Living in Canada for several years now, Bradley and Alvin remember their home country Burundi with a touch of nostalgia even though they were victims of homophobic oppression there. Despite protective laws in Canada, they warn LGBTQI+ newcomers from Burundi to remain cautious.
I am waiting for Bradley in a small cafeteria in downtown Ottawa. He arrives in a black polo shirt, blue jeans, and a little earring in his left ear. The shy, often defensive 31-year-old I remember in Bujumbura is now full of life.
Bradley’s life as a gay man began thousands of kilometers from here in Burundi, a small East African country ravaged by decades of civil war where authorities use homophobia as a propaganda tool. Bradley was a quiet boy in a wealthy family who discovered his sexual orientation early on.
“From a young age, I felt different from other little boys. At school, I liked to play only with girls. Other boys called me ‘queer’, a homophobic term [in the Burundian context] I knew nothing about.”
Bradley’s mother, who he describes as open-minded, understood that her son loved “girl stuff” and started buying him women’s clothes.
“I liked to wear the igitenge (a traditional skirt of multi-coloured fabric). I saw the women around me wearing this outfit and I imitated their actions once she put it on me”, Bradely remembers with a smile.
In June 2018, then 24, Bradley came to Ottawa to attend a conference for young community leaders and decided to stay in Canada after applying for asylum.
“It was like a dream come true for me. I was finally able to be myself and live my homosexuality in a more fulfilling way. In Ottawa, I was reborn from my ashes. Another me, full of hope, resurfaced, full of ambitions.”
Finding strength in unity, Bradley joined several LGBTIQ community groups in the Ottawa-Gatineau locality. There he found a new family that welcomed him with open arms and provided support, advice, and career guidance.
When homophobia leads to isolation
Back in Burundi, despite his mother’s support and affection, Bradley’s sexual orientation and more feminine gender expression always upset his older brothers.“They constantly heckled me and told anyone who wanted to hear that they didn’t understand how a boy could behave like this! ‘You’re embarrassing us,’ they shouted. Our society is very macho and men who are a little bit effeminate like me are often mistreated and rejected by other men”, he said.
As a child, Bradley isolated himself to escape the laughter and ridicule of his siblings. “I used to lock myself in my room to listen to music and watch movies. My room became my refuge to decompress in the face of homophobia. I had almost no social life.”
Because of the hostile climate at home, Bradley sometimes stayed with his aunt in Ngozi, a province more than 100 km northeast of Bujumbura.
“I never missed the opportunity to go to her place and spend long weeks there, especially during the summer holidays. I was enjoying the fresh air of the countryside, but it was mainly to escape my brothers who tormented me. My mom was sometimes not there to defend me.”
To taste the delights of life
Soon after arriving in Ottawa, Bradley met *Tim. “Unlike my previous affairs in Bujumbura, with Tim [who is Canadian] I could live my homosexuality openly, such as holding hands in public, without fear of suspicious looks or physical aggression … a way of life that was forbidden to me in Burundi.”
However, after a few years in Canada, Bradley realized that homophobia was not completely behind him, even in a country where LGBTQI+ people’s equal rights are guaranteed by law. “This [homophobia] comes from roommates, often people from countries where homosexuality is a crime, in front of which you can’t openly show yourself with your lover when he arrives at your house, despising looks from colleagues, superiors not always accommodating to homosexuality, etc.”
Bradley found a job at an adult disability home in Hawkesbury, a small conservative town in eastern Ontario, just two months after he arrived in Canada. “To clear my head and spend some nice naughty moments without being disturbed, I visit Montreal and settle down for a weekend in the Village (a queer-friendly neighbourhood)”.
“Protect yourself in a country where our rights are protected”
Bradley has been living in the country of maple trees for six years now. In this time, he has made a mental map of ‘safe’ and ‘not safe’ places in relation to his sexual orientation. “Contrary to what many people think, even here in Canada, the danger remains in some places. I know very well, for example, where I can live my homosexuality without fear of aggression and where it is not safe at all to do so.”
