A moment that changed me: I thought I'd find paradise in Canada - instead I got a drunk who called me Aladdin

After two years as a queer Syrian refugee in Lebanon, I was happy to escape the homophobia of the Middle East. But I hadn't reckoned on the racism of the west The guard's name was Michael, which in Lebanese Arabic is pronounced Michelle. He stopped our car at a military checkpoint on the highway to Hariri airport, on that day in 2014 when I made my final trip out of Beirut. "Why are you going to the airport?" asked Michael, as he examined my Syrian passport, flipping its pages too fast to read. ...