Kuchu Mental Health in Africa; The Failure of Africa’s Medics & Health Care Workers (1)

The mental health of the African Kuchu.

I have been commenting, on and off, that we kuchus are damaged individuals. Of course we are. We are human beings that develop from childhood and live in particularly hostile environments in Africa.
We would be angels, if we were not damaged and didn’t decompensate, in order to survive, as Kuchu (LGBTQ+) in Africa. And, we are alive…!

Our mental health doesn’t seem to be that important, sincerely speaking. When it is put up against the needs for survival in Africa, it comes up a losing second.
Which is simply us being blinded. Our mental health matters tremendously. We don’t seem to know it. And, crucially, we Kuchus, we LGBTQ+ Africans are being continuously failed by our own African ‘elite’, the medical doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists who should know quite a bit better.

Here is a poignant example of what is happening on the continent of Africa. This was in Accra, Ghana. But, it could have been anywhere on the continent of Africa.

There is an anti-homosexuality bill in the Parliament of Ghana. And of course that brings up debate in the country, on the airwaves, radio and TV. A prominent psychologist in the country was invited to give his comments. And, to say the least, they are devastating.

 

Senior Psychologist, Professor Joseph Osafo

“Contributing to Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" show, Professor Joseph Osafo stated emphatically that he fully supports the bill,”

“As a Pastor, I support the bill but as a clinician, let's reassess it and work on the parts that won't help us because if we are not careful and we pass the bill to a certain level, there may be some people who genuinely need help" but, due to the bill, may face prosecution, he stated.”

“"I have worked as a suicidologist within the Ghanaian context and the African context. Africa now is leading in suicidality. It is the youngest continent. Our infrastructure, health infrastructure is down; it is not the best . . .””

 

There is a total lack of appreciation, understanding and empathy on the part of the Seniour Psychologist that the psychology of the individual, the Ghanaian kuchu, is going to be devastatingly affected by this anti-LGBTQ+ bill.

This psychologist has an awareness of that we kuchus are prone to suicide. Yet he is in total support of a bill that criminalises and imprisons us. For simply being kuchu. Begs the question, how much conversation has happened between this psychologist and his Kuchu patients?

Instead of the Proffesor and Psychologist tackling a prominent, un-equivocal source of stress for his patients, he wants to meet them when they have survived a suicide attempt? He is throwing his weight behind a bill that criminalises his patients and his only worry is that the bill might also stop them clients from coming to him?
A skewed sense of priorities, dear Proffessor Pastor Joseph Osafo. A skewed sense of priorities.

Crucially, an ethical problem that seems to challenge African health proffesionals, when there is a clash between their faith and the health of their patient and client, their faith wins all the time, even when their clients’ faith might differ from theirs.
What the hell happened to the vaunted ethics of the Hippocratic Oath? The ‘service to all’ ethic of the medical and health proffesions? It fails in Africa.
Please note that the discussant is A SENIOUR PSYCHOLOGIST AND PROFFESOR. A teacher.

 

“"As a Pastor, I support the bill but as a clinician, let's reassess it”

 

See, the big problem is, Pastor Proffesor Joseph Osafo, that as you waffle and try to qualify your support, your patients and clients are listening to you.., future and current. And past, even the suicidal ones. They are all listening, to your tone, your words, your faith, and your clinical expertise all.

That is pretty depressing. Yes, it depresses me that our so called elite in Africa, the educated few, who are supposed to bear the burden for most of us, when they fall so far from at least a basic understanding of their proffesions.
I am not a psychologist. But, even my poor understanding of psychology tells me there is something wrong here.

But, it is important to appreciate that our mental health issues not unique, they are known and appreciated (outside Africa, which is a challenge, but at least we can outsource the knowledge).
Kuchus have to appreciate that we are prone to something as insidious as suicide in our communities, we kuchus (LGBTQ+ Africans). Suicide is a major problem, which even that benighted Proffesor seems to acknowledge. But, the root problem, the one at the bottom most of the time is our internalised homophobia.

And treatment? Or prevention?

Well, Dr Muniini-Mulera had some insights.

 

“What we know is that homosexuality is not due to troubled family relationships, or “recruitment.” We also know that homosexuality is not “curable” through conversion or reparative therapy.

