Canada

“Being a queer, non-binary person in India is not the easiest,” Adi Khaitan told me. “The place I grew up was very, very conservative.” Khaitan’s memory of their childhood is “a little bit foggy,” and they declined to share many details about their life in India, only that they were an only child and something happened that resulted in their being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

After graduating from high school, Khaitan started to apply to universities overseas. Of the thirty North American schools that sent them acceptance letters, twenty-eight were from the United States and two from Canada: Lakehead University and Memorial University of Newfoundland. Khaitan decided that the political situation in the US didn’t suit them and accepted the offer from MUN. Their parents didn’t even know Khaitan was applying for universities abroad but agreed to pay for their tuition if they covered all their other expenses.