‘A True Disappointment’: When Your First Pride March Is Canceled

The poet and essayist Chibuihe Obi Achimba, 27, grew up in a small village in southeastern Nigeria and for a long time struggled with being open about his sexuality.

In 2017,

he wrote an essay titled “We’re Here, We’re Queer,” in which he detailed his experience with homophobia, spoke out against Nigeria’s laws that criminalize same-sex relationships, and described his longing to find positive L.G.B.T.Q. presentation in Nigerian literature.

After the essay was published, Mr. Achimba said, he became the target of abuse and physical violence. He left Nigeria and came to the United States in 2019 as a fellow in the Harvard University Scholars at Risk program.

So 2020 looked like the year he had been waiting for all his adult life, and he was eager to join Pride, calling it “this global celebration of resistance, love, freedom, happiness and hope.”

“I planned to enact my own deliverance from the chokehold of my country’s state-sanctioned oppression and the sharp cudgels of my countrymen’s homophobia at this year’s Pride,” he said. “But now, we need to wade through the murky waters the coronavirus has stirred up.”

“It feels like a personal loss,” he added.