Nicole, Cameroon
To break it down the simplest way, to be viewed as gay or lesbian in Cameroon is to be viewed as having a curse or a disease. It’s viewed as something that needs to be dealt with. Some LGBTQ people are arrested, killed and never heard of again. A lot of parents believe it’s a curse and will go into the village to find a traditional way of curing it.
Earlier in life, I had some sexual experiences with guys in high school but there was never a sense of feeling in love. This started to change when I met a girl who I started to spend a lot of time with. I felt comfortable around her and one night we kissed. A little while later we were at a party and we kissed again. But I still wasn’t sure what it meant to be a lesbian and I thought it was just my hormones as a teenager. There’s no system in Cameroon to help an LGBTQ person understand that they might be gay.
Shortly after that we kissed again at school and got caught. Both our parents were notified and my parents said they wouldn’t tolerate it. I was suspended for a week. Word started to spread around school and I started getting bullied. I’m thankful because a little while later I had the opportunity to go to the UK on a scholarship for pre-university and get away from this environment.
At boarding school I had the opportunity to meet so many people from different cultures, including people who expressed their sexual orientation freely. Coming from Cameroon, I wasn’t really used to this. It was here that I started getting more experiences and realized that I was a lesbian. After two years in the UK, I also knew that I could never be safe or myself if I went back home so I applied for a scholarship to University in the US and ended up moving to Oklahoma for four years. I felt fine until Trump came into power and then things changed. I started feeling racism and was called a Negro. I was also told to go back to my country. I felt like I didn’t belong here.
While this was happening, my mother came to visit my sister who was living in Canada. While my mom was there, she passed away and I had to go back to Cameroon for her funeral. It was my first time in four years going back home. While I was there, my extended family found out that I was a lesbian. They undressed me, sat me in a chair in the middle of the village, and performed a ceremony on me that they thought would heal me. They spoke in tongues, shouted, and poured some kind of water or potion on me. For 3-4 hours I cried and begged for help. Even though they thought they cured me, I know that nothing had changed.
As a result of my mom’s passing, my sister in Canada became depressed so I went there to be with her and to help her. I always thought it would be temporary, but then I met a friend who was gay and who told me that I should apply for asylum in Canada so that I could feel safe as an open LGBTQ person. At this point I decided to finally open up to my sister about my sexuality and even though she was so angry, she eventually began supporting me. Thanks to the help from Francoqueer, I applied to become a refugee and I’m still going through this process.
PhotoGRAPHED by
Elise Mozarmi
Elise is a photographer and has a diploma in Film Production. When she’s not taking pictures, she’s painting and illustrating.