets | 105K likes
What if Michaela Parker IS Maude and raped herself? Possible since I hear she has a pussy and penis
—Mike Cernovich
210 comments | 1K retweets | 215 likes
There is a special place in hell for people questioning Michael Parker’s honesty based on his sex assigned at birth. Very special place.
—Roxane Gay
444 comments | 555 retweets | 5.6K likes
Maude’s all “I’m not going out tonight I’m just gonna stay home, Netflix and rape.”
—Whitney Cummings
201 comments | 3.9K retweets | 9.9K likes
The news got you down? Exercise will get you up! New Fabletics sportswear for 20% off by using promo code 33447DH now through Sunday!
—Kate Hudson
50K comments | 200K retweets | 5.8M likes
Did you know 80% of trans people suffer from mental illness and 3 in 5 have been incarcerated? #FactsMatter #MaudeToPenetrate
—Breitbart News
2.8K comments | 133K retweets | 453K likes
Investigators still have no leads in #MaudeToPenetrate case, insiders say.
—Los Angeles Times
675 comments | 280K retweets | 5.8M likes
Pressure grows to find more evidence on Michael Parker’s allegations before counting him as an official #MaudeToPenetrate victim.
—NBC News
7K comments | 16.1K retweets | 31.2K likes
Liberals and conservatives can’t even agree on Michael Parker. How can they agree on the national debt?
—Business Insider
210K comments | 677K retweets | 2.3M likes
#MaudeToPenetrate victim-turned-activist Donald Ellis holds rally in Watertown to support victims of sexual assault.
—New York Daily News
56K comments | 145.1K retweets | 256K likes
Op-ed: Michael Parker: a tricky story with an even trickier narrative. #MaudeToPenetrate
—Washington Post
210K comments | 677K retweets | 2.3M likes
You say tomato, I say Michael Parker was not raped. Let’s call the whole thing off. #MaudeToPenetrate
—Bill O’Reilly
14.2K comments | 22.5K retweets | 156K likes
I have seen the most awful things tweeted at Michael Parker recently. Do you people have no sense of decency? Leave the man alone.
—Ann Curry
76 comments | 140 retweets | 210 likes
The bullying needs to stop. Michael Parker is a person, not a punching bag.
—Chris Hayes
45 comments | 50 retweets | 176 likes
We must end the gender-shaming of victim Michael Parker. Join the conversation and resist. IRL on Facebook tonight 8/9C #IStandWithMichael #SayHisName
—Women’s March
155 comments | 2.3K retweets | 10K likes
On today’s show: trans women who have ALSO been assaulted and not believed! Wait till you hear these stories! #IStandWithMichael
—The Wendy Williams Show
108 comments | 57 retweets | 1K likes
The best tweets from celebrities about #MaudeToPenetrate victim Michael Parker
—HuffPost
26K comments | 117K retweets | 150K likes
Horrified by questioning of Michael Parker’s honesty. I stand with him. Do you? #TransLivesMatter #SayHisName #IStandWithMichael
—Katy Perry
210K comments | 677K retweets | 2.3M likes
Now on sale: “I Stand with Michael” T-shirts, 50% off with your next purchase!
—Zazzle
56 comments | 435 retweets | 553 likes
Katy Perry says she’s “horrified” by the treatment of #MaudeToPenetrate victim Michael Parker.
—Yahoo! News
33 comments | 56 retweets | 101 likes
Katy Perry stands up for Michael Parker in touching tweet.
—Entertainment Weekly
176 comments | 309 retweets | 4.9K likes
Katy Perry pens heartbreaking note to Michael Parker in tweet supporting trans lives.
—HelloGiggles
399 comments | 2.3K retweets | 66K likes
Katy Perry debuts new colorful haircut at concert benefiting trans victims of sexual assault #MaudeToPenetrate
—Daily Mail
1.3K comments | 2.8K retweets | 3.9K likes
Katy Perry’s hairstylist gives exclusive interview on how the singer’s new do sends a political message to the world. #MaudeToPenetrate
—ABC News
340K comments | 1.1M retweets | 2.8M likes
Miley Cyrus dons new hair color inspired by the pansexual pride flag after Katy Perry’s recent hair design supporting trans rights.
—CNN
998 comments | 1K retweets | 5.2K likes
5 easy steps to turn your hair into activism by using the LGBTQ+ spray-on stencil! #MaudeToPenetrate
—Marie Claire
1.9K comments | 2.4K retweets | 3.3K likes
Michael Parker is the reason we need to protect our innocent children, especially our little girls. Donate now to keep American bathrooms safe.
—Conservative Action Fund
103 comments | 54 retweets | 1.3K likes
Caitlyn Jenner and Jeff Foxworthy come together to discuss both sides of the Michael Parker debate on The Situation Room w/ Wolf Blitzer tonight on CNN.
