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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 January 2024
Based on a life story interview with Henry (21 September 2019)
My name is Henry. I’m gay, and I’m a refugee here in Kenya. The problem I got is that they chased me away from Uganda because of my sexuality; that’s why I’m here in Kenya. I’ve been here since December 2014. I decided to leave because people wanted to kill me, even my family chased me away. I didn’t have any plan where to go because, you know, Uganda is like a small country. I just ran away from my family to a friend’s place, then they found me there; after that they put my name out on a radio station and said that if anyone sees me, they should just kill me. So that’s why I decided to come to Kenya, because of my life. I want my life.
My family got to know about my sexuality sometime back when I was at school. I had a friend and we tried to play sex, so we fucked when we were in school. So that boy then went to the teachers and told them about what we did. They called my family, and then they chased me away from school. My father thought that young kids would not do that. So he said, ‘You won’t be going to school again, you are going to stay home and help your step-mum’, because my mom had died. While I was home, sometimes I went on Facebook, I posted my picture on Facebook and I got another boyfriend. One day he had a birthday party. So I told my step-mother I wanted to go to my friend’s birthday, and she told me to first finish work and then I could go. So, I reached there, I met many gays; I was so surprised and happy to see them; it was my first time seeing so many gays. I was so excited and started visiting them on weekends at their place. I got a phone, and we used to send each other messages, saying ‘love you’ and also send a lot of porn. One day, I had gone to buy something, and I left my phone home, because my brother used to play games on my phone. My step-mother started checking my phone and went through my chats. She told my dad. That’s how they got to know about me.
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