First, you do not cure a non-disease. Second, conversion therapy is based on an unscientific assumption that people with a non-traditional sexual orientation, such as homosexuals, are psychologically damaged and that changing their sexual orientation will benefit not only the individual but also society”

 

Important points above, very important background, the current science that is denied to us, Kuchus in Africa. But, beyond that, what should we expect from our therapists, psychologists, medical doctors and health care providers? Muniini Mulera again.

 

“Medical doctors are called to serve in a respectful, unbiased, open-minded, and non-judgemental way. To professionally sound medical doctors, it does not matter that the patient presents with a lifestyle that conflicts with their personal values. They treat homosexual people and their families with respect and empathy, employing evidence-based tools to improve their health.”

 

Which is very good. You don’t campaign to have us be put in prison, and then expect us to tell you all our secrets as human beings. Sincerely, isn’t that common sense?

The standard to aspire to is called ‘affirming care, or affirmative psycho-therapy’.

And surely even the poor, uneducated, kuchu in ‘Uganda the Village’ and ‘Ghana the Village’, should expect at the very least, that bit of professionalism from their doctor and health care giver?

 

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Intellectualism, Ugandan Style

 

Ahem, indeed it is intellectualism, Ugandan style.

It seems as if everyone in Uganda is an expert on ‘Homosexuality’. Oh yes, I am speaking from the heights of experience in Uganda. Everyone, but everyone seems to know what exactly ‘homosexuality’ is about, and what to do about it. Leaders, to the man and woman on the street.
And much of this knowledge, pseudo-intellectualism is based on ignorance. Ignorance of basic sexuality, ignorance that homosexuals are actual human beings, and of course the chaining weights of prejudice. ‘Homosexuality’ is Ugandans’ defining prejudice. It brings out the stupid in us.

Take His Excellency the President.
In the speech when he called upon Africa to save the world from Homosexuality [Uh??!!!], his reasoning was that because homosexuals do not procreate…, yes, I am not joking, those are the words he is reported using. That because homosexuals do not procreate, humanity was in danger.

Yes. That was the gist of His Excellency the President’s appeal to Africa.

In Uganda, we are called ‘homosexuals’. Those who want to seem a bit more learned, sometimes deign to call us ‘gays’ or ‘lesbians’. We call ourselves Kuchus, to maintain a sense of our African identity [that our homophobic country mates would deny]. We are LGBTQ+ Africans.
If I told President Museveni that B stands for Bisexual, he would ask me what that means…
And I doubt that I would have the energy to tell him that we Kuchus don’t leave our ovaries and testes behind, just because we are kuchus. The explanation would be exhausting!

One ‘expert’, a PhD and lecturer-; his titles are Rt. Rev. Dr. Fred Sheldon Mwesigwa (PhD), Associate Professor of Religious Education intimates that the + in the LGBTQ+ intimates that more is to come, and what is to come is BESTIALITY. Unfortunately, that is not a lie.
This is the intellectualism regarding homosexuality in Uganda. Firmly rooted in ignorance and prejudice. And of course rejecting any view to the contrary. In that article, Sheldon Mwesigwa PhD rubbishes Dr Muniini Mulera’s article ‘Homosexuality, A Medical Doctor’s Perspective’. It challenged his understanding of ‘homosexuality’ and the concrete foundations of his prejudices. So, of course Muniini Mulera was wrong. Sheldon Mwesigwa went as far as trying to confirm that Muniini Mulera’s views were wrong. And, you know the sources that he used to confirm his bias? Other Ugandans. In Uganda. ‘Experts’ because they were of Muniini Mulera’s age group, and in the health proffesion. Critical Thinking, Ugandan style.

 Muniini Mulera got his insight working outsideUganda. In Uganda, prejudice and ignorance reign supreme, as Sheldon Mwesigwa shows, inelegantly.

Unfortunately, there is lots of evidence…,

From Archbishop Ssemwogerere of the Catholic Church for whom consensual sex acts morph somehow into non consensual and sex with children, Pastor Martin Ssempa’s obsession with ‘recruitment’, and we Kuchus’ apparent drive to ‘recruit’ Uganda’s children into ‘homosexuality’, to other bits and pieces of illogical nonsense.

Ignorance, the sheer burden of nonsense and prejudice cuddling up thinking. Even the Ministry of Health in Uganda doesn’t understand how the hell the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023 impacts HIV/AIDS care and prevention in the country. Imagine, not even the gumption to ask why UNAIDS should be worried about HIV in the country … Its like a sort of intellectual laziness well informed by prejudice.

