A 19-year-old trans man, he wanted to work in physiotherapy and found a job at a clinic in order to support his family and his brother’s education. “Now they’re actually at the verge of starvation,” says Aijaz. In normal times many eke out a living through match-making and performing at marriage ceremonies. Jammu and Kashmir is believed to be home to thousands of transgender people, according to the 2011 census, most of whom are unable to find work in the formal economy. They have lost not only their social interactions, says Aijaz, but also their livelihoods.
The impact on the trans community has been particularly harsh. We are seeing an increase in mental health issues because people are not able to vent their repressed feelings,” he says. “The situation is very grim, because we had been able to create small safe spaces, but unfortunately, because of lockdown, people couldn’t access those spaces. The result has been disastrous for the LGBTQ+ community, says Aijaz. Jammu and Kashmir union territory, which was stripped of its semi-autonomous status in 2019, has been in some form of lockdown for the best part of two years. He says these people were “already living invisible lives” before the pandemic. Head of Sonzal Welfare Trust, a gay and transgender rights NGO, Aijaz works with some of the most marginalised people in this Muslim-majority region of India. “That is what I’m dreaming of,” he says, speaking via Zoom from his home in Srinagar. He cannot wait for the return of some semblance of normality so that the community he works with in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir can start to get back on its feet. T housands of miles away, across the Arabian Sea, Aijaz Ahmad Bund is also trying to do his best for people who have had their lives stripped away. It’s exhausting, but when I see that I am able to support people – for instance the same way I supported these 44 to get out of prison – I feel it is rewarding.” I couldn’t go on any more after talking to a few of them, listening to the violations … and everything they went through when they were in police custody.
“Last week, when I spoke to the 44, I nearly broke down in the middle of the interview. Mugisha was friends with David Kato, the co-founder of Smug who was murdered in 2011. “It’s so exhausting,” says Mugisha, a veteran of the struggle for gay rights in Uganda. Speaking to Reuters, a police spokesperson denied that the arrests were motivated by the sexuality of the people involved, or that any of them had been subjected to rectal examinations. It was several days before they were released on bail. He says 17 of the group were subjected to rectal examinations. When he heard of the arrests, Mugisha went to the police station where the 44 were being held. “It’s another example of Covid laws being used to witch-hunt and harass the LGBT community,” says Mugisha. Photograph: Katumba Badru Sultan/The Guardian Last month, 44 people, mostly gay men, were arrested at an LGBTQ+ shelter on the outskirts of Kampala and charged with engaging in activities likely to spread an infectious disease. Mugisha says the action was “a clear case of discrimination” against the community – although this is denied by the police. In March 2020, police detained 20 LGBT people on charges of disobeying rules on physical distancing and risking the spread of coronavirus. But the pandemic has brought new troubles. Life was already impossibly hard for LGBTQ+ people in the east African country, where gay sex is illegal and punishable by life imprisonment. Uganda is one of several countries where pre-existing prejudice has been emboldened and facilitated by new laws and restrictions to stop the spread of Covid. “Unfortunately, we were right to issue that warning,” she says.į rank Mugisha, president of Sexual Minorities Uganda (Smug), agrees with that assessment. She says many of the report’s grim predictions have come to pass.
“We were sounding the alarm and trying to prevent crisis,” says Jessica Stern, the executive director of OutRight Action International.
In May 2020, a report by OutRight Action International, at the height of the first wave of Covid-19, warned that the LGBTQ+ community was likely to be disproportionately affected, particularly those living in countries where “stigma, discrimination, and criminalisation of same-sex relations or transgender identities prevail”. Covid laws being used to witch-hunt and harass the LGBT community Frank Mugisha, president of Sexual Minorities Uganda Pride organisers have made these decisions amid a pandemic that has placed LGBTQ+ people and communities under unprecedented pressure, be that socio-economic, psychological or political. Photograph: Gabrielle Lurie/The San Francisco Chronicle/Getty Images The San Francisco Pride parade in June 2019, the last time the event was held in the city as it has been cancelled for a second year due to Covid.