Outed by Number 10
In March this year Shahmir Sanni claimed Vote Leave, the official Brexit campaign, heavily overspent on the campaign, but the story about one of the biggest electoral scandals in British political history, quickly morphed into one about Sanni’s sexuality as he was outed by Number 10.
Sanni, a volunteer for Vote Leave, told the Observer Vote Leave had overspent hundreds of thousands by coordinating with other supposedly independent Brexit campaigns, thereby breaking UK electoral law.
But the story was rapidly overshadowed by the actions of Stephen Parkinson, who in an official Number 10 statement said he and Sanni had previously been in an 18-month relationship. The New York Times called Sanni to confirm if the allegations were true; the story went global.
“Coming out”, i.e. revealing your sexuality or gender, is one the biggest moments in the life of a queer person. It is intensely personal, often filled with trepidation, and you only get to do it once.
Many queer people, particularly QTIPOC, still live in homophobic environments where it is not possible to come out and live openly. It is no exaggeration to say that sometimes the fine line between staying alive and being murdered or seriously harmed is to remain closeted.
There are also other risks associated with coming, for example homelessness, abandonment and/or estrangement by friends, family, and community. When it comes to people of colour who are LGBTQ, these risks are often greater, in part because for PoC, the family/community is an entire support network in itself. Sure enough, living in a homophobic environment is hardly desirable, but the risks are too great to even consider coming out.
Coming out, then, might be the very thing that keeps a QTIPOC person alive. And so to take that away, to deprive someone of this protection, and deny them the opportunity to tell the people they love of who they are, on their own terms, is a wrongdoing that can scarcely be captured in words. Outing someone is not just despicable and cruel, but it is also an act of violence.
But this is what happened to Shahmir Sanni when he was outed by his former partner, Stephen Parkinson, who is a senior advisor to Prime Minister Theresa May, in an official statement from Number 10. Parkinson knew Sanni was not out to his family, but maliciously outed him nonetheless. He denied Sanni the one opportunity afforded to all queer people, the power to come out on his own terms, whilst at the same time turning Sanni’s sexuality into an international news story.
To use Sanni’s own words, “My sexuality was suddenly a news story — a story which had come from No 10. Not only did I have to radically accelerate the emotionally complex process of coming out to my parents but, such is the religious and political environment in Pakistan, the Prime Minister’s office had placed my parents and family in very immediate, real danger”.
Despite the gravity Stephen Parkinson’s actions, Theresa May has stood by her advisor and rejected calls to sack him.
Parkinson’s decision to out Sanni is indefensible. The choice for an LGBTQ person to come out is a protection which if taken away, can put their life at risk.
However, keen to turn this dark episode in his life into a positive one, Sanni is now an advocate of queer Muslim visibility.
