Outings...!

Yeah, yeah, yeah....

Should have expected the Red Pepper to weigh in with its favourite game.

Of course, in the highly charged atmosphere regarding gay issues in the country right now, this is red meat before a dog. I will not comment anymore.
Here are the Red rugs scans. Incidentally, the link to the red rug is lacking. Seems they have not been paying their bills. Maybe this will boost their circulation more. I hear they were slapped a huge fine for libelling Gadaffi...

Ughhhhh!

No comment.

gug.

-----

PS.

Paul Kagaba is an ex-gay. He goes around telling some tall tales, for which I will make sure that he is confronted.  He is not, and HAS NEVER BEEN a spokesperson for gug. For me, imagine. [seems people are quite determined that I am an organisation!]

But, once, sometime ago, he was fronting as spokesperson for Ex-Gay Uganda... Me, I am very proudly gay, and Ugandan.

gug

PPS; Why do I smell the foul stench of Ssempa's hand in this?

Consequences

Coming home today, a friend told me of a curious story. He had got a call from George Oundo, aka Georgina. Guy wanted money- if he was not to ‘out’ him.

The friend cursed Georgina away.

And, on returning home from work, he found his domestic help with a strange story. The help was visited by Red Pepper people. They know he has a story about his boss, he was informed. And they were ready to pay well for the story. Which story? The boss’s (homo)sexual escapades.

Georgina, good Christian as he is, (he says he is doing the outing etc for God and Country), has a lucrative side line. Blackmail.

He has blackmailed many. And continues- I have failed to figure out what he is after.

But, besides the blackmail, there is a lot of fear.

Remember the guys in Mbale? The couple that was arrested for being amorous. They are still in jail. On remand, almost a month since the arrests. There is literally no case against them. But public opinion, and politics.

There is a sadder case in Mukono. A seventeen year old was sentenced to life imprisonment, because he had gay sex. Life imprisonment in Uganda means exactly that. No parole. No time out. Life in prison. The boy can only appeal that sentence.

There is another case, in Entebbe. And others.

Suddenly, prison is becoming something that anyone suspected of being gay gets rail roaded to. Doesn’t matter that you may not be gay. Or you may not be guilty. Fact is, us seasoned gay people are kind of too suspicious to be caught in the act. But damn!

I am just thinking of Stephen Langa, that nice Christian man, doing his round on the fm stations, complaining that homosexuals were not being arrested. Well, we are being arrested. And sentenced, to life in prison.

Guy visited me yesterday. His name, his pic was published. He cannot sleep at his house. His LC chairman advised him that residents will lynch him. And a friend that was staying at his house was beaten up. Because of suspicion that he is gay.

He was suicidal. Where is this going to end?

Father Musaala, his career is in tatters. Until he can ‘prove’ that he is not homosexual. His rivals must be happy about that- they did destroy this pretender to the love of god, didn’t they? 

By the way, in the same red rug issue in which people were outed was a pornographic 'confession' from dear Georgina. He detailed how he was a wife to a 'popular priest' for over a year, for some money... Didnt require an Einstein to figure out who the 'popular priest' was supposed to be.

All lovers of homosexuals, (or any who can pretend) have to affirm their heterosexuality. Bishop Ssenyonjo, that venerable granddad has to begin his defence of us by asserting that he is not gay. He must be, after all, Georgina ‘outed’ him.

But the one thing which amused me about this hysteria was the Pastor Kayanja saga. Apparently, his pastor rivals could not get someone like Georgina to accuse him. So, they are offering money for the confessions. Kayanja is a very influential man. Politically very well connected (which in a way makes him vulnerable!). He found the need to make the accusations New Vision headlines. And then to go to Red Pepper, of all papers! Apparently, his detractors complain that he is not anti-gay enough. That is why they say he must be gay, because he is not anti-gay enough. (The headline in the red rug was Pastor Kayanja reveals his homo history! but like much that that rug writes about, the story was miles away from the headlines.  Poor Kayanja!)

I swear, I am not lying. Most of these things are documented, by the Red Pepper, and its sister anti-gay publication, the New Vision.

Actually, it is early days.

Uganda has been homophobic. But not above many other countries in Africa. What started as an anti-gay, Christian seminar to deal with the homosexual agenda has morphed into some tears of pain for many of us. And it is not yet finished.

