The Other Side of the Table

When the policy exists, but the protection has yet to arrive.

By HH Prince DeAndre, Duke of Hanumanteshwar
H1927LLC Intellectual Property Library | October 2026

There is something about preparing for a journey that still excites me. Packing a bag, checking an itinerary, thinking about the people I might meet and the conversations that may unfold somewhere along the way. After years of traveling, I have learned that the most meaningful part of any journey is not always the destination. Often, it is what another person allows you to understand about their world.

As a gay American man who travels and lives openly, I carry an awareness that does not fit inside my luggage. The freedom I experience in one place may not follow me into another.

I can introduce my husband without hesitation in one city, while somewhere else that same introduction may require a little more consideration. Nothing about our relationship has changed. We are the same two people. What changes are the laws, customs, and political attitudes surrounding us.

I do not travel expecting to find hostility. Some of the greatest kindness I have experienced has come from people whose countries are often described through conflict or political controversy. Travel has taught me that a government does not speak for everyone living within its borders, and a headline rarely tells us everything worth knowing about a place.

But there is another way the world enters my life, and it does not require a passport.

Sometimes it arrives as an email.

Sometimes a WhatsApp message.

Over the years, I have received messages from people in different parts of the world, including advocates and individuals sharing experiences involving discrimination, displacement, identity, and the search for protection. Some write about what is happening in their communities. Others are trying to understand what options remain when the systems they have been told to trust are not working as expected.

I read those messages as a person, not as an institution with the authority to change a law or decide someone's future. I cannot resolve every situation brought to my attention. But I can listen, respond where appropriate, and recognize that behind the words on my screen is someone living through circumstances that may be far more complicated than the official explanation suggests.

Sometimes a message stays with me long after I have answered it.

Not because the situation is impossible to understand, but because, on paper, a solution may already exist.

A law. A policy. An international agreement. An agency responsible for assistance. A procedure that someone is expected to follow.

Everything appears to be in place.

Yet the person on the other end is still waiting.

That distance between what is promised and what is experienced has changed the way I look at geopolitics.

We hear about governments negotiating trade agreements, strengthening military alliances, competing over technology, and deciding how resources will move across borders. We follow the war in Ukraine, the relationship between the United States and China, and the growing influence of countries whose economic and political decisions extend far beyond their own territories.

These developments matter. But I have begun paying closer attention to what happens after the announcement, when the cameras are gone and the decisions made in government offices begin reaching people's everyday lives.

Because every policy eventually encounters a person.

And the person may experience something very different from what the policy was intended to accomplish.

I think about the individuals working inside immigration offices, government agencies, and international organizations. They have rules to follow, documents to examine, and decisions to make. Those systems are necessary, and many people within them are sincerely trying to help.

But imagine what happens when someone's life becomes a file.

The application is submitted. The requirements are reviewed. A decision is entered. From an administrative perspective, the process may be complete.

Yet the person may still be without safe housing, unable to work, waiting for medical treatment, or uncertain whether they can remain where they are.

The paperwork may be finished.

Their situation is not.

This is something I have encountered repeatedly in international advocacy conversations, particularly those concerning LGBTQIA+ refugees.

Through correspondence and public advocacy, including the work of people such as Doreen Nasaala and the Minority Defenders Forum, I have followed concerns about documentation, housing, healthcare, discrimination, and the long uncertainty of seeking protection.

Sometimes the issue is not the absence of a law. It is the difficulty of reaching the assistance that law is supposed to make possible.

An appointment has not happened. A document has not arrived. A safe place to stay is no longer available. Someone is waiting for an answer that will determine whether they can begin rebuilding their life.

These may sound like administrative problems when described in a report.

But try planning tomorrow when you do not know where you will be allowed to live next month.

Try imagining the exhaustion of explaining your circumstances again and again, knowing that the next person reviewing your case may see only what fits into the required boxes.

It is difficult to speak about international protection without asking what protection actually feels like to the person who needs it.

That question followed me into another story this October.

Reuters reported on LGBTQIA+ migrants who had sought protection in the United States but were subsequently removed to third countries where same-sex relationships are criminalized or LGBTQIA+ people face serious hostility. Among those documented was a man from Togo who had fled persecution because of his relationship with another man and was later sent to Sierra Leone.

I kept thinking about the difference between his journey and mine.

When I cross a border, I am usually looking forward to an experience. I have chosen to travel. I have plans, people to meet, and a place I expect to return to.

For someone fleeing persecution, the journey begins somewhere entirely different. Leaving may mean abandoning a home, a livelihood, familiar streets, and people they love because staying has become unsafe.

And even after crossing a border, safety may remain uncertain.

The legal questions surrounding immigration and third-country removals are complicated. Governments have responsibilities to administer their immigration systems, and courts must determine how legal protections apply.

