It all started with a broken heart. Roxy* kept her queerness to herself as she was growing up in Freetown Sierra Leone. Her mother – a pastor – was too preoccupied with her congregation to notice Roxy’s true identity; her stepfather however, became fixated by it. “This boy is gay, I am telling you that this boy is so gay,” he would proclaim to anyone who would listen. “Somehow my stepfather was the first person who actually knew I was queer, I mean I hadn’t actually done anything, but I was always so feminine,” Roxy tells GO, her model-esque features and fierce femininity radiating through her living room. Roxy is now a 28-year old trans woman, and has always known she was queer, “I was born like this,” she says proudly.