—CNN
108 comments | 57 retweets | 1K likes
Michael Parker, purported Maude victim and subject of scandal, reported missing by family members.
—New York Daily News
12 comments | 52 retweets | 364 likes
If you have any knowledge of the whereabouts of Michaela S. Parker, please call Shelburne Police Department.
—Shelburne Police Department
0 comments | 3 retweets | 20 likes
#MaudeToPenetrate victim Michael Parker found dead of apparent suicide near his home in Shelburne, Vermont.
—Channel 3 News
22 comments | 23 retweets | 129 likes
Amal Clooney shows her flawless curves in a red-hot dress at the G8 Summit.
—NBC News
254 comments | 298 retweets | 355 likes
VII
One
THE WORLD’S GONE BERSERK,” I SAY TO JIMMY WHO’S standing behind the bar drying a glass. The news is blaring on a TV, hanging by some bungee cords and old tangled Christmas lights, above him.
“You know that’s not safe up there like that, Jim.”
“Nothing’s safe.”
I point to my empty glass. One more. Jimmy pours me a Scotch. We stare up at the screen. Some newscaster is talking about that freak rapist lady they never found.
“Can’t believe it’s been five years since all that shit,” I say.
“Five already? Crazy.”
“Can’t imagine being one of those guys, those poor guys she did that stuff to.”
“What about that one guy’s poor dick?”
“Please, Jimmy, don’t bring it up. It gives me a tingling sensation—”
“
I mean could you imagine having it rubbed to smithereens—”
“Jimmy, enough. You’re making my balls light-headed.”
“I’m just saying, it’s my worst fucking nightmare.”
“Having no dick?”
“Fuck, man, come on! You’re makin’ my nuts cramp!”
“At least you have nuts, jackoff!”
I throw a pretzel at him. We hear a car coming up the road.
“That better be Lewis with my goddamn drill bits.”
“He comin’ by?”
Headlights hit the mirror behind Jimmy’s head. We look back up at the TV.
“I’ll bet stock in jockstraps has skyrocketed.”
The bell above the bar door jingles. I look over my shoulder to yell at Lewis. But it’s a woman. Alone. Jimmy changes the channel. I lock eyes with him in the mirror. I push my Scotch away and take a sip of water instead.
Two
OKAY, CLOSE YOUR EYES AND MAKE A WISH.”
“Honey, I’m sixty and retiring not six and teething.”
“Come on, just make a wish, for your wife.”
“You’d like it to be for you, wouldn’t you?”
“Thirty years as one of the best cops upstate New York has—”
“Not a cop, Alice, a—”
“—Detective!”
“—detective.”
“Think of everything you’ve done! Everything you’ve accomplished.”
“Lots I didn’t—”
“Make a wish, Mr. Whirloch.”
“That’s detective.”
“Detective—”
“—Yeah—”
“Go on, Myles. Close your eyes. Make a wish.”
“Can I make more than one?”
“Of course you can, my sweet bear.”
“What did you wish for?”
“I wish . . . I wish I could still eat fried food. Wish I didn’t have all this cholesterol. Wish I’d punched Robbie Mason in the face back in fourth grade. Wish restaurants didn’t put fruit in salads. Disgusting. Wish I didn’t lose Papa’s army tags in the ocean that year we went to Florida for vacation. Wish I’d buried him with Mom’s crucifix, like he’d asked. Wish I hadn’t been so selfish. Wish I didn’t have bunions so bad, my big toes look like they have smaller toes growing out of them. Wish we’d had one more kid, Alice. Wish I’d made lieutenant. Had more resources at my disposal to . . . to’ve helped more. To’ve done more. Wish I could forget some things and remember others.
“Wish that, someday, they find her. Someday soon.
“Wish I had.”
Three
The Decade of Dawning
by Donald Ellis
Dedicated to the life and memory of Michael Parker.
A year goes by. Two. Five.
Every unanswered season spins an ocean of apparitions
inside you.
Ghosts crash like phantom waves, breaking
your mind, a limp swimmer who floats landless.
A new spring sets in,
unsettling your senses,
piercing the mud with needled stems,
shoving life and its living in your face,
making your heart glitter black as a moon’s thought.
Another year goes by. Two. Five.
Summer burns spring’s hair,
sears its scalp, bloodies its bruising,
blossoms a fresh, boiling despair within you.
You squint your eyes at every female figure,
your pulse lurches, heaving nervous
questions at your skin:
Is that her?
Another year goes by. Two. Five.
Summer cripples into the rippling qualms of fall.
You begin to forget. All the dying leaves of your past
plunge to earth like a star’s debris.
There’s a cooling. A calming. Your mouth
remembers to brush its teeth,
not the murky memory of its battery.
