‘It just makes me feel home’: LGBTQ+ newcomers celebrate first Pride in Canada

Zhya Aramiy, a newcomer to Canada originally from Kurdistan, Iraq, is photographed in Toronto's Church-Wellesley district on Wednesday, June 26, 2024.Aramiy, who identifies as gay, fled from Iraq at the age of 27 after facing threats, physical violence and ostracization from his family because of his sexuality.

The Canadian government says more than 70 countries criminalize consensual same-sex relations, including six countries that punish same-sex relations with the death penalty. A 2022 statement from the United Nations Human Rights Office notes that while accurate data on forcibly displaced LGBTQ+ people is lacking, they are among the most vulnerable of the 84 million forcibly displaced people worldwide.

“As an LGBT person in Uganda, you don’t have the freedom to really express your feelings,” Bisaso said. He added he feared he would lose his life, citing the country’s enactment last year of an anti-gay law that allows the death penalty. Nugent said she faced discrimination in Jamaica as a queer woman. As an activist there, Nugent said she was once arrested after challenging “a culture that is very homophobic and queerphobic.”

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