I FINALLY got the courage to accept my sexuality and come out as gay while working as an NHS Covid-19 responder.

After growing up in a Nigerian conservative Christian household, with my father working as a priest, the pandemic placed me within a team of people from diverse backgrounds, religions, creeds, colours, genders and sexual orientations, working together with compassion and without prejudice.

This was a huge moment for me, to find a supportive, caring family of coworkers. It was the beginning of a journey of self-acceptance and recovery.

Discovering I was sexually different from the norm in my early twenties filled me with fear. It is strictly forbidden to be this way in Nigeria. My family and my community had taught me that people who were gay were terrible sinners.

I was insulted and physically attacked by people who thought I was gay. Often, they would assume that I must be a heavy drinker, a drug addict or sexually promiscuous, because they only knew a stereotype and didn’t want to know the real me.

But not only in Nigeria.

Even in the UK, I was ostracised from my church because of my sexuality, unable to serve or receive Holy Communion. Once again, I had been rejected by those who should have been my family in Christ. But I am finding the freedom to live my true life without fear and hiding.

One group that has offered support and become a family to me is the Open Table Network (OTN). As a newly out gay man in 2021, I got in touch via their website. Kieran, the friendly OTN coordinator, connected me with Open Table Birmingham, the nearest community to where I was living in Wolverhampton.

Open Table gave me the encouragement and strength I needed to navigate my faith and to keep going. After a time, I was uprooted from this family when I was relocated to Portsmouth. I was going through the process of seeking asylum in the UK, and the Home Office wanted to move me to the south coast, far from my Open Table Birmingham family. Even so, Kieran and the members of Open Table in Birmingham helped my application succeed by providing the documentation that was needed.

Reaching Portsmouth, I quickly joined the newly formed Open Table community in Fareham. The phrase ‘Come as you are’ resonates loudly in our monthly worship. I needed to hear it and experience it for myself. Through the songs, Bible exploration and food we share, I was made to feel loved and accepted, welcomed and part of the family.

Being part of Open Table has inspired me to be a messenger of hope. I have been sharing Open Table’s aims with LGBTQIA+ Christians I know who had not yet felt able to come out. Now five of them attend the Open Table Fareham family with me. I use the word ‘family’ here because this is exactly what it is. A family looks after its own, providing help for its members in various ways.

I know my experience of isolation is not unique. Very many LGBTQIA+ people are going through the same, or worse. Many of us are too scared to come out because of the stigma. All we probably want is to be understood and accepted for who we are. The more we are given the opportunity to live our lives transparently, the better our society will become.

As C.S. Lewis wrote:

‘We can’t return to the past with the goal of changing it, but we can always decide how we want the future to be.’