June is the month when members of the LGBT community express their pride in what they represent as they call for dignity and equality. The following material introduces us to the story of Ria Demiri, an Albanian-American who took years to rise above the social stigma of being herself. In an interview with “Voice of America”, the 34-year-old influencer, with over 1 million followers on the social network TikTok and over 300 thousand on Instagram, talks about her experience, from forced marriages, to the choice to be happy. Menada Zaimi spoke with Ria Demiri.

Like many representatives of the LGBT community, Ria Demiri has joined the calls for dignity and equality in what is known as Pride Month. But it was not easy for the 34-year-old to get here.

It took about 28 years and two divorces for her to come out openly. The biggest challenge for him was the family.

Ria Demiri was only two years old when her parents moved from Struga, northern Macedonia, to the United States. She was only five when she began to realize that it was not what her parents had taught her as normal.

“I was confused, I did not understand why at the age of five I liked girls and not boys. I preferred to play with the boys, but I never developed any feelings for them. I never talked to my parents about it, I asked them why I felt that way. I knew it was something wrong, because from the way I grew up in my home it made me realize that it was not something normal”.

And that would be the way it would grow. Ria says her mother tried hard to change it.

“My mother did things all the time which created a lot of perversion for me. He took me to an imam or imam. He was trying to “fix” me. I did not understand what he was doing. He was just telling me: you need to meet an imam and I never knew why. After I got divorced, he told me he did it because he did not want me to be gay, he wanted me to change. He forced me to get married. “I was only 17 years old, in my last year of high school, and my mother married me to a boy I only knew for an hour.”

Ria was about 28 years old when she decided to openly say she was gay, something she says she did for her daughter, then only two years old.

“She motivated me to be honest. I am in a relationship and my partner and I have four children, she has three from previous relationships, I have a happy family. My daughter never says why you are like that, we just normalized this thing. I have normalized this for her so that she feels comfortable when she talks to me about everything. “Children just want to see love, it makes them happy.”

Ria says she chose happiness precisely to move forward even though she lost friends and relatives along the way.

“Yes I have lost family, I have lost friends over time, but there is no problem. I am just surrounding myself with people who love me for who I am and that is all I want”.

Despite the great desire to visit the homeland her sexual orientation seems to have become a major obstacle for her.

“I want to go but I am nervous, because I have grandparents who do not welcome this very much. I feel bad that I can not go and see them, it seems to me as if I do not respect them. “I want to go because I was born there, but I also want to go and be seen as a normal person, not as if I have 10 heads or as if I were a monkey or something.”

VOA

Today an influencer on social media, with over one million followers on TikTok and over 300,000 on Instagram, Ria pays attention to activism as a representative of the LGBT community. She says she has won her battles and is happy to help others.

“If I can change the life of a single person, that’s all I want, it makes me grateful.” grateful that I am able to help others ”.

And for all those who still have the battle to win, Ria has this message:

“Do not be afraid. It’s something very relieving after all the fear you feel in the beginning, it’s the most beautiful feeling in the world.