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- No Safe Space
No Safe Space
disaster and displacement for LGBTQ+ communities
BJ Ferguson
June 04, 2025
In honor of Pride, all of the Well Beings News reporting (this month only) will be available to both paid and free subscribers. We’re kicking off with a truly urgent, heartbreaking, and human story of trauma and survival.
Across continents and crises, queer and trans people are being displaced—not just by climate disasters, war, or politicized violence, but by systems that see our very existence as expendable. From the burning refugee camps of Kakuma to the silent exoduses happening state by state in the US, LGBTQ+ communities are being pushed to the very edges of safety, resiliency, and visibility.
This is more than a story. It’s a call to action. Will you answer?
“Life in Kakuma was a constant battle for survival. My fellow LGBTQIA+ refugees and I were frequently targeted by other camp residents who attacked us, stoned us, stabbed us, and even set fire to our shelters. The trauma we endured was unbearable, our only ‘crime’ was being ourselves.”
Huzaifa Mageni, who goes by Sammy, is a Ugandan transgender woman currently living in Juba in South Sudan. She first fled her home and the violence and persecution she faced there in 2021, hoping to find safety and systems of resettlement first in Kenya, and later in South Sudan. Instead, like thousands of other queer trans people who have been displaced due to climate disaster, conflict, or targeted violence, Sammy feels like she and her community have been forgotten, if they were ever considered to begin with.
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