A Year Ago, I Was Attacked and Outed as Queer. Here's What I've Learned.

I still vividly remember everything from the night I was attacked and outed—I was helpless and thought I would die.

I met Emmy on Tinder in late April. We talked and agreed to meet and hook up. On the day we had plans, I got on a video call with him to confirm that he was real. For many queer people in Nigeria, this was a way of being safe—but obviously not safe enough. Although I had my doubts, and something kept telling me to cancel the encounter, I dismissed the thought. 

The attack happened in a dingy cheap hotel. I had stripped down to only my trousers and was striking up little conversations with Emmy when I heard a knock and a stranger came into the room. At that point, I knew something was up and began panicking. Emmy’s friendly demeanor changed, and I tried to call for help. What followed was a series of verbal and physical assaults. I was dragged out of the hotel and was soon met with a homophobic mob. I was made to call my family, reveal my sexual orientation, and also ask them for money.

I was born in Nigeria, and have lived there for all my 25 years. Here, being queer is considered abnormal, evil, and Western. Especially after the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act became law in 2014, choosing to be an openly queer person is dangerous. At any given moment, you could get harassed, attacked, and even killed. On dating apps like Tinder and Grindr, people posing as gay men lure potential hook-ups to harass, attack, blackmail, extort, and out them. This act is called “kito” or to be “kitoed.”

Before my attack—a year ago this month—I was not totally in the closet. I grew up looking quite effeminate and came out to a few of my close friends almost immediately after high school. As the years passed, I embraced my sexuality and I had no shame in who I was.

All queer people in Nigeria are bonded with the same trauma—of not being accepted, of assault or the threat of it.

However, I wasn’t open with my immediate family before my attack, and getting outed to them upended my life. In the first three months after the attack, while seeing a therapist with the help of an NGO, I detached myself from the house that I shared with them. A house that was once a comfort zone became not-so-comfortable. My family would regularly use homophobic rhetoric. My mental health after the attack didn’t matter to them. They were also considering conversion therapy. This was very scary for me; I had heard about people’s experiences with such therapy, and it was horrible.

Every opportunity I had to stay away from my family's abode, I took it. I hung out at a friend’s place for weeks, which turned into months. I spoke to my mother on the phone once in a while; half of the time she was the one who initiated the call and was very quick to try to persuade me to come back home. In response, I’d promise her I would, as a way to get her off my back. But the truth was, I was still very traumatized—from my attack, but also from how my family condemned me afterwards. I wasn’t able to look past how homophobic they were and continued to be.

Meanwhile, I took a break from meeting people on social media and dating apps. I channeled all my energy into moving past my attack, trying to work, and earning more money. Life could have been fuller and more interesting. But instead, it was very lonely and I yearned for more. There were days when I wanted to get back on dating apps, just to feel the thrill of meeting new people, but I hesitated. It didn’t feel safe. 

In September, I started talking to an old Twitter friend. We began flirting and it turned out I felt safe around this person. He was young, sweet, and good-looking. What was meant to be another harmless hook-up became something more. I spent a lot of time with this person and around their chosen family. This community became a safe space for me. Meeting my now-boyfriend opened me up to new adventures. We went on road trips, took walks together, and even went on dates.

Gradually I was healing from my trauma. All queer people in Nigeria are bonded with the same trauma—of not being accepted, of assault or the threat of it. My attack wasn’t the first where I live, nor was it the last. A close acquaintance of mine recently met someone on Grindr and agreed to meet up—only to be held captive, blackmailed, and extorted. The night of the incident, I relived my own experience and knew it was a cycle that wasn’t ending anytime soon. 

The dynamics within my family are still strained, and my relationships with them have never been the same. For instance, I got along with a half-sibling very well before I got outed, but our relationship went sour immediately after my attack. They took some drastic homophobic actions, like calling my friends and harassing them about my sexuality, and throwing away some of my possessions. In an African home like mine, your older siblings must be respected; calling them out for their wrongs is seen as a way of being disrespectful and uncouth. So now, this person and I only exchange pleasantries and nothing more.

With my mother, things have been looking good—her calls no longer give me anxiety like they used to, and conversations these days are better. I don’t think she’s accepting of my sexuality yet, but overall things are much better compared to the early stage of my kito experience.

Looking back and reflecting on my attack, I believe the whole thing made me strong and resilient and opened me to the chance of finding love—even amidst homophobia, toxic heteronormativity, rejection, crackdown, and condemnation. As an openly queer person who is a constant target of homophobia, you have two options. One is to keep running and changing home addresses, or flee the country. The latter is a huge step that requires connections and a certain level of financial independence. Nigeria is one of the poorest countries in the world riddled with economic instability. And as a marginalized person, it is even more difficult.

The other option is staying and trying to survive. For now, that’s what I’m choosing. I do not know what the future holds for me, but I want peace and freedom. I want to be able to hold my partner’s hand and kiss them in public without fear of getting assaulted. I know in the back of my mind that full liberation might never be achieved in Nigeria, so I am just left with hope that I make it out alive in the end.