I cannot thank @nintendomad888 enough for always lifting up voices & passing the mic What a gem.

I lived this. You don't know the horror of facing imminent torture, corrective marriage, rape & death while providing 'evidence' for your 'grounds' to cold immigration officers. https://twitter.com/nintendomad888/status/1264867128257196032

You don't know the horror of recalling 'important' assaults & acts of violence on you and explaining how they were related to your sexuality (& gender & abandoning religion too, in my case) while knowing full well people like you get dismissed bc we can just 'act straight'.

You don't know the horror of remembering your teenage self falling to pieces upon realising you were very pansexual and very in love with the friend you were already kind of romantically & sexually involved with (but couldn't name it bc ISIS etc would kill you for it).

You don't know the horror of talking to this former friend about your life being in danger, of her writing a letter in your support describing our relationship from her perspective for the immigration authorities & crying bc it's beautiful in its memories but your heart's broken.

You don't know the horror of having to lay all of that bare to be forced to beg for the right to live.
These are just the tip of the iceberg.
Many countries still force queer people to submit photos & videos of them having sex with their 'same-sex partner' for credibility.

It was legal in the UK to do this until fairly recently--it was a EU-mandated law that made it illegal.
Guess what's likely to make a comeback following Brexit.
Other countries show queer asylum seekers gay porn, force them to bare their genitals and check for visible arousal.

N.B. the "straight passing" nonsense gets *extra trippy* when you're trans. Technically the woman I was with was a different gender~~paramour~~ to me, a trans man, but I wouldn't be accepted in the country as a man for shit
Yet another way that whole narrative is trash.