Sometimes the word hurled his way from other kids was “guera,” meaning “girl” in the dialect of his native Ugandan village. At other times, it was “mudiga,” a word used for gay people, he said.
“I used to talk like a girl … walk like a girl. I used to be in the company of girls, so they called me all sorts of names, because I was expressing like a girl,” said Barnabas Wobiliya, 36, who remembers being about 10 when the teasing began.
As adult activists promoting LGBTQ rights and HIV/AIDS treatments, the two were repeatedly beaten, arrested and jailed, before finally, fearing for their lives, they fled Uganda, to seek safety and asylum — a quest that led first to Kenya and then, in 2016, to Utah as refugees.