‘I love my boyfriend. So much. But because he also knows I love him, he treats me so badly,’ says Celine. ‘Sometimes he comes back from work and beats me up for no reason. I take it because I don’t have a choice. I don’t have anywhere to go because even when I meet my brother on the side of the road, he acts like he doesn’t know me because “I’m a gay disgrace” in his words. So I stay. Just like I stayed in my previous relationship till I lost a finger.’

‘My dad kicked me out once he found out that I was transgender,’ says Missy. ‘I ended up at a shelter, which I then left for various reasons. I moved in with my then boyfriend. Things were going well until he started to abuse me constantly. The last straw was when he assumed I was cheating on him and attacked me with a knife and sliced my face. Sad thing is, I couldn’t report him to the police because of the limitations that we trans people face in this country.’

‘Because gender-based violence is often associated with heterosexuality, I didn’t know I was being abused until the damage had been done,’ says Pearl. ‘He said this was another kind of love that he was teaching me. I believed him and ended up expecting it all the time. During the pandemic, forceful sex became a part of it whenever he pleased. I got this scar while resisting his friend he had brought along to hit me.’

‘I feel like with heterosexuals, there is no hiding so it’s easier to talk to family about what you’re going through,’ says Steve. ‘I don’t have that privilege. And he uses it to his advantage. I can’t [report it] either because they will end up throwing me to the police. I often think about leaving, but then to where? We are a very small illegal community.’

‘This is a very hard position to be in. First, we don’t really have support centres to help us process and get support for being victims of intimate partner violence in our community,’ says Maya. ‘Some of us who have tried to share have been alienated and stigmatised, but this is a real problem that we can’t choose to keep ignoring. We need platforms like this to speak up.’

‘When you lead a life like mine, you have to choose your own battles correctly because you know deep down you have no support,’ says Alice. ‘Many of us went and stayed with men we didn’t know during the pandemic because it was survival over anything. I was raped daily and forced to do ugly things. I couldn’t even talk to anyone because at the end of the day, I was fed.’

“Being the feminine one, I have to submit to my man. whatever he wants, he is the man,’ says Renah. ‘I can’t deny him his rights. At the end of the day, he still loves me and that’s what matters.’

‘The person I’m dating thinks he is doing me a favour. And maybe he is right. Being single is tough and as a transgender person, no one really cares about us,’ says Cyrus. ‘He will remind me how he feeds and houses me daily. I don’t have a voice around him. But he is also very big and muscular so I have learned to just do what he wants so I don’t get beaten up.’

‘I think at this point I have internalised violence to be a part of my love life. I have not been with anyone who has not abused me. I can’t fight back because I know I can’t win,’ says Laryn. ‘It has got worse in the pandemic but there is no one to talk to. I have heard about therapy but it’s really expensive. I have accepted my fate’

‘I grew up watching my mum being beaten by my drunkard stepfather every day. Some days he would beat me too if tried to defend my mother. He would call me names and shut me up,’ says Mike. ‘[It] seems like the cycle followed though. Still I can’t find my voice to stop it. What does it matter anyway? I don’t want to be single.’

‘I was so blinded by love that I lost a lot of friends, went into a state of depression from all the self-body hate that he inflicted on me from comments like I’m too fat or I’m not beautiful enough,’ says Malaika. ‘My only hope is for us to have support and a way to hold them accountable because in the end, we are human too. If the government could let us be, these men won’t feel as powerful as they do now.’

‘For me it wasn’t physical at the start. It was more emotional and mental. He used to get drunk and get frustrated with me about the smallest of things,’ says Suzy. ‘I’m a refugee and because he knew this, he always reminded me how worthless I am. But I loved him so I stayed. And then he beat me so bad one time and I broke up with him.’