Kuchu Identities

We call ourselves Kuchus, us gay Ugandans.

Kuchus. An interesting term. It was a secret term before, but now that the Red rug published it, why hide? We are.

Kuchu. The term is apparently derived from Swahili. Not any of our local languages, but the why of it is lost. Some of us think it derogative. To others it is a sign of pride.
The best translation to English would be ‘Queer’. I got across this interesting article on homosexuality and Queer theory. It was of interest because it captured the essence of our identities and differences so well.

The girls are Kuchus, and so are the guys. The transgenders are also Kuchus. We all are kuchus. So, instead of going into the terms gay or lesbian which seem to confuse us so much in the community, we just say that we are kuchu. And that is taken as a member of the family. All inclusive and welcoming, or so we think.

Yet we are different amongst ourselves.

First time that I met Victor was at a party. There was this cute boy, (I thought), who the other guys were hitting on outrageously. Victor later came and talked to me, a few minutes. Apparently enough to rouse my lover’s irritation. Until I told him that the cute boy was a girl.
Victor laughed as she corrected my mistake, telling me that she was flirting with the others just for fun, because they all thought that she was a man. She loved it.
Later, I was to know a few others like her. Girls, women who hated being women, but loved women.

To my shock there were guys like them too.
At first I was a bit irritated. Getting out of my closet, I was quite firm in my gender identity. I knew I was a man who was attracted to men. That was ok. But I did not want to become a woman. So when I saw a guy who acted like a woman, I was irritated. Remember I am an African male. Born and brought up in Africa. And in our firmly patriarchal upbringing, it is early on impressed on us that a man is not a woman, and for a man to be mistaken for a woman is an insult of considerable magnitude. So I was shocked that there were kuchus who actually acted like women. And others who took on the mannerisms of women, and some who identified as women. They amazed me. I knew I did not want to be like them. They actually did not attract me, till I had the chance to fall in love with one like that. That (ahem) was a while ago! It was a considerable learning experience for me. I realized that though superficially similar, we kuchus were very different.

That was about the time that I started reading up medical texts on sexuality. Interesting stuff actually. We have a saying that one who has not traveled is the one who praises his mom’s cooking. Reading on sexuality opened my eyes to a lot of possibilities.

And I realized, that as a kuchu, or queer, we were not only diverse, we were a proudly diverse community. It is not only the straight who think that they are the epitome of normality. Even us kuchus have those delusions.

But we can embrace the fact of our differences. And so can those who are straight understand that we are different, but still human.

GayUganda