I came out as gay in 2011 in Bangladesh, when I was twenty years old and still living under my parents’ roof. The first things my family said when I came out were, “What will society say?” and “If only we had been more religious, you wouldn’t be an abomination like this!”
Religion was never a priority for my parents before I came out. But the moment I did, they quoted religious scripture from the Quran, which, according to them, prohibits queerness. They used religion to punish and admonish me for being gay.
In Bangladesh, same-sex relations are punishable by law. The government upholds section 377 of the 1860 penal code, which was inherited from British colonial rule and characterizes homosexuality as an “unnatural” offense that goes “against the order of nature.” The punishment ranges from a fine to life imprisonment, depending on the whims of the authorities.
From 2013 to 2015, I worked as a journalist in Bangladesh, where, despite the risk of being reprimanded by government authorities, fundamentalists, and society in general, I authored stories about the local LGBTQ+ community. It came at a cost: I was forced to leave Bangladesh due to risks to my life and liberty. I moved to the United States in 2017, seeking refuge from my country’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws and the religious extremists who sought to silence queer people.
Unfortunately, the biased interpretation of religion and the weaponization of societal discomfort toward queer people that haunted me in Bangladesh followed me to this country, which was globally perceived to be a leader in LGBTQ+ inclusivity. In the United States, I’ve found a society increasingly shaped by white Christian nationalism, which is trying to create a homogeneous society in which I, as a queer brown immigrant, don’t fit.
The LGBTQ+ community in the United States is facing a rapid escalation of attacks, on multiple fronts and at various levels of government. In the first four months of this year alone, hundreds of anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ bills were under consideration across the country. Marriage equality is under threat and queer representation is being erased from schools across all levels of education. Last year, there were more than 1,000 reported anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes in the United States, according to GLAAD. And shortly after President Donald Trump took office, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement stopped reporting the number of trans people in its custody. His administration also requires federal incarceration facilities to place people based on sex assigned at birth—endangering the most marginalized among us.
I have lived in Washington, D.C., for almost a decade. When I first arrived in the country, I found a lot of support from faith-based nonprofits that helped me during the six-month period after I applied for asylum, while I waited to receive my work permit. They gave me food and helped me through the maze of paperwork that comes with the asylum process and, later, filing taxes. However, it never felt like they were pushing their faiths on me.
Tausif Sanzum
The author at World Pride 2025 in Washington, D.C.
But in the past several years, it feels to me that the imposition of Christianity on a societal level has ramped up. As the use of nationalist symbols has become front and center in American politics (like Trump’s promise to make America “great again” and former President Joe Biden’s campaign to “restore” the soul of the country), we’ve seen the influence of Christianity increase in U.S. politics—particularly in the form of white Christian nationalism, which proclaims the United States as a country for white Protestants. Religious liberty is being wielded against LGBTQ+ people to serve the cisgender white Christian members of society; in so doing, the queer community, along with immigrants and people of color, is being villainized as a threat to the entire country.
In its recent ruling in Chiles v. Salazar, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the plaintiff, who, as a therapist, used religious liberty and freedom of speech to defend and justify her use of conversion therapy on minors.
Just weeks after Trump resumed power in 2025, he established the White House Faith Office as part of its efforts to combat supposed “anti-Christian bias.” In March 2025, Trump welcomed evangelical faith leaders for a prayer in the White House, during which one pastor offered, “Protect him from all evil as he undergirds our nation with the firewall of our Judeo-Christian value system.”
Pete Hegseth, Trump’s so-called Secretary of War, is a known Christian extremist who has instituted monthly Christian prayer services inside the Pentagon, called the United States a “Christian nation,” and said any U.S. soldier who dies during an armed conflict “finds eternal life.” Last year, under his leadership, the department banned transgender individuals from enlisting and serving in the U.S. military.
In April 2026, Trump’s Department of Justice released a report alleging the Biden Administration’s recognition of Transgender Day of Visibility in 2024 (which coincided with Easter) was evidence of “radical efforts to punish Christians.”
