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.
“Before we moved in together they caught us and Seperated us, and they sent the love of my life away to souTh america. She gave up as we were far and suffering. Our Families got what they wanted eventually, and now i have to pr tend its all ok and that i no longer feel this love for her.”
READ THE STORY
“i remember,when i had girl crushes.i was so terrified,i thought i was a sinful and disgusting person. I tried not to think about it anymore…i became depressed,anxious and scared. this continued for several years.when i was 14,one day,i just got tired of it.”
READ THE STORY
“My name is Jelani Kyrie Kabita. I wasn’t born with this name, I wasn’t born with this body, I wasn’t born with this state of mind. For 20 years I lived in denial but I was trapped personally internally with family morals and religion barriers.”
READ THE STORY
“As a human being I’ve always failed in finding the ‘one person’ that I can call soul mates because of the cultural restriction and the backwards traditions that doesn’t tolerate love in a different way but it’s ok I feel the love among family friends and country love, but as a non binary gender queer person I’ve never been able to express my gender identity the way I want because I may be called ‘faggot’ ‘sissy’ ‘pervert’ and a lot of other terms.”
READ THE STORY
“I come from a rural economically marginalized background which itself gave me a set of struggles to fight since childhood. Since my adolescent days I was trying to understand myself and was a confused soul.”
READ THE STORY
“16 was the year of my coming out. I came out to my mother and my older brother. Poor him… he suffered from the pressure of the people of the neighborhood… My mother only worried about not having the cops home. Then, I understood that I will carry this responsibility throughout my entire life. Being responsible for being gay and different at 16 is worse than doing your military service.”
READ THE STORY
“In 2015, while I was under general anesthesia, my doctor removed and destroyed a part of my body, without my consent. I have filed a lawsuit against this doctor. In several Facebook posts, she even threatened to stop treating transgender patients because of me (although she never named me). She openly exploited my fear that attempting to hold her accountable would restrict our community’s access to healthcare.”
READ THE STORY
“I have been homeless more than one. I have been raped two times- my family doesn’t accept me, my mother hates me badly. I have tried killing myself more than once. I am feeling very lost, lonely and unloved.”
READ THE STORY
“My greatest desire is to move to some place where my sexuality is legal and accepted, a place where I can just call him my boyfriend or husband, not my partner, a place where they would not stare if we hold hands in the street, a place where everything would be just fine.”
READ THE STORY
“Everyone should have the right to experiment femininity and masculinity and every possible way of gender expression despite of the biological sex they were assigned to at birth. Gender is a social construct, individuals should have the right to build and express their gender identity the way they want.”
READ THE STORY
“I have family and friends and co-workers that really put up with my life they don’t look at me any different from them.”
READ THE STORY
“i have a past darkness of discriminate, bullied, religious police arrest, daily fear to murdered, teacher cutting my hair shorter at school, a lots hurt memory that bring me to final decision, seeking protection in sweden.”
READ THE STORY
We’re delighted to share the work of Mikael Owunna this week. “Limit(less)” is Mikael’s longterm project on LGBTQ African immigrants in North America and Europe. The project uses queer African style to debunk the myth that being LGBTQ is “un-African”. We’ll share the work of Mikael on our feed through May 26. Read the stories … READ THE STORY
READ THE STORY
“They even called our local pastor to come and bless the house, and he told my mother certain things in my house were causing me to be gay. My mother started digging out stuff from my cupboard and she threw away many of my things, including my collection of snow globes. My relationship with my family became strained, we lived in the same house but did not talk for months.”
READ THE STORY
“I fled my parent’s house and I turned my phone off for two weeks, I dropped school.
Afterwards when I re-opened my phone, the first call that I got was from my mother, she had a very sad voice while repeating : your father blind because of you.”
“‘I’m claiming an asylum,’ my voice cracked.
He looked deeply into my eyes. ‘Against what country?’
‘The Republic of Indonesia.’
‘On what basis?’
‘Sexual orientation.’
‘Welcome to Canada, Mr. Fahd,'”
“Family can make you or break you. I know this all too well as my relationship with my mom or the lack thereof, almost ruined me.”
READ THE STORY
www.isupportthelgbt.community For many in the LGBTQI+ community, it can feel as though no allies exist, particularly when friends and family members turn their backs. Many allies are afraid to show their support, worrying what their own community might think. It may take courage, but it is the right thing to do, and with each person … READ THE STORY
READ THE STORY
“The worst moment of my life was in December 2012, the first president of the association received death threats and I was hiding him in my home to protect him. So I became the target of a group of homophobic gangsters.”
