Despite gains made in many parts of the world, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people are, in some regions, increasingly persecuted and denied basic human rights. Because bigotry thrives where we are silenced by fear, we've created this space for people to share stories of discrimination and survival. Read these stories, share them, and contribute your own. Let the world know that we will not be silent.

A posed portrait of 23 year old Ugandans Ashiraf (left) & Kajjan (right) in Nairobi. Ashiraf identifies as a transgender woman and Kajjan as gay. While same sex marriage is not legal in Uganda, in 2015 the pair conducted a marriage ceremony in a hotel to celebrate their relationship. “We had happiness at the party” says Ashiraf, and then adds “and that was the day.” That was the day their new married life began, and also the day their lives changed for the worse. A friend took photos of the wedding and posted them on social media. Local newspapers got hold of the photos and published them. Two weeks later their neighbors recognized them in the newspaper and went to the police. They locked their door when they heard the mob with the police coming, and hid inside. They could hear them trying to enter and talking together: “They said a lot of stuff, that we are sons of evil, we need to go to hell, we shall kill them direct if we get them.” That night they packed their bags and left for Kenya. But life in Kenya was not what they had hoped. They struggled to be registered by the United Nations refugee agency, and struggled even more to find a place to settle down: “After three months in Kenya, our life was not good at all, as we kept on migrating from one place to another because Kenya is like Uganda they don’t allow us in here. We were beaten, abused, tortured on the way when we were moving,” says Ashiraf. “My boyfriend is HIV positive and I am negative but I have (high blood) pressure. Life is hard because we don’t have money to eat yet we have to take our medicine. The landlord is chasing us out of the house because we don’t have money. I tried to look for jobs but couldn’t get because I naturally look like a transgender. Whenever I go to look for jobs I am abused that I am a lady, sometimes beaten.” Kajjan reiterates the sentiments expressed by his wife: “Up to present time, we are still suffering because I am HIV positive though my boyfriend isn’t, we have nothing to eat, nor food.” Kenya, October 2017.
Nature Network is a Nairobi based organization providing LGBTQI+ refugees in Kenya with support through safe temporary housing, health services, food and security. Nature Network has advocated to police over 50 times, responding to hate crimes, and runs a WhatsApp group of safety tips. Refugees supported have come from Uganda, Somalia, Burundi, Rwanda and Sudan. 
While in many places, there has been great progress in recent years in the movement for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or intersex (LGBTQI+) rights, including an increasing recognition of same-sex marriage, nearly 2.8 billion people live in countries where identifying as LGBTI is subject to rampant discrimination, criminalization, and even death. Same-sex acts are illegal in 76 countries; in some countries, this can result in being sentenced to death. Behind these statistics, there individuals with unique, often harrowing stories. Where Love Is Illegal was created to tell those stories. 
Robin Hammond/NOOR for Witness Change

Ashiraf & Kajjan/

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“Then our family got to know about it through the social media and newspapers. So we were ashamed in the community”

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Edward

Edward/

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“In Uganda there is currently not a single Safe Housing project left…With five euros we could feed someone for three weeks, with ten euros we could buy a mattress. It doesn’t take countless donors, but just a few to rebuild a safe house.”

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JP Michaels

JP Michaels/


“On a warm August day in 1960, at the age of five my Devout, Irish, Catholic Mother, while teaching me how to sew on a button, told me I was gay.”

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Nahil/


“Years and years of pain, pressure of being the perfect Muslim child, anxiety and confusion, anger. All of it was calmed by one fateful night.”

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Ashutosh

Ashutosh s. Shankar/


“I was proudly out to my friends and endorsed LGBTQ+ rights outside the four walls of my home. However, inside those four walls, I was completely the opposite. I would never talk about sexuality, about me or my identity. I was still in the closet for my father and mother.”

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Cameron

Cameron/


“I am exactly who I was always meant to be: A queer, bi-racial, HIV+ human.”

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Joann Sullivan/


“was placed in the psychiatric ward at Florida Hospital in Orlando. I couldn’t stop crying. All those feelings that I had bottled up for tens of years came rushing out all at once.”

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@applegreenluna/


“Being a loud educated transgender woman as a lecturer I am well prepared mentally and physically that this will be a bumpy road for me.”

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Royse/


“The many attempts to socially and racially eradicate me and then liking men – They constantly told me I was a problem – and that it should have been straight.”

