Queer refugee speaks
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Andrew John Brent is an activist with Community Action Against Homophobia (CAAH). He recently visited Villawood dentention centre to speak with Leela Krishnan Thinagaran Harindran, a queer Tamil refugee from Sri Lanka. This is his story. More information on the campaign to free queer refugees can be found at the CAAH website.
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/44474 (http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/44474)
We spoke about why Leela had left Sri Lanka. The answer was clear: "Because I am gay." This 21-year-old man had felt so unsafe, and had suffered such hostility, that he had paid US$10,000 for passage on a small boat with 43 other people to sail across the Indian Ocean from Sri Lanka, to the west coast of Australia.
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In Leela's attempt to explain his specific needs as a refugee, he had to disclose very intimate details about his sexual history and identity. When I spoke of this with Leela, he described his sexual identity as, "I have both woman and man in me," a statement that is not uncommon from intersex, sex and/or gender diverse people from around the world.