He said caution is still required when you are gay and living in Canada in 2024. He sums it up in a simple phrase. “Protect yourself in a country where our rights are protected”.
Bradley is critical of some of his fellow LGBTQ+ Burundians who arrive in Canada and pursue a life of unbridled freedom. “I understand very well that years lived in a restrictive context leads to wanting to ‘let go’ once in a more permissive framework. But that is no excuse for young people from Burundi to come here and get addicted to drugs, alcohol, sex, excessive social life and miss the opportunities to build their own lives that Canada offers for gay exiles.”
In Hawkesbury, Bradley said he has found an excellent setting to fulfil his dream of being himself while being useful to others. “When you are gay, you often grow up with the idea that you have no value in the eyes of others. Here I have realized my dream to prove myself and prove to others that my homosexuality does not prevent me from taking care of my neighbour.”
Two lives, the same destiny
Alvin discovered his sexual orientation at 17 in secondary school after a string of unfulfilling relationships with girls. “It was as if I were drinking a tasteless drink,” he remembers. A native of Bujumbura, Alvin moved to Kampala for his studies and fell in love with a handball teammate. For three years they remained lovers. News of their relationship spread to one of Alvin’s former girlfriends, who told so many people in Bujumbura that he dreaded visiting for the holidays. Upon returning home, his father, a former army officer, demanded Alvin tell him the truth. “I categorically denied it. I had no other choice, seeing as he could cut me off or disinherit me.” Stigmatized and shamed, his studies became his only respite.
In April 2015, when Alvin was in his final year of school, a political crisis erupted in Burundi. With the massacres that followed, his parents feared for their son’s life. “Seeing the security situation deteriorating, they began procedures for me to continue my studies in the United States.” After several unsuccessful attempts, Alvin arrived in the U.S. in July 2017. It felt like “total liberation, because I could finally be able to make a decision without depending on my parents,” he remembers.
Three months later he visited Montreal and discovered a whole different world where people from the LGBTIQ community appeared relaxed in the street. The only problem for him there were fellow Burundians. “It’s like you’re being spied on, stalked in the morning,” he says. To avoid disappointing his parents back home, Alvin assumes a “camouflage strategy” and keeps his sexuality private in public.
Now settled in Montreal and living in a common-law relationship with a Salvadoran man.Although they don’t often bring up the subject of marriage, Alvin’s parents remain hopeful that one day he will get married with a lady. “When such discussions arise, I send them money to calm the situation,” an annoying ritual Alvin has come to consider a bribe. As for his love life, he has to be careful.
Like Bradley, Alvin has little patience for LGBTQI Burundians who, instead of pursuing their dreams, “indulge in debauchery”. “If it were up to me, I would tell the associations that help them to cut off financial support. We must take care of our image, be role models, and pursue our dreams. Otherwise we will always be the laughingstock of Burundi, and it will be difficult for us to advance our cause.
No hope for his home country
With regard to his family back in Burundi, Bradley said he has reconciled with the brothers who once abused him. “As I send money to my family from my comfortably paid work here, my brothers no longer dare to make disparaging remarks about my sexual orientation as they used to do in the past.”
Bradley pays his highest praise and gratitude to his mother. “She was always by my side in a society where I felt that I did not belong as a gay man,” he said, almost moved to tears. “When I felt like giving up, she encouraged me to keep going. I almost quit school, but she pushed me to continue my studies, and since I’m here, she has been urging me to be happy.”
As for his home country where homosexuality has been criminalized since 2009 and sexual minorities are constantly abused in official speeches, Bradley says he has no hope of improvement. “When the head of state calls for the stoning of gay men in a stadium (1), this [harms] the gay community already heavily stigmatized within society. All this makes me sad and pessimistic”.
PS: Names have been changed to protect sources’ identities.
(1) On 30 December 2023, the Burundian president, Evariste Ndayishimiye, in a public broadcast live on State Radio and Television called for “the stoning of gay people in a stadium”.
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