9 - I was chased away from the garden of heaven

Summary

Based on a life story interview with Shamuran (22 September 2019)

I’m Shamuran. I’m a fun person and I’m gay. I’m a Ugandan refugee, LGBTIQ, and I’m in Kenya, Nairobi. I grew up having girly behaviour. I didn’t make many friends. I only had my sister who didn’t care how someone behaves – not like my brothers and my step-mum. And my dad was always busy.

Back in 2016, I decided to go for a Pride march. We were arrested and that’s when my family found out that I’m gay and so they chased me from home. It was like this: we were at a club called Venom, during Pride month, and the police came in and arrested all of us at a Pride event. We were taken to the police station and given the right to make a phone call. I called my step-mum, because I was staying with my dad and my step-mum. She came and asked why I was arrested. After knowing the reason why, she said that she can’t take me back, because I’m gay. She didn’t bail me but left me at the police station. Now, there was an organisation called Trans Equality Uganda and they came and bailed us out, and then I had to go home. When I went home, my step-mum, my dad and my brothers started asking me questions like, ‘Why are you gay? What do you get out of being gay?’ Everyone was unhappy when they realised who I was. No one was on my side. They were so mad, and they started beating me. They said they can’t be with a person who’s gay and one of my brothers said, ‘We should kill him instead of him shaming our family.’ I had to run from home, because it had reached the extent of them wanting to kill me. And so, I was forced to run for my life. At first, I thought they will just beat me and that will be it, and I was not ready to leave home. But when they talked about killing me, I got afraid and had to run.