Yet, whether it is Democrats or Republicans in power, it is the members of the LGBTQ+ community who are violated. A June 2024 report by Immigration Equality, a nonprofit that serves LGBTQ+ and HIV-positive immigrants and asylum seekers, highlighted the abuse queer people face in federal immigration detention. This includes sexual and physical abuse due to their queer identities, solitary confinement, and inadequate medical care, including being denied treatment for HIV. As the halls of the highest powers in the country embrace Christian nationalism, it is a fearful position to be in as a queer person of color knowing that I, like many others, do not fit the criteria for which its adherents advocate. Trans people—who dare to question the gender binary that has been used to give dominance to cisgender white men since the country’s founding—face even more ostracization.
In the pursuit of Christian nationalism, what happens to those of us excluded from the in-group? Where do we LGBTQ+ individuals fit in a Christian nationalist society that does not deem us to be socially acceptable?
Someone who doesn’t know me might think I’m living the American dream. I have a master’s degree from a U.S. university and a career working for organizations focused on journalism, democracy, and social justice. I’m an immigrant who was forced to move to the United States, and is now making it on his own, living freely as a gay man.
But behind this notion of capitalist success is a person who has been in therapy for six years because of traumas incurred by societal homophobic treatment, both in Bangladesh and the United States. And behind that successful job in a managerial position are the countless doors that were shut before I even landed a job interview because of my unfamiliar name. Most importantly, the perception in this country of an outsider being a threat follows me everywhere—especially when I try to build and nurture any relationship, whether romantic, professional, or platonic. People question if I’m dating them to obtain a green card. People question whether I’m qualified enough to succeed in a role with a U.S.-based company, despite having the same or higher qualifications as the candidates around me. American gays question my queerness, since I come from a “closed-minded” country known for its homophobia.
This negative attitude doesn’t just come from people born in the United States, but from members of immigrant communities as well. The double marginalization from members of the “American” community who consider immigrants to be a threat and from homophobic members of the immigrant communities themselves poses an important question: Where does a gay immigrant find refuge and a sense of belonging?
The sad part of being queer in an increasingly exclusionary country is that we suffer not only from the ideologies that uphold it, but also from other members of marginalized groups who consider LGBTQ+ folks to be a threat to their lifestyle. The division between various marginalized groups further feeds white Christian nationalism.
I was forced to leave Bangladesh because I did not fit into its idea of what an ideal citizen should be. The ideal Bangladeshi citizen is a Muslim cisgender person who follows the established heteronormative norms and does not question the dominance of a cisgender Bangladeshi Muslim identity. But I don’t fit the bill for the ideal citizen of the Christian nationalist United States, either. This country was established on the foundational democratic ideal that all men are created equal; as a gay immigrant man of color in the United States, I am anything but equal.
We can be contributing members of society who work, pay taxes, and help our neighbors, and still be actively hunted down for not fitting the mold of an ideal citizen as professed by white Christian nationalists. Nothing an individual does will be enough to fulfill the hunger of a country preoccupied by a singular version of Christianity, gender and racial identity, and puritanical morals.
Surface-level allyship with LGBTQ+ communities, as professed by many members of the Democratic Party, leads to further marginalization for members of the LGBTQ+ community. The benefits of Biden’s Respect for Marriage Act, which passed in 2022 and established statutory authority for same-sex and interracial marriage, are reaped mostly by cisgender white gay men. Meanwhile, party leaders like California Governor Gavin Newsom, a leading Democratic contender for the presidential nomination in 2028, who has made transphobic comments and urged Democrats to be more “culturally normal,” fail to stand up for trans rights. Trans people of color and gender nonconforming people continue to carry the unequal burden of subjugation and discrimination; the most marginalized among us are disregarded, used as political pawns during Pride Month to paint the illusion that the party fights for our rights and visibility.
As a brown immigrant with minimal rights in this country, talking about these issues actively puts me at loggerheads with people who profess white Christian nationalism; writing a piece that challenges its hegemony puts me at risk. But I continue to speak out because I want to see a country where various identities, especially those who have been traditionally marginalized, can live without fear, with their heads held high.