Hello and thank you for being a DL contributor. We are changing the login scheme for contributors for simpler login and to better support using multiple devices. Please click here to update your account with a username and password.

Hello. Some features on this site require registration. Please click here to register for free.

Hello and thank you for registering. Please complete the process by verifying your email address. If you can't find the email you can resend it here.

Hello. Some features on this site require a subscription. Please click here to get full access and no ads for $1.99 or less per month.

Escaping gay conversion therapy in Kenya

After moving hundreds of miles away from home for college, I was looking forward to taking a vacation with my family the summer after my first year. My freshman year of college had been especially hard due to both being far from my family and from all the stress that typically comes with starting college.

My decision to pursue postsecondary education in New York came with the price of leaving my family behind in Minnesota. It was emotional and tumultuous. I, like many first-generation students from an immigrant background, struggled to reconcile two frequently opposing desires: devotion to family and educational mobility. So when my mother invited me to come on a vacation to Kenya to visit our relatives, I thought it would be a good chance to spend some time together, reunite with family we hadn’t seen in awhile and explore East Africa. Little did I know that my mother had other plans in store for me.

I hail from an extremely conservative Muslim background, but over the past years, I have come to realize that I don’t consider myself Muslim anymore. Not only did I have to hide from my family that I am an atheist, but also that I am gay.

My family is Somali by ethnicity. We fled to Kenya to escape the civil war in Somalia around 1991. This wouldn’t be my first time going back to Kenya, since I have visited the country a few times before, but I was looking forward to seeing my relatives and spending some time there.

We arrived in Kenya in late May 2017. The very first night there, my mother told me this would not be a summer vacation. She told me that I would not be returning to the U.S. at the end of the summer as planned. She asked me to withdraw from college so that I could be placed under the control of a group of sheiks whose goal would be to reform my religious beliefs and reorient my sexuality. Somehow, my family had found out my secret and had prepared this elaborate ruse to get me to Kenya.

Similar to the practice of gay conversion therapy in the United States, there are those within the Muslim community who utilize abusive tactics as a way of policing what they consider to be “deviant” behavior. Even though my mother “asked” me to go, I knew that it wasn’t really a choice. A few sheiks were at our hotel that night. They briefly spoke to me about how being gay and atheist is unequivocally against my Islamic upbringing and African heritage. I knew that when they came back to get me the following morning, I would be forced to go with them.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 28January 11, 2019 12:12 PM

I was quite aware of the horrors of these gay and religious conversion camps. The leaders operate the camps around grim parts of Somalia and Kenya. They subject their captives to severe beatings, shackling, food deprivation and other cruel practices. It usually involves a rigorous Islamic curriculum. Those who fail to cooperate, make adequate progress or try to escape could possibly be killed.

I knew I had to get out immediately. I was without access to money or even my passport, so I needed assistance. To buy myself some time, I told my mother that I was willing to go along with her plans. I told her I was going for a walk, and then I made a call to Ex-Muslims of North America (EXMNA), an organization that supports people who have chosen to leave Islam. They quickly put me in touch with Executive Director Muhammad Syed, based in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Syed reached out to the United States Embassy in Kenya to see if they could help me escape. I was told that if I could take a cab to the embassy they could shelter me and help me figure out how I could get back to the U.S.

In the middle of the night, when everyone was asleep, I escaped from the hotel and made it to the embassy. Thankfully, the consul general welcomed me into his home until we could formulate a plan. The next problem was that I had no place to go and no money to get back to the U.S. I couldn’t go back home to Minnesota and Ithaca College was basically closed for the summer. The consul general reached out to the college to see if they could help. Luckily, they were able to find a place for me on campus and EXMNA was generous enough to pay for my airfare back to the U.S.

Once back on U.S. soil, I felt a measure of relief. Both the FBI and campus police are keeping an eye on me and, while I have begun to feel physically safe, emotionally the nightmare isn’t over. At 19, I now have no family. Even family members who weren’t a part of this scheme aren’t talking to me. Their rejection and treatment of me has been devastating. It has left me seriously questioning who I am and whether I deserve to be treated this way. The loss of my family’s love and support, both financial and emotional, has been extremely traumatic.

by Anonymousreply 1September 5, 2018 8:26 AM

While I’m lucky to have close friends who have offered comfort, it does nothing for the hole my family ripped into my heart. I know what they did to me was horrible and wrong, but they are still my family and reconciling with them will take some time.

As I work through all of this on a personal level, I know that I want to do everything I can to prevent this from happening to others like me. Gay conversion therapy is exceedingly abhorrent. While it can’t alter someone’s sexual orientation, it certainly can scar them for life. Suicide rates are extremely high for people forced into these conversion camps. I have been meeting with the State Department and others to discuss what can be done to stop this barbaric practice, which is sadly still prevalent in American society.

Unlike conversion therapy in the U.S., the religious conversion camps in Africa aren’t commonly reported on or talked about; they operate in secrecy. The fact that homosexuality is still illegal in most of Africa makes these conversion camps even crueler. We don’t have exact numbers of how many young people are forced to go to these camps, but we know the numbers are growing. Many of the people held captive have similar stories to myself. Their families immigrated to the U.S., then brought them back to Somalia or Kenya to force them into these places.

I am lucky enough to be over eighteen, a U.S. citizen and to have a large support network — all of which made it easier for me to get out of Kenya. Not everyone is so lucky, however. That is why I’m sharing my story: so the U.S. and other governments can do more to protect the vulnerable youth of Muslim backgrounds whose parents abuse them in the name of religion and culture.

