Patigul was a transmasculine Uyghur I met through some other queer Uyghur friends on WeChat. Patigul was wide and stocky with a short and simple bowl haircut and husky voice. They wore sneakers and men’s clothes. They never put on make-up. For Uyghurs, this was a big deal because most Uyghur AFABs adorned make-up daily and excessively.
I use they/them pronouns for Patigul. Although in Uyghur the third person pronoun (u) is not gendered, I feel this is the best translation to describe Patigul because in English this pronoun choice best describes their genderqueer and non-binary presentation.
When coming to meet me at the restaurant, they gave the phone to the cab driver so that I could give the driver directions to the restaurant. This was common practice at the time before smartphones were widespread and the restaurant we were meeting at didn’t have an address. On the phone with me, the Han cab driver referred to Patigul as “xiaohuozi,” a slang term meaning “guy” or “dude” and only used for men or boys in Chinese.
“I get misgendered all the time,” Patigul explained to me later. “I don’t really fit in to either category.”
We sat across from each other at the restaurant holding cups of tea to warm our hands. We were in a Uyghur restaurant and we spoke in Uyghur, so Patigul was worried someone would overhear us talking.
Staring at me without blinking, they leaned across the table and maintained strong eye contact, their lower lip quivering. They stayed silent for several moments. We just stared at each other, breathing and not knowing what to say. I could see they were about to cry. All I could do was keep maintaining eye contact and hold their pain for a moment. I felt like collapsing under the weight of it.
They continued in a low voice, not mentioning their queerness, but talking about a subject many Uyghurs in their twenties are concerned about: marriage.
“My parents are freaking out because I’m not married yet, and I don’t think either they or I can stand it anymore,” they sighed. “My parents are so scared I’m going to miss my childbearing years. They’re forcing me to get married.” Their eyes suddenly grew darker, and they looked down to gaze into their tea. Without looking at me, they continued.
“I can’t do it. I have got to get out of here. I have no choice but to leave. I mean, I want to leave China.” They looked up at me again, tears pooling in their eyes.
I sighed. Wanting to leave China was a refrain I heard on an almost daily basis from my Uyghur friends. Who wouldn't want to leave a country where you lived with daily humiliation and disregard for your culture and humanity based solely on your ethnicity alone?
My shoulders caved in upon hearing this sentiment from Patigul. I knew it was nearly impossible for Patigul to get a passport. China was not too keen on giving out passports to its minority peoples, especially Uyghurs and Tibetans, fearing that they would deflect, come back as spies, or come back with tales of the freedom they witnessed in other countries. Even if Patigul was able to get a passport, as some Uyghurs did at that time (the year was 2015, before the major crackdowns of 2017-present began), the odds of Patigul successfully getting a visa to the US was even smaller. And even then, having the monetary resources to live in the US with even a shred of comfort would be next to impossible.
The chains of colonization and imperialism penetrated the odds stacked against Patigul in finding even a shred of hope for freedom.
Knowing that Patigul would most likely never be able to actually leave the country, I encouraged them to try to find a safe and happy life in China.
I tried to comfort them and offer some hope. I said that maybe things will get better in the future. I said that maybe it is our role to be on the frontier of changing society, even if that means sacrificing ourselves for the freedom of future generations.
It was shortly after Qurban Heyt, the holiday two months after Ramadan where Muslims celebrate when Abraham sacrificed his own son (called Eid al-Adha in Arabic). I used the Uyghur word “qurban” to describe a similar type of sacrifice. The sacrifice I was asking them to make was to risk hate and discrimination by being out, but slowly changing society around us in our refusal to conform. I encouraged Patigul to move to the city, get an apartment, and live their life as they wanted and as open as possible, while keeping in as little contact with their parents as possible.
Patigul sat staring into the tea, their eyes blinking rapidly and face twitching as their breathing quickened. They shook their head back and forth.
“Foreign lands (chet’el) and this place are so different. Here, we can’t even talk about our situations openly in a restaurant let alone be open and marry like you can,” they countered back.
I had transplanted foreign romantic ideas to a context still suffering the weight of colonization. I had utopian visions of building a path to the frontier of change that imagined a new life for queer people. I brought the perspective of a privileged white person. I did not take into account that the freedom to protest and live against the grain—to be “abnormal”, to be queer—is not always feasible. Although they dreamed of moving abroad, in reality Patigul didn’t really have the resources to live on their own in the city as I suggested.
Patigul is trapped by the limitations of society—money and their job. They are trapped by their religious and heteronormative family. They are trapped by the Islamophobia of the Chinese police state. They are trapped by the racism of the US that limits visas to Chinese people. They are trapped by the xenophobia of the US that limits asylum seekers and refugees. They are trapped by the global norms that limit freedom of movement of the poor in Global South in order to limit their access to the resources of the Global North.
They don’t get the privilege of forging new societies or lives. But, in fact, they are braver than those of us with legal protections and alternative opportunities to escape home. People like Patigul are the true brave ones as they navigate hell on earth with two choices: being forced to marry or being forced to become a refugee. Indeed, many queer refugees do come to the United States seeking asylum from the oppression of their own families and countries abroad.
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