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Patty & Bello/


“Are we just here? sitting in the wind Do people see us? Do they even know we are here Screaming so loud.”

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Justin Anantawan/


“In my life, I have had two rebirths – at age 21 when I came out of the closet and at age 29 when I was diagnosed with HIV.”

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A.R./


“I knew that I was on my 3rd strike with them. If I did anything else that they considered “gay,” I knew they’d kick me out.”

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Veralucia/


“It hurt to come home and not feel home. In the United States I feel like a stranger, but here? I feel like I don’t belong at all.”

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Ferris/


“I know i don’t have it even a fraction as bad as so many members of the lgbt+ community across the world, but it hurts just the same.”

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Ezra/


“No one tells you how complicated it is to go to a public bathroom, everyone looks at you, everyone talks about you, mocks you…”

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Chloe/


“After growing up in a rural conservative area where LGBT rights were seemingly nonexistent, I left and enlisted in the Army.”

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Sze-Yang Ade-Lam/


“Entering the dance world further amplified the racism, homophobia, transphobia, femmephobia, and body policing that I was already experiencing in the gay world. Who knew the dance world and Grindr would have so much in common?”

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Russel Hiett/


“‘Gay’ did not exist in my small rural Michigan community. Only words like ‘queer’ or ‘faggot,’ with all their negative connotations.”

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Paxton/


“Sooner or later I’ll realize that I’m enough.
Sooner or later I’ll realize that the disrespect is too much.
Sooner or later I’ll say I’ve had enough.”

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Jojo/


“I never really come out, because it’s too dangerous in my country. My country’s acceptance of homosexual is the lowest in the region.”

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Nude/

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“I tried my best to have a more accurate representation of myself in that country by wearing makeup and unisex clothing….but that had consequences.”

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Kaiden M. Corbin/


“Free. I’m finally free. I don’t have to walk around and pretend anymore. I’m free.”

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N/


“I have had joy and pain in my life but the most painful thing was having to live a lie, to hide the fact that I was gay. I still hide it for the most part as I live in a homophobic part of the world.”

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Chyna/


“Her death is a wound that is gone unhealed and 2 years and 14 days later we still have no justice, only heartbreak and memories.”

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Carmelo/


“My purpose by coming out to you today as a survivor of childhood sexual violence is to tell my story with the hope that no child in your life or mine ever experiences the sexual abuse that I and countless of other people in this world have experienced.”

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Avery/


“Just like the National Geographic photo encouraged a lot of trans people and let them feel like they could transition, video games did that for me.”

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Kemi Lo/


“i don’t fit into the typical stereotypes of queer, i’m not super femm, i’m not butch, i’m not edgy or unique or anything like that”

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Elliott Engelbraum/


““My dear Richard was my neighbor, finding him, ‘He was the boy next door’ As our relationship truly blossomed to love”

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William Lynn Donaldson/


“Coming to terms with being gay as a child was pure hell.”

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Christian/


“As a child who was bullied in Hong Kong and later as an immigrant in the USA, my roots were immersed in experiences of homophobia and xenophobia.”

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Michael/


“My journey started with fear and others knowing my attraction was for boys, trying to change, trying to fit, ran away unable to accept who I was”

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Bob Frew/


“Since I had already experimented and enjoyed teenage sexual excursions with other boys, I knew that she was talking to me, and that was enough to put me in the closet.”

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Lucas/


“Being gay and HIV positive in Kenya is hell on earth. You get rejected by fellow queer men and society.”

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Ellen Hone/


“Married 20 years to a male, I had a child and 2 grandsons, I had no idea I was bisexual until I was divorced.”

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Sharon Durrant/


“The homophobic behaviors I have experienced in my life have been subtle and over, intentional and unintentional”

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Elliot & Peyton/


“Growing up in rural Louisiana is unlike everything in the world – beauty beyond what I can describe. But the culture surrounding me was much different.”

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Nichalas Brown/


“My eldest brother was my father figure, and so he took the responsibility of SCOLDING me, time and time again.”

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Nyella Love/


“At times the fight to be who I am now becoming was something that pushed me to the point of suicide. I thought that it was my only way out of the body I knew I didn’t belong in.”

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Z Fila/


“I decided to forgive my parents for not accepting my sexualty. i forgive them, however, resent the christian faith because it robbed me of my parents.”

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