READ THE STORY
“I fear discrimination in public spaces – the taunts and the calling of names. Bapuk, pondan. Muggers are alert on people like us. I have seen and heard stories of people being roughed up. In a conservative society, I can only express myself in safe spaces. My family cannot know.”
READ THE STORY
“My name is Bobby I am writing my story to tell you about my life being a gay man and living in Jamaica. I am 23 years of age and I am proud to say that I am gay. My life has been so hard to the extent I tried to kill myself more than once; I have been beaten because of my sexuality. I tried to kill myself because I was ashamed of myself because at one point I hated myself for being gay and I remember I went Down Town Waterfront trying to jump off to drown myself because I was so sad that no one loved me because of my sexuality.”
READ THE STORY
“I looked for escape. I began to love make up. I’ve always been fascinated about women in general, especially those Hollywood actresses, how beautiful they look. The inspiration and aspiration started growing. Then I discovered drag.”
READ THE STORY
“My childhood was awful and i suffered a lot. I made my coming out at the age of 16, and i think now that it was the biggest mistake of my life. This period I tried to commit suicide because of judgments.”
READ THE STORY
“I pretty much knew from the get go that I was somewhat different. The word ‘gay’ to me was completely unknown, totally alien. My first experience of this word came from hearing various stories about how disgusting and criminal gays were to society. At the time, homosexual acts were illegal. Witnessing a man taunted and beaten in the street validated the fact that in no way would I ever express my sexuality in this country, the thought was completely terrifying.”
READ THE STORY
“It was last valentines when we decided to go have a romantic dinner at this nice restaurant where everything was decorated in red with heart shaped lights. The moment we got in, we set our eyes on this nice table for two with lovely candles on top of it, but the waiter directed us to a regular table for four because the other tables were for couples and we weren’t a couple. How can we be when she is a she and I am a she.”
READ THE STORY
“As a gay male, being in Europe almost seemed more safe than walking the streets of Connecticut and everything surrounding. Little did I know, I was wrong.”
READ THE STORY
“One night, my over thinking went too much, and I just decided to end it. I took lots of pills, hoping whatever this was, will end. I didn’t want to be rejected again, or judged one more time. But I didn’t die, I didn’t take enough pills, and I’m thankful for that. After a few years of being unable to trust people again or to talk about who I am. The universe threw some people who did accept me, they didn’t even care if I liked girls they cared about me. And better yet, I met people who are just like me, who suffered who tried to end it, who survived.”
READ THE STORY
“They say gay is a sin. God created only man and woman. So I say, I don’t care. I am proud what and who I am. God created me as a human.”
READ THE STORY
“I’m still young and I’ve seen a lot through my highschool years. I came out when I was a freshman. And I got a lot of discriminations. It’s true that life has been tough for me, but I got thick skin now, I learned that people will always talk, more importantly they will always be afraid of difference.”
READ THE STORY
“One of my closet friends At the time Basically told me that she hated gay people. In religion class, i was taught that LGBT people Had an unchangeable ‘condition’. As a 13 year old who had just started to become self-accepting, being told something like that severely set back me coming to terms with being gay.”
READ THE STORY
“I could not believe that in under an hour my situation can switch from being safe and in love with my partner a lover to a criminal humiliated and defeated in the backseat of a police vehicle. I remember I was feeling cold and my voice got weak while I answered their questions. One of the police officers called his boss through the radio and asked him whether to bring me to him or not.
‘Hello boss, we got ‘imitation of the opposite sex case’ should we bring her over to you, or transfer her immediately?’ ‘Imitation… bring her over, bring her.’”
“It didn’t cause me any issues until I turned 13, my friends started talking about girls and how they want to ‘enjoy’ or ‘have fun’ with them. Everyone gets a … everytime they bring that subject up, and I didn’t, I wasn’t even paying attention to it, it made me feel like an outsider, I felt something was off and my thoughts were confirmed when I met Adam, we instantly clicked and we used to always hang out and play, and one night we got intimate and he kissed me, it was beautiful and scary at the same time. My thoughts were true, I AM DIFFERENT.”
READ THE STORY
“i use two names: eli and yana
to the internet and close friends i’m eli, the nonbinary who’s attracted to all genders and is proud of their identity
to some friends i’m yana the cisfemale pan who’s okay with their sexuality
and to my family i’m yana: cisfemale and straight
ever since i was little i didn’t liked being called a girl. or a boy.”
“My family beat me, so I tried to commit suicide several times. One day I fell in love with a boy who lived in Libya, so I joined him there.