But somewhere beneath those arguments is a human being who believed that reaching another country might finally allow them to live without fear.

What happens when the journey toward safety leads to another place where that safety is uncertain?

That is not simply a question about immigration.

It is a question about the meaning of protection itself.

And it is one reason I find it difficult to separate LGBTQIA+ lives from the larger geopolitical decisions being made around the world.

In 2026, governments are not only negotiating their relationships with one another. They are also debating who belongs within their own societies, how identity should be legally recognized, and what kinds of relationships and expression the law will protect.

In Russia, the use of extremism laws has placed severe restrictions on LGBTQIA+ organizing. In India, changes to transgender legislation have raised concerns about legal recognition and personal autonomy. In Senegal, stronger criminal penalties concerning same-sex relationships have intensified fears about safety and access to services.

These are different countries with different histories. Their political decisions should not be reduced to one explanation, and the people living within them should never be confused with the governments making those decisions.

Yet the consequences can reach into remarkably ordinary moments.

Applying for identification.

Seeking healthcare.

Finding employment.

Introducing a partner.

Deciding whether it is safe to be seen.

Meanwhile, governments continue building international relationships around trade, energy, security, and economic development. Countries with very different approaches to human rights may still be important partners.

I understand that diplomacy involves competing interests. International relationships cannot be reduced to agreement on every issue.

But I wonder how often the people affected by those differences are considered after the agreement has been signed.

When leaders stand together before their flags and announce a successful negotiation, we are usually told what each country has gained.

We hear less about the people who may still be struggling to exercise rights that their governments say already exist.

And this is where I return to the messages.

Because while international discussions continue, there are people doing the difficult work of helping others navigate the world as it actually exists.

Advocates share information. Lawyers challenge decisions. Healthcare workers continue providing services. Community organizations help people find resources. Friends reach across borders to ask whether someone is safe.

Sometimes a person sends a message not because they expect the recipient to solve everything, but because they want someone to understand what is happening.

I have learned not to underestimate that act.

There is something important about being heard when the systems around you seem unable to recognize the full circumstances of your life.

It also reminds me that LGBTQIA+ people are not simply waiting for governments to determine their futures. Across the world, individuals and communities are organizing, creating networks of support, and challenging the distance between what has been promised and what can actually be experienced.

Their work belongs in the geopolitical story too.

We tend to measure power through governments, economies, military capabilities, and international agreements. But influence also exists in the relationships people build, the information they share, and the communities they sustain when formal systems fall short.

I think about this whenever another international announcement appears in the news.

There is a familiar sequence. A policy is introduced. Leaders explain its importance. Analysts discuss the consequences. The story receives attention for a few days, and eventually another development takes its place.

But the people affected by the decision do not simply move on because the news cycle has.

Someone still needs an appointment.

Someone is still waiting for documentation.

Someone is still trying to find a safe place to live.

And somewhere, someone may be reviewing a file and concluding that every requirement has been satisfied.

The boxes have been checked.

The procedure has been followed.

Everything is there on paper.

But what happened to the person?

That is the question I believe we need to ask more often.

Not because laws and institutions are unimportant. They are essential. They establish responsibilities, create pathways to assistance, and provide mechanisms through which people can challenge injustice.

But the existence of a protection and the experience of being protected are not always the same thing.

I will continue traveling. I will continue enjoying the conversations, friendships, and discoveries that have shaped so much of my understanding of the world. And I will continue living openly, aware that the freedom to do so is experienced differently depending on where a person happens to be.

I will also continue reading the messages that arrive from people and advocates in other parts of the world.

Those conversations have taught me something that no international briefing can fully communicate.

A policy may look complete from the desk where it was written and very different from the place where someone is trying to live with its consequences.

The next time we see world leaders standing together after another agreement, I hope we look beyond the flags and prepared statements.

I hope we think about the people who were not in the room.

The person waiting for protection. The family trying to remain together. The individual seeking healthcare or legal recognition. The advocate trying to help someone navigate a system that appears straightforward until a real human life enters it.

Because the true measure of a policy is not simply whether it exists.

It is whether it reaches the people it was meant to serve.

And sometimes what we are not seeing is not hidden at all. We have simply been looking at the world from the wrong side of the table.

Research and Editorial Notes

This article combines the author’s lived perspective as an openly gay American traveler with international advocacy correspondence and publicly documented geopolitical developments. References to private communications are generalized to protect the people involved. Public advocacy work is distinguished from individual requests for assistance.

Research foundations include ILGA World’s legal mapping of consensual same-sex activity; Reuters’ October 2026 reporting on LGBTQIA+ migrants and third-country removals; public reporting on Russia’s restrictions on LGBTQIA+ organizing, India’s transgender legislation, and Senegal’s criminal laws; and public advocacy concerning LGBTQIA+ refugees, including the work of Minority Defenders Forum.

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