There is a version of me that other people tried to build. A quieter version. A version that would sit in church on Sunday and pray away the parts of himself that made other people uncomfortable. A version that would smile at the right moments, use the right pronouns for his feelings, and eventually disappear into a life that belonged to everyone else but him.
I tried that version for a while. It did not fit.
I am Charles. I am Igbo. I am gay. I am a man who grew up carrying a culture that I love deeply, in a body that the world has spent a very long time trying to convince me was wrong. And somewhere between the church services and the family conversations and the quiet moments where I had to decide who I was going to be, I made a choice.
I chose myself.
People talk about being gay and being Igbo as if they are two things pulling in opposite directions. As if you have to stand at a crossroads and surrender one to keep the other. I have been told, in many ways, that my queerness is a betrayal of my culture. That it is a Western import. That my ancestors would not recognize me.
But I know my people. I know what it means to be Igbo. The resilience, the pride, the deep love of family and community. I carry all of that. It lives in me the same way the language does, the same way the food does, the same way my mother’s voice does when I hear it in my head. Being gay did not erase any of that. It never could.
What I have come to understand is that the people who told me I had to choose were not protecting my culture. They were protecting their comfort. There is a difference.
Living out loud as a gay Igbo man in Manchester has taught me things I could not have learned any other way. It has taught me that visibility matters. That when you show up fully as yourself, you give other people permission to do the same. I think about the young Igbo child somewhere, in Lagos or London or Manchester, who is sitting with the same questions I sat with. Who is wondering if there is space in this world for someone who looks like them and loves like them. I want them to see me and know that there is.
My platform, my podcast, my content, all of it comes from that place. Igbo Queer and Unfiltered is not just a name. It is a statement. It is me saying, out loud, that this identity is not something I am hiding or softening or translating for an audience that might find it easier to digest. This is the whole thing. Take it or leave it.
I’m not going to act small to make someone else feel better about their life.
There are days that are harder than others. Days when the comments remind me that not everyone is ready for a gay Igbo man who refuses to apologize. Days when the weight of representing something feels heavy. But then there are the messages. The ones from queer Africans who found my page at two in the morning because they needed to know they were not alone. Those messages make everything make sense.
I did not come this far to live quietly.
Being a gay Igbo man is not a contradiction. It is not a tragedy. It is not something that needs fixing, explaining, or justifying. Not only that, but it is simply who I am. Fully, loudly, without permission.And I would choose it every single time.
Charles is a content creator, podcaster, and Gay Igbo Man living in Manchester, UK. Follow him on TikTok and Instagram at @myownkindofrunway and listen to his podcast, Igbo Queer and Unfiltered, on all major platforms.
