Raymond felt abandoned by his relatives, but faced it without resentment.
But many are forging paths toward acceptance. In doing so, “the family becomes the protecting group.” To be sure, many LGBT rural East Africans still face discrimination, blackmail, arrest, and even violence. So the family tries to find ways to hide that from the public,” says Dr. Rural families “could become ashamed for having LGBT child. But across Africa, “there is really a big gap between the urban and rural” LGBT experience, says Kapya Kaoma, a theology scholar and pastor from Zambia. Big cities are often assumed to be more tolerant. A small town in Uganda – a country with a reputation for being one of the world’s most dangerous places to be gay or transgender – might be the last place you’d expect to see LGBT acceptance.
