The Mighty Gay Gene

 

Is there a gay gene?

Maybe we are asking the wrong question.

Is there a ‘Ganda’ gene? Maybe there is none. Baganda don’t all look alike. Yet before one speaks, that deep, slow drawl, and the accent, the accent. Voices, slow drum roll in bass, punctuated. Sometimes I can recognise one, from the looks.
Thin and lean, small, unless privileged at birth. Dark skin, deeply dark and regular. Moon face, that fat squashed nose. [oh, kissable]. And the lips, those lips; fleshy and thick. A delight

Is there an Acholi gene? Or would it be Luo? But Luo with variants.
That height, and lean muscled torso. The deep, velvety dark, brilliantly living skin. Thin skinned face, planed. Hands that are big and deep. And the voice, the accent, such a contrast. Listen to Acholi spoken from birth; a truly lilting tongue.

Maybe there is an Ankore gene. But the variants would be many.
Is it the tall, thin, lanky one? Or the shorter dusky ones? Those bums, but not with all. And, that surprisingly light tanned skin. Very light, very smooth, very soft; distinctly African. The gene should come with the voice, the accent. Sharp rolled, rolling rrrss.. Breaking and making at impossibly uneven spaces.

I recognise them all. Distinct and indistinct Ugandan phenotypes. But no particular gene marker.

Why are Ugandans obsessed with the ‘gay gene’?

The question historically might have started with us, gay humans. We were different, we would recognise it, and say that we are just different.
So, we thought if I was ‘Born like this’ then it must be in the genes, the genetic markers; back when genes had just been discovered. And the search was on, and it came up relatively blank, I understand.

There not being a ‘gay gene’ doesn’t mean that we were not born gay. That is like saying because you looked for and didn’t find a Ganda gene, or an Acholi gene, or an Ankore gene, that those ethnic groups don’t exist. Or that the more than 50 distinct ethnic groups in Uganda don’t exist, because you cannot find their genes.

Frankly, I would fear the gay gene, a genetic marker for my homosexuality.

Imagine there was a ‘gay gene’, what would a person like Hitler in Nazi German do with that information?
Gay people in Nazi Germany were first labelled with pink triangles in public. It was the law. They were then rounded up, sent to concentration camps, and killed.
In Hitler’s Nazi Germany, identifying gay individuals would be as simple as taking a blood test.

If there was a gay gene, what would the 500 plus do? The 500 plus, Uganda’s members of parliament.
Make a law so that all Ugandans take the test, identify homosexuals, and send us to re-education camps, like some of our cursed religious leaders are suggesting? . As Dr Baryomunsi boasts, he should be able to do something about it! 

We kuchus have it rough. We have to hide our sexuality from our closest family members. Because we fear to be exposed.
Exposure can lead to being kicked out of the family home, at a very tender, vulnerable age. Yes, it happens. Our fathers and mothers do throw us out of homes.

If there was a gay gene, in a country as insanely homophobic as Uganda, wouldn’t people simply abort gay foetuses, because they have a gay gene? I can imagine Uganda’s Catholic Archbishop sanctioning an abortion of a foetus because it is defective, gay.
Weird, weird, and blasphemous thought, yet a Pastor [a PASTOR, in Ugandan parlance, a ‘Man of God’!] showed gay porn in Church and it is no big deal because that demonises gay people, until he becomes a sensation outside the country. Is there anything that is too bad to do against homosexuals, in the Name of God, and in the name of ‘Culture’ in the mind of someone like him? Oh, he is a prominent pastor, is Pastor Martin Ssempa. [pdf post]

I am quite thankful no gay gene was identified.
It doesn’t negate who and what I am. I am gay. I am a Ugandan. I am a kuchu, homosexual, queer and African.

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