Axelle and Yacine

Yacine and Axelle live and love unapologetically. As a queer, mixed-race couple — Yacine from the Maghreb, Axelle from sub-Saharan Africa — their love story unfolds against a backdrop of layered identities and intersecting struggles.

In a world where simply being is already political, their relationship becomes a site of resistance, tenderness, and quiet courage. But it’s not without pain.

While queerphobia is still pervasive across many communities, what hits Yacine and Axelle hardest is the rejection that comes from within. Within their own cultures. Within families that taught them to love, yet fail to embrace the fullness of who they are. North African communities, in particular, have made them feel like they don’t belong — not because they are strangers, but because they chose each other. Because their love doesn’t conform. Because it crosses racial, gendered, and cultural boundaries that are still taboo.

They’re met with silence, side-eyes, sometimes outright contempt. Whispers in the street. Cold stares at family gatherings. The type of quiet violence that builds over time and begins to weigh on your shoulders like a second skin.

“It’s like we’re too much for everyone,” Axelle says. “Too Black. Too queer. Too different.”

Their love — soft, loud, beautiful — is often reduced to a symbol, or worse, a threat. But to them, it’s just home. A space where they get to exist as their full selves. No apologies. No justifications.

What they want is simple: to be seen. To be accepted. To be allowed to just be.

And maybe one day, they will be.

Brussels, 2022