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

My name is Julius and I am a pop artist and a song writer as well. I do pop-style music, rock, gospel, as well as country. I am a free-hearted person, social, and I love making new friends. I love people, and most of all I love LGBTIQ persons, because every time I see them, it’s like I meet my brothers. They feel the same way I do; we understand one another; we go through similar difficulties: it really touches my heart.

I identify as LGBTIQ. I am the ‘G’ – that is, gay. Actually, I am trans versatile: transgender and versatile. But I am gay. I am a refugee and fled from my country, because I didn’t have the freedom I deserve to have as a gay person and as a human as well. My country of origin is Uganda. I got into this ‘gayism’ situation. I found that my freedom was taken away from me. I wasn’t free. I was hiding my sexual orientation for a long time. For many years I did not want anyone to know who I am. I actually pretended like I am not gay but this put my life in a closet and it became so hard, very hard. So, my life reached a point of ‘enough is enough’. There were other problems I got through, but my orientation was the main issue that made me flee to Kenya. The people in my community were not okay with my sexual orientation. I won’t go so deep into it, because I’m not feeling comfortable sharing my testimony in detail, but it related to my sexual orientation.

I have been in Kenya three years and nine months now. I reached Kenya on the 28th of January 2016. I have found it very difficult. Kenyan citizens are so homophobic; they don’t want to be near us or give any assistance once they realise someone is gay, someone is a lesbian, LGBTIQ. We are finding this a difficult situation here in Kenya. It has made me relocate from one place to another; it makes me not even want to engage in love relationships. I would – but I fear being killed by citizens of Kenya and I fear being caught by the police and to get imprisoned. Kenya doesn’t accept gays.