I grew up in a Southern Baptist-style church with a choir, a band, and music, but I've been asking myself my whole life, "Why is my own church, my own community, rejecting me because of my sexuality?".

I saw footage of a well-known pastor holding a Bible and saying, "This book says homosexuals should be killed."

I think many Dutch just don't know the history of Black Pete, that he is rooted in slavery, and how he was used to dehumanize a race of people. Once they realize this, many stop using this character, but those who continue are either in denial, insensitive or actually racists.

They embrace them because they represent everything that America represents: money, power, and freedom. Why else would you see an old Ugandan woman respectfully listen to a 22-year-old white girl from America telling her what she should or shouldn't believe?

Someone sent an email to Reverend Joanna Watson [an American missionary] saying that I'm gay, and she sent it to all the anti-gay pastors in Uganda. One of them said, "We're going to take care of this guy." When I was confronted by them I didn't know what they were going to do, but they decided to pray over me. They said they were going to cure me. That didn't work, of course.

It is our stories [classic Disney films] that make us human - so Owen [Suskind] has become an expert in what connects us and makes us human. That got to me, the power of these stories, and the lessons these tales give us to create the connection between us.

Symbolic racism is hurtful and it is especially hurtful to Black children who get called Black Pete in school and grow up with the sense that they are inferior to white kids.