Real stories from the World - LGBTQ+

Frankie from Nigeria

So my story is a bit of a long one.

I'm Nigerian and I lived there for most of my life before moving to Ireland and the effects from there still haunt me.

I'm genderfluid and part of the asexual spectrum as well as lithromantic. Personal info though it would involve my story, I never in my life want to have sex or enter a relationship and living in a country that has gender rules and hatred towards the LGBTQ+ members of the community made me hate that part of myself for a long time.

I mean, I'm supposed to be the girl that gets married and has sons for her husband, don't forget always obeying said husband to the letter. I have a way to react, a role I'm supposed to play there. I can't just wear a suit to a party because girls wear their dresses and traditional wears. I have to just be a girl because that's how I was born apparently.

I've seen how they treat people there, the worst of it. I've seen a person who didn't like being called a woman and was dating another woman, thrown in jail for 14 years for 'being a lesbian', the spouse denying ever being with them. I've seen a man and his partner burned in the middle of a local market for being found kissing. I've seen two girls in my old boarding school shamed, humiliated and caned in front of the school for loving each other, called disgusting and demonic, and sadly, I was with everyone there that called them disgusting.

Why? Because that's the safe way to think. That was what my father who thinks gays should be shit on the spot taught me and my mother who think we're all supposed to be locked up for the safety of the rest of the normal world, the ones not possessed by demons.

It was how I hid, by making myself believe that they, we, are all disgusting and not meant to exist. By agreeing with everyone when they said 'faggots' or 'sodomites'. I was dying from the inside but I didn't want to go through what everyone went through. I was just so scared.

You'd think maybe they'd be fine with asexuality because to the religion obsessed members of the country, sorry but it's true because most of the citizens there base their entire lives on religion, it's like a reverend father being celibate to them which is just completely inaccurate.

No. They think asexuals are freaks! Demon possessed humans without emotions or feelings. A group of girls in my old school even wondered if we're all just rape victims giving ourselves a name to feel included. Hell, my own dad laughed when I told him what it means to be asexual and told me they've just not met the right 'man or woman'. My mum joked and called asexual robots.

It's a toxic place. I mean right now, I get nostalgia at the good times I've had there with my siblings and such but the thought of going back there throws me into a panic attack. I can't. I just wish it'd change so I can actually be one of the people in the world that can truthfully say I'm proud to be from where I'm from.

I'm in the closet right now, at least with my family and despite the moving to Ireland where it's accepted by the majority, ignoring the 'that's so gay' jokes, I'm still scared of being kicked out for simply not playing my role of the dutiful and obedient girl who cleans, cooks, obeys and plans to give birth to kids for her Igbo husband. To be honest, I can't even tell my friends here without being asked 'if I've ever had sex so how would I know'.

So much ignorance and I wish it'd all just stop and everyone just get it through their heads that we're not some joke or people that are confused or don't know what we're saying because God damned all the 'sodomites'. We're skin covered red blood pumping, breathing people who just want, need, to be freaking accepted!

I want to be freaking accepted without being seen as done joke!

I mean, come on! Is that too much to bloody ask?

Frankie