A new book by Sault-born author Jo DeLuzio shares the personal accounts of nine different 2SLGBTQ+ people who came to Canada fleeing persecution faced in their home countries.
The acronym 2SLGBTQ+ stands for two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, plus additional sexual orientations and gender identities.
DeLuzio interviewed a dozen people before writing Just Gone: True Stories of Persecution for Love and Life, nine of whom agreed to have their stories told in the book. She admits the raw subject matter in the book is not always easy to read.
While some people in countries like Canada and the United States try to retain the rights they have fought for, DeLuzio notes 2SLGBTQ+ people in some countries literally risk their lives because being gay there can be punishable by life in prison or even death.
"This isn’t about a 'gay agenda,'" DeLuzio said. ”This is not pushing pronouns onto people. This is a human rights issue. Even if people don't agree with homosexuality or whatever, it doesn't matter – you don't have to agree with something to recognize that we are all people and human rights are just that, human rights.”
DeLuzio drew on the observations she made while attending the 2014 World Pride Human Rights Conference in Toronto, as well as the relationships she has built with subjects in the making of the book. She said trans women, especially those who are Black, are among the most persecuted worldwide.
One of the stories in the book focuses on Sherwin, a refugee who fled systemic violence and homophobia in Jamaica. He realized he had to leave his home country after a well-known gay rights activist there was killed.
Another account in the book involved a man from an African country, who described the daily terror of being beaten and raped because his walk was deemed “too feminine.”
“I said to him, why don't you just stay here and seek asylum and he said, ‘I can't do that because I have to fight for the rights of us queer people, even if it means I will die for them,’” said DeLuzio.
That conviction drove DeLuzio to explore how people find the strength to escape and seek refuge.
DeLuzio, 66, now lives in Toronto where she teaches in the graduate program of Speech-Language Pathology at University of Toronto. She said her upbringing in the Sault was positive, even if 2SLGBTQ+ issues were not really on the radar in those days.
”I think this was a great place to come from because people were always neighbourly and kind and saying hello and smiling at each other,” said DeLuzio.
”That's one of the problems in the world today, people aren't kind to each other.”
An audiologist by trade, she currently teaches in the graduate program of Speech-Language Pathology at University of Toronto.
Just Gone is published by RE:BOOKS and available in book stores and at online sellers like Amazon.