I was caught by the libyen police, they wanted to kill me. They beat me and detained me for 7 days.
I had to move back to Tunis and stay away from my love…a piece of me.
He got married, even though he is gay, and it depressed me…”
“Growing up in Tunisia is not as bad as it is, but it’s tiring. We’re not like other Arabic countries, but we are also not like Europeans, so we grow up having an identity disorder. I discovered I was bi at the age of 15.”
READ THE STORY
“I’m a 15 year old girl in the usa. I’ve known i wasn’t like the other kids at my school every since i was 12. I Never knew about lgbt people until I Began to look on the internet. I had always assumed that i would Be like everyone Else when i was older.”
READ THE STORY
i didn’t know how to start presenting myself as trans because i had always kept things buried inside of me.
READ THE STORY
“When I was growing up my parents fought a lot so I spent a lot of time at my best friend’s house. Her family was very evangelical and I remember her dad coming into the room and telling us it was ‘not right and not normal’ for us to be sleeping so close together. When her mom told us we had to stop spending too much time together it broke my heart.”
READ THE STORY
“In the end of 80s my father emigrated to Italy and we reached him in 1992. I felt very relieved because for sure my original country wasn’t the right place to stay. However growing up in Italy wasn’t that easy. Also here I was bullied and discriminated. First I thought that it was for my colour skin or because I was the nerd of the town. Later I will understand that there was something more.”
READ THE STORY
“I was ashamed and buried in self-judgment, afraid of what my friends and family would think. Having been raised in the LDS community, a part of the Mormon religion, I denied my feelings for a woman and considered never coming out. But after two years of being in the closet, and endless arguments with the woman whose companionship I treasured, I decided to choose what made me happiest: love.”
READ THE STORY
“she told me to be Be-You-Tiful- be you because the real you is beautiful and you’re not here for the approval for anyone so give yourself a break and Be-You-Tiful. These words stuck with me and formed part of me in a literal sense as I had it tattooed on my chest as a reminder to myself every day when I wake up and I am preparing myself for the day ahead. This is the first time I’m speaking so candidly to such a large audience about my gender identity but at this point I really don’t care. I am Jamaican and trans is beautiful and I am beautiful.”
READ THE STORY
If you asked 2013 me where I saw myself in the future, I would have told you dead. today is a different story. today I’m living.
READ THE STORY
“I am always on the alert and really on the defensive because when you have a predominantly male look, like I do, you can never tell when you may become a target so I am always cognisant of that and ready to go into defence mode. I really love Jamaican- it is my homeland. “
READ THE STORY
“Every time I introduce myself I am asked what I have come to refer to as the ‘Annoying Inevitable Question’: ‘What does FJ Stand for?’ the selection of a name is a critical part of the transition process of a transgender individual.”
READ THE STORY
Danielle Villasana shares stories from “A Light Inside”, documenting transgender women living in Peru.
READ THE STORY
“Growing up, my dad proudly told everyone he could, “If either of my sons comes home and tells me they’ve decided to be gay, I will laugh at them and kick them out of my house until they come home and tell me they’ve changed their minds and apologize.” He didn’t realize that he was actually talking about me, not my brothers. They had already disowned me for reporting my dad for molesting me as a child when I emailed them to come out, which I did to avoid having to hear their reactions, because I knew they would be vicious.”
READ THE STORY
“My experience of discrimination started since when I was 12 years old. In the school where I attend all my class mate hate me so much, they don’t play with me, each time I go to play with them, they reject me and say they will not play with a girl (referring to me).”
READ THE STORY
“Ever since I was a young girl I knew I wasn’t like everyone else. I remember when my aunt would bring home her beautiful friends over and I couldn’t help but wish I was older so I could be with them. I never knew what bisexual meant until I was about 7 or 8.”
READ THE STORY
“when we was in car i talked to him i have something to tell you but you must not be angry and i want you to be quiet when i ask he said “okay” , but in that moment i cant told him i want to see you all naked bcz of shy i tried but cant he told ” if you dont tell me you will not see me again ! ” he pressed to me to talk i said okay ” i want see you naked ” suddenly he got angry and got out of car i said him stop i want to explain it to you he left … “
READ THE STORY
“The death of Eric (little brother) is a death in our family, it also killed our mother because since the tragedy, the poor woman developed hypotension. We are left to ourselves (brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces). Imagine a pillar of the family goes without farewell or a trace, words cannot express the pain that I carry in my heart, how can we console our mother? What can we say to the children?”
READ THE STORY