{"id":1624,"date":"2020-01-27T01:00:52","date_gmt":"2020-01-27T01:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friendsugandanskillstraining.org\/friendsugandansafetransport.org\/?p=1624"},"modified":"2020-01-27T01:00:54","modified_gmt":"2020-01-27T01:00:54","slug":"i-can-now-breathe-by-isaiah-kintu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friendsugandanskillstraining.org\/friendsugandansafetransport.org\/i-can-now-breathe-by-isaiah-kintu\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI can now breathe\u201d by Isaiah Kintu"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Isaiah Kintu<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I was born on the 25th<\/sup> March 1999 in the wrong body. I was named Isabella Nakintu. At the age of nine, everything indicated that I am a boy in a girl\u2019s body. But since the culture demanded that I should be a girl, I had very limited support from my family. It became an intense personal problem. Later, I considered suicide as a solution but, as a Christian, the thought of taking my own life was overwhelming. Any attempts against the will of my parents were met with extreme violence, cultural rituals, flogging, and rejection.

At the age of 15, I made a difficult decision to go my own way; and street life gave me more comfort. This hard-knock life greeted me with crime, drugs, and prostitution and, by 2017; I had contracted HIV. I remember being arrested by the police in 2018 and the police had to undress me to ascertain my sex. Some were calling me a girl and others a boy. \u00a0One police officer raped me in the night in the name of giving protective custody. Without any relatives interested in my plight, it took months before I was given a police bond, which I jumped. In the police statement I had made, I had clearly indicated that I am transgender, which was an automatic case of self-incrimination. I became a fugitive from our gruesome laws. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\n fellow street mate hinted to me that there is a welcoming church which \ncan help me hide away from the police and my family (by 2019, my family \nwished my death and attempts were being made to kill me by rat poison \nbecause of my gender and sexual orientation). After months of \nsearching, I was finally connected to a Friends\u2019 group. My friend said \nit was a church, but it was actually a Quaker Friends Meeting. They \npray differently and at first I thought they were strange. But that \ndidn\u2019t really matter – they welcomed me as I am. They accepted me and \nnever judged me or even asked me questions. This is the place where I \nbelonged, this was the very first time I wasn\u2019t trying to be something\n different. It was me and I felt the comfort of changing my name from \nIsabella Nakintu to Isaiah Kintu. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Isaiah Kintu<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The\n events of late 2019 again changed things around. A Minister in Uganda \nannounced the re-tabling of the \u201cKill the Gays\u201d law. This meant that we \nhad to go into more confined hiding in safe houses. The media are \nstrictly controlled in Uganda and are ordered not to mention or report \nany state-sponsored homophobia, though somehow once in a while such \nnews makes it to the international media.  However, when a government \nminister makes a statement and introduces a law to kill gay people, the \nlocal people in rural villages and elsewhere understand this to mean \nthey can take up arms, stones, machetes, sticks, etc. to beat and kill \nany suspected LGBTQI in mob justice (lynching). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After\n hiding in safe houses for weeks and losing one of our friends in a mob \njustice attack, more than 60 of us were safely helped to flee from \nUganda to a safe harbor. Though I am happy for now, my expected final \ndestination will be \u2026. where I can get a job and start working, go back \nto school, and rebuild my life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\n wish to thank all the Quakers in the U.S. who are organized under the \nFriends Ugandan Safe Transport Fund, who funded my escape and those of \nmy friends. You are miracle workers, and you saved our lives. Now we can\n breathe. Thanks AGAIN & AGAIN! \n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

If you are able to financially support the work of Friends Ugandan Safe Transport Fund so that we can help us fund more people like Isaiah who need to get out of Uganda because of their gender identity or sexual orientation, please go to our DONATE page<\/a>. Thank you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was born on the 25th March 1999 in the wrong body. I was named Isabella Nakintu. At the age of nine, everything indicated that I am a boy in a girl\u2019s body. But since the culture demanded that I should be a girl, I had very limited support from my family. It became an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendsugandanskillstraining.org\/friendsugandansafetransport.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendsugandanskillstraining.org\/friendsugandansafetransport.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendsugandanskillstraining.org\/friendsugandansafetransport.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendsugandanskillstraining.org\/friendsugandansafetransport.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendsugandanskillstraining.org\/friendsugandansafetransport.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1624"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/friendsugandanskillstraining.org\/friendsugandansafetransport.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1634,"href":"https:\/\/friendsugandanskillstraining.org\/friendsugandansafetransport.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1624\/revisions\/1634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendsugandanskillstraining.org\/friendsugandansafetransport.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendsugandanskillstraining.org\/friendsugandansafetransport.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendsugandanskillstraining.org\/friendsugandansafetransport.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}