After everything they put me through, I don’t know if I will ever be able to have a relationship with my family, but I am thankful that I am alive. For now, I am taking it one day at a time.

by Anonymousreply 2September 5, 2018 8:26 AM

......

by Anonymousreply 3September 5, 2018 8:37 AM

What do people expect from a backward country?

by Anonymousreply 4September 5, 2018 9:07 AM

bump

by Anonymousreply 5September 6, 2018 5:21 AM

.

by Anonymousreply 6October 23, 2018 10:55 PM

Ithaca is a very nice place, he can regenerate. I am glad he had the moxie to run away from that shitty family and culture. It must be sad to lose your family like that.

by Anonymousreply 7October 23, 2018 10:59 PM

Thanks OP. Great read.

by Anonymousreply 8October 23, 2018 11:00 PM

I can’t think of anything bad enough to happen to his family.

They better hope this doesn’t get out here in MN. There are a lot of gay men here and I’d bet a lot of them wouldn’t mind doing some mischief.

by Anonymousreply 9October 23, 2018 11:09 PM

He's lucky to have enough IQ to make it to college. Though Ithaca College isn't brainiac city, it's respectable enough. His family are obviously lower on the Bell Curve if they buy into that shit. Everyone who buys into that shit is either stupid, or a lying two-faced hypocrite.

by Anonymousreply 10October 23, 2018 11:20 PM

Despicable ruse.

by Anonymousreply 11October 23, 2018 11:27 PM

What a frightening story! Mahad Olad is lucky to have escaped. I'm actually surprised that the US Embassy in Kenya was so helpful.

by Anonymousreply 12October 23, 2018 11:39 PM

Poor guy. I am forever grateful my parents never cared about religion.

by Anonymousreply 13October 23, 2018 11:47 PM

And yet so many of my liberal brethren seem to want to praise Islam or at least are afraid to criticize it. I will never get that. We all have no problem (rightfully) denigrating Christianity, but not Islam. Makes zero sense.

by Anonymousreply 14October 23, 2018 11:51 PM

Liberals can be stupid cunts as well. And Liberal politicians, if bright, are bing namby pampy to please our own liberal deplorables. We have deplorables, too! Overwrought rather dim SJWs for example.

by Anonymousreply 15October 23, 2018 11:57 PM

pamby

by Anonymousreply 16October 23, 2018 11:58 PM

I’m just amazed how adults actually believe that it is their right and duty to police and legislate who other people are fucking, falling in love with, etc.

Amazing that something that is literally no one’s business, is constantly used to shame, blame, hurt, alienate and discriminate against others. Meanwhile, let’s not forget that Islam has no issue with a grown man, even a 90 year old, marrying an 11 year old girl. The ones in Afghanistan have no issue with raping little boys, and see it as a normal custom. And Muslims all over the Middle East will honor kill their own daughters if she has been raped, or if she refuses to marry her hideous, abusive cousin, who beats the living shit out of his own sisters. Had this young man been a little girl, his trip to Kenya May have included being held down by her female family members, while her grandmother cuts off her clitoris with a dull knife, or a piece of broken glass.

Islam is a horrible religion. They are ALL horrible religions, however, I find Islam to be particularly barbaric. Good for this kid to have found Atheism.

I’m pretty sure that if I had been a lesbian, my family wouldn’t have anything to do with me. Many dislike me quite a bit as it is, since I’m a liberal atheist, who obviously doesn’t attend church.

by Anonymousreply 17October 24, 2018 12:15 AM

Islam is one of the biggest shitstains in the history of civilization.

by Anonymousreply 18October 24, 2018 12:21 AM

What a brave man.

by Anonymousreply 19October 24, 2018 12:22 AM

No conversion tale for me (how horrid for that man) but when I told my parents I was gay at 17, they allowed me to stay the night, fed me a breakfast and then told me to hit the road and never come back. I’m 68 now and never saw them again.

What is it about being gay that threatens parents so. To send them to a torture camp or jettison a child like so much trash. The damage it does is hard to overcome but I did.

by Anonymousreply 20October 24, 2018 12:28 AM

I teach English as a second language in Minnesota.

Somali people and other East Africans can be warm, inviting people.

But in the back of my mind, this reality never goes away.

I feel for this guy on multiple levels. At least his college has thrown him a lifeline and he can find a new community of friends who understand him through the ex-Muslim organization.

by Anonymousreply 21October 24, 2018 12:28 AM

I think “escaped” is a bit of an exaggeration in this case. He avoided attending conversion therapy altogether. And that he was able to punch and delete his shitty family and stay permanently out of Somalia or wherever the fuck was just gravy. This is the story of a crappy weekend that ultimately empowered a guy to cut ties with his idiot cunt mother. We should all be so lucky.

by Anonymousreply 22October 24, 2018 12:37 AM

[quote]Somehow, my family had found out my secret and had prepared this elaborate ruse to get me to Kenya.

How did the family somehow find out?

by Anonymousreply 23October 24, 2018 12:37 AM

Oh please many people awake in a family can sniff out the homos.

by Anonymousreply 24October 24, 2018 12:46 AM

It was all the Madonna albums Rose.

by Anonymousreply 25October 24, 2018 12:55 AM

[quote]my liberal brethren seem to want to praise Islam

link please

by Anonymousreply 26October 24, 2018 3:37 AM

. Bump

by Anonymousreply 27December 16, 2018 10:27 PM

👬

by Anonymousreply 28January 11, 2019 12:12 PM
Loading
Need more help? Click Here.

Yes indeed, we too use "cookies." Take a look at our privacy/terms or if you just want to see the damn site without all this bureaucratic nonsense, click ACCEPT. Otherwise, you'll just have to find some other site for your pointless bitchery needs.

×

Become a contributor - post when you want with no ads!