Pain grows distant but never separate.
Another year goes by. Two. Five.
Winter overthrows autumn and your body
becomes an avalanche of damaged ice
waiting for some crueler, crooked sun.
Every clock’s a coffined tock you’ve grieved.
Your time goes on
but your hands cannot.
If you’ve learned anything
it’s that snow can’t be trusted.
One day, your daughter’s angels.
The next, a predator’s footprints.
You splinter.
Wonder if they’ll ever catch her.
See a shadow moving in the river.
Winter, Is that her?
VIII
One
GOOD AFTERNOON, I’M DONALD ELLIS AND YOU’RE LISTENING to The Ellis Show, America’s number-one afternoon radio program here on SiriusXM Radio, thanks to all of you, our listeners and heroes. Because of listeners like you, we’ve been able to identify and catch predators on the run for almost a decade, as well as to help those who’ve called in and shared their most difficult and painful stories to heal. I’m honored to say that over the past eight years, we’ve been able to help authorities apprehend over 460 individuals accused of violent sexual crimes. I’ve been merely the conduit for those apprehensions, ladies and gentlemen, but you—YOU—have done the truly hard work. You have been the eyes and ears in our country, paying attention and turning in those who wish to harm others. I’ve said it from day one of this show, and I’ll say it again: American. Citizens. Make. The. Difference. Not me. Not investigators. Not state attorneys. Not prosecutors. Not bureaucrats. Not legislators. You. The people. YOU are the ones with the power. You are the ones who know your communities, know when something doesn’t seem right. I believe with all my heart that if someone had been there that night, the night of my attack—a witness—my assault would never have happened. Or if it did, my attacker would’ve at least been caught. But they never caught her, did they? No, they didn’t. They never even identified her. She’s still out there, a supreme predator, dormant, for now.
And speaking of that awful night . . . I’d like to take a moment to say—to tell you—this is a very big day for me and my family. Very big day. And because of that, this will be a very special program for you listeners. I hope. It was exactly ten years ago today on March second in twenty sixteen that I was violently assaulted and left for—I don’t know, dead?—behind a dumpster. Exactly to the day.
For a very long time, I could not speak about that experience. I could not speak at all. I lived in a state of death, a limbo between the past of who I was and the future of what I’d become. I tried to go back to teaching. Tried to go back home, back to my life and my wife and kids. Back to normal. But my world was—it was forever gone. I felt like a sun in a perpetual state of setting. That’s the only way I can describe to you how things felt. An unending sense of twilight. Everything I did, everything I said, everything I saw, was dusk. My whole life had turned into impending nightfall. My existence was just caught light, suspended in semidarkness. I quit teaching, at the recommendation of my doctor and my wife. She took care of me for years after that. Until I could get back on my feet. Until I could, at the very least, learn how to live in that purgatory of shades—not dead, but not not dead, either.
And as if the pain of what had been done to me wasn’t enough . . . as if the shame and the guilt and the scraps of my broken body weren’t constant reminders, my wife and I received hateful letters—death threats, even—from people all across the country, for months. I had “asked for it,” they wrote. I was a piece of shit. I was a deadbeat, a sinner, a prick, a pussy, weak, a pansy, a wimp, a candy-ass, a faggot, a bitch, a Mary, a limp dick. They said I made men look bad, or that my wife should divorce me, or that I should probably give my kids up for adoption, or better yet just kill myself so my son wouldn’t have to grow up knowing his father was a “cockless coward.” That’s a direct quote. We had to move to another city
. My children had to leave their schools. The bullying . . . It was a cruelty I would not wish on anyone. It was a cruelty I’ll never forget.
It ripped me apart, you know. It ripped me apart.
Eventually, I found a sense of living. I found a way to live. The more I was able to talk about what had happened—to put into words the actions of that woman—the more I found a small amount of peace. Because of the national attention my case received, I suddenly found myself with an audience and in a position to speak to that audience about the things that mattered most. And what matters are the voiceless.
You know what murder, assault, robbery, false imprisonment, kidnapping, and sexual assault all have in common? They are all considered violent crimes. But only one of those is a deeply intimate crime. Only one places blame on the victims. Did you know that one in sixteen men in America have been raped? And those are just the ones who have reported it. You know that basketball team you play on after work? You know that birthday party you went to last night? You know that board meeting you had this morning? You know that movie theater you were in last week? Or that cafeteria you’re in right now, listening to me talk into your headphones? There is almost a 100 percent chance that at least one person in that room, one person in that meeting or theater, has been sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Approximately 68 percent of all sexual assaults go unreported, according to RAINN. Sexual assault is the single least-reported violent crime. And when it is reported, the victims are blamed and shamed. Or not believed. Or silenced. Punished. Or their attackers are never prosecuted at all.
Any Man Page 9