But, I am heavily prejudiced myself. I think we can do better. Sex, sexuality and sexual orientation is not rocket science. It is day to day knowledge, goodness’s sake!

Or maybe I should state that these nice doctors just don’t want to inform themselves? The information is free, everywhere that I note. Some of it authored by Ugandan researchers..! Shame.
Oh…, by the way. Addendum. To inform themselves, the good doctors need to get to sites that ‘promote homosexuality’… More Shame.

 

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Kuchus are African

 

As I stated before  our African identity is under continuous attack, as gay Africans. When there is any kind of debate in Uganda, we are heaped with abuse as gross, unnatural, un-African and evil.

A sad silver lining to the whole ‘homosexuality’ debate in Uganda is that even with the weight of negative information and frank myths damning homosexuals, a few nuggets of real information emerge.

Like when we are forced out of the closet. The dreaded ‘homosexuals’ are given local, known faces. The unreasoning fear might decrease and lead to some enlightment [‘Our Mothers’]

And Ugandans in the diaspora who have met and know unthreatening gay individuals might be persuaded to add an authoritative voice of reason. Here is an article in the Monitor from a long time columnist, a Ugandan-Canadian. Dr Muniini Mulera. He states;

“homosexual activities were common in precolonial and early colonial Africa. In Uganda’s case, the practice was well documented among the Langi (Driberg 1923), the Iteso (Laurence 1957), Abahima (Mushanga 1973), Abanyoro (Needham 1973), and Abaganda (Southwold 1973).”

I don’t have those references. They are certainly worth getting, however I can source them. Fascinating.

He continues

“colonial regimes, and the principal Christian religious sects, successfully suppressed public displays and engagement in homosexuality.

In their book “Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African Homosexualities” (London: MacMillan, 1998), Stephen Murray and Will Roscoe observe that “some say the colonialists did not introduce homosexuality to Africa but rather intolerance of it and systems of surveillance and regulation for suppressing it.””

Odd. Or not so odd. Homosexuality is not the import. The real ‘import’ is the rabid homophobia. Homosexuality was present, visible, tolerated. It is the import of religions [Christianity] that introduced the intolerance, plus ‘surveillance and regulation for suppression’.
Criminalisation of homosexuality was a direct import, as part of the British Empire Criminal code.

Truly, in history, the ‘winner’ writes the narrative. This was an aggressive rewriting of historical reality itself. 

By the 1960s, homophobia had taken root, and historical amnesia had relegated homosexuality to a misty past as though it had never existed.

Fact is, we homosexuals still existed. We went underground, were no longer visible, and mention of us was swept underneath the historical rug. We just became invisible. [All populations have minority sexualities. The African population is not that special!]

Oddly, Dr Muniini Mulera then argues that

“Africa is a culturally binary world, where sexual identity is perceived in reproductive terms. We are a socially conservative people, with a long and deep tradition of enforcing group norms. We expect people to look like and to function in the gender and sexual roles they were assigned at birth. To the African, sexual desire and activity is only meaningful when understood as an avenue for reproduction. That is the basis for rejection of homosexuality”

Yes, in the same article, his logic breaks down. So, according to him, the ‘post-colonial’ African is THE African? That is too simplistic. We cannot reject millennia of experience of The African because of the 150-200 years of colonialism and the post-colonial experience. Was ‘the African’ changed so fundamentally that ‘the African’ can only be defined as the post-colonial African? That is what Muniini Mulera seems to argue.

The post-colonial ‘culturally binary world’ that he is describing is by his very reasoning a product of colonialism and the new religions. Asserting the post-colonial African is The African is embracing the ideology behind utterances like Nobert Mao and Martin Ssempa, forgetting that Muniini Mulera himself, in that article, has effectively challenged those myths and assertions.

Pre-colonial Africa was not intolerantly, aggressively binary. Rather, other sexualities were visible and tolerated. Not persecuted or invisible, nor relegated to a misty past.

We are coming out. Voluntarily sometimes, involuntarily many times. When we were invisible, it was argued that homosexuality was not African and because we didn’t seem to exist in Africa. Now that we are coming out, it is important to re-assert the historical truths. Homosexuality is as African as The African. Homophobia is the import, not the historical reality. Reduction of sexuality to binary simplicities was not part of our traditional societies and African beliefs.

And, yes. We Kuchus embrace our African identity. We are African. We are part of The African Identity; - the real African Identity.

And doesn’t that make some people mad!

 

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