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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 January 2024
Based on a life story interview with Keeya (16 September 2019)
My name is Keeya. I came to Kenya due to the situation I was facing back home. I am from Uganda but the situation wasn’t good. However much I want to be still in Uganda, because that’s where I was born, the situation didn’t favour me to stay. Instead, it pushed me to leave the country I love so much. I came to Nairobi in 2015. I have seen a lot, which made me leave Uganda – a lot! I was ministering in church, I was a singer, a preacher, and a pastor; I preached the gospel and encouraged people to come to the Lord, and I strengthened them in different ways so that they could stand and believe in God. Because being gay doesn’t make you leave God. It means you were created that way.
I personally understood later that maybe I was created that way. I now believe that’s how I was created, but at the time it was hard. Because we used to be in church where they would speak out against homosexuality – and you are gay and you hear them abusing you, talking bad against homosexuality; if that’s what you are, you don’t feel good and you have to encourage yourself. But the fact is that it wasn’t me who created myself, and no one taught it to me; rather it just came. I started realising that I have feelings for my fellow man, and it used to stress me so much.
I used to pray a lot. I was raised Muslim, and Muslims used to say that homosexuality is bad, so it made me think that I’m a sinner. Muslims also used to say that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were burnt because of homosexuality, but they also failed to explain clearly that there were a lot of sins going on there. The sheikhs would just say it happened because of homosexuality. But if God destroyed them due to homosexuality, then God would also have killed me – but I’m still alive; I don’t have any curse. Later I got saved, I became a born-again Christian.
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