LGBTQI ADVOCATE

Hello Tumblr 🌈

Thank you for listening, for reading, and for standing with trans refugees. 🏳️‍⚧️

My name is Noel-haven, a transgender refugee living in Gorom Refugee Camp.

I’m sharing my story here to be visible, to be honest, and to connect with people who believe that trans lives matter everywhere — even in places the world often forgets.

Life in the camp is not easy. Being transgender here means facing discrimination, fear, and lack of basic needs. But despite everything, I’m still here, still surviving, and still hoping for a safer future.

I write this with a heavy heart, trembling with fear and frustration. The person in the government who began displacing us from Gorom Refugee Settlement has never stopped. He continues—relentlessly—to evict us under the false pretense of “relocation” to Juba for our own safety. But we know the truth: this is not protection, it is displacement, and it is breaking us.

He claims that the host community doesn’t want LGBTQIA+ refugees in the settlement. So instead, we are being forced into urban areas where we are even more exposed to homo- and transphobic violence. South Sudan is still in conflict. We are not safe anywhere. This so-called "relocation" could easily become a silent genocide of LGBTQIA+ refugees.

Relocation—if truly about safety—should be done with care, resources, and a clear protection plan. But here, there is no plan, no support, no shelter, and no safety. We are being pushed into the unknown, into homelessness and danger, and the world is silent.

We are appealing to the international community, to human rights defenders, to UNHCR South Sudan, to U.S. Embassy Juba, South Sudan Canadian Immigration and Citizenship and to all people of conscience: please intervene before lives are lost. LGBTQIA+ refugees like us have already endured so much—discrimination, violence, and exclusion—from Kakuma Camp in Kenya to now here in Gorom.

We came to South Sudan for legal protection. What we are receiving is the opposite. This is inhumane. This is wrong.

And to those who wonder why we’re still here: during the Biden administration, we were granted resettlement slots to finally find safety in the United States. We were full of hope. But everything changed when the Trump administration returned and suspended the refugee program, leaving us in limbo—abandoned and exposed once again. That decision crushed our path to safety and has left us stuck in fear, frustration, and danger.

I feel scared to share this. I know I’m being watched. But if I don’t speak, who will speak for us? My silence will not protect me. Your silence will not protect us.

Please stand with us. Share this. Speak out. Call on those in power. Let the world know: we are not safe, and we need your help—urgently.

With love and pain,

In 2020, I fled my home country Uganda due to torture and persecution because of my sexual identity, in an incident which my house got burnt.

I went to Kenya 🇰🇪 where I lived in a refugee camp called Kakuma refugee camp. However in kakuma still faced continous torture and persecution because of my sexual orientation.

In 2023, Kenyan government imposed an anti homosexuality bill which criminalized the act of Lgbtq practices. The UNHCR officials told us they were not going to work on us the Lgbtq refugees, this forced me and my fellow queer refugees to move to another refugee camp in South Sudan 🇸🇸 called Gorom where I currently live in a community of about 400 LGBTQ refugees 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

In the camp, situations are getting worst as South Sudan doesn't support Lgbtq practice.

The country has been going through genocide, which has trippled the insecurities of us the Ugandan LGBTQI refugees. There's also challenges of accessing basic needs like food, water and proper shelter due to the highest degree of discrimination that can't allow LGBTQI people to work.

We therefore appeal to any well-wishers with an act of humanity to intervene and save as from this masculinity of suffering

I'm tagging people so that our situations can reach more people.