Where will it end?

 

gug

A Not so Private Conversation

It was private, that is, until I decided to put it here. I am just being cheeky.

Some background. In Uganda, we have two major English dailies. The red rug is a rug, so I will not grace toilet paper with the ‘news’ monica.

The New Vision is the government owned newspaper. Once upon a time it was fairly independent. That was till the end of 2006, when the President decided that it was not fitting that the government paper criticizes the government. So, it lost its independence. Now, it only speaks what the govt wants. And gives editorials like the totally confusing one here and here.

And there is the Monitor. An independent. I think at the moment it is owned by the Aga Khan or something like that. Has a reputation of independence.

So, last year, when we wanted to have our national outing, Monitor was a very good place. Maybe the only place we could go to! And they did us some good things. I mean, they did report very objectively. It riled Ssempa so much that he started a campaign against one of the Monitor Reporters, an intern from America. Her crime, according to Ssempa, was ‘promoting homosexuality’. No, the newspapers editors said, she did not do that. She was just doing her job, reporting what her editor had asked her to.

But Monitor staff are Ugandan. Maybe we lucked on an American intern as a total bit of serendipity! So, even when we had generated that debate, there used to be a quirky kick from some of the Monitor staff.
This past Saturday, the Monitor headlines were searing. ‘SODOMY IN BOARDING SCHOOLS’. I cringed. Did not read the article till the next day. Oh yes, I posted it here. Doesn’t mean I read it! Just the fact that, a straight person would also not like to be accused of all the 'straight' rapes that occur... And I knew that something like that was going to happen. In fact, as a letter from a reader puts it in today's Monitor, 'Research has shown a close relation between homosexuality, drug abuse and spread of AIDS!'

[Let the witch-hunt begin. Lynch the homosexuals!]

The next day, I came across another article in that Monitor. The one from the experts. I was riled. So riled that I found little relief in the post. Experts do need to be experts.

And I thought I should send it to the letters to the editor.

I was surprised to get an answer. Usually, letters to the editor are either trashed (majority) and a very few answered. I know that!
Now, I will let the correspondence do the talking…

---

gug has sent you a link to a blog: Blog: GayUganda Post: Demonised? Are these 'truths' true? Link: http://gayuganda.blogspot.com/2008/06/demonised-are-these-truths-true.html

Man [or woman?],
Just leave us alone. We are clean and ramrod straight.
H

--
Leave me alone. And just do not sell your papers on innuendos and untruths about me.
Mr H, LEAVE ME ALONE. I NEITHER SOLICITED FOR YOUR ATTENTION, NOR DID I ASK YOU TO WRITE UNTRUTHS ABOUT ME. JUST LEAVE ME ALONE.
You just have to learn that we are human beings, and we do suffer from your irrational hate. If you were to ignore us it would be ok. But you go ahead and write lies from 'experts'. Then what the hell will the red pepper do?
Leave us homosexuals alone. It should be us saying that, not you.

GUG

---

Who sent me the link in the first place?

And secondly, it does not matter to me what this or that western ‘scientific’ agency says or does to whitewash sodomy, it is very easy to see where they would be coming from, if you read my meaning. Why else are you clowns fighting tooth and nail to get yourselves accepted if sodomy was acceptable to nature in the first place?

H

--

Hi H,

thanks for the information.

I did not send you the link. I sent the link to the Letters Editor at Monitor. I thought that is what we are supposed to do, write letters to the Editor? Forgive me if I got it wrong.

Thanks for your raging hate. Thanks for accusing me of things which you have no idea that I do or not.

All that you know of me is that I am gay and Ugandan. And of course that I was riled at the monitor article, citing 'experts' which a cursory search of the web would have shown to be ill informed.

No, I expected better of the Monitor. Of the Red Pepper, I did not expect anything better. Sorry, I thought I bought a copy of the Monitor, not the Red Pepper.

Be well H,

and god bless your hate with love.

Gug

----

Ok, and there ended the correspondence! Yeah, I was not my cool suave self. A bit over the top and all that. A bad day, I admit!

First of the Month, You are fired.

Ok. Not realy fired. But understand that we need less of your services. So, will you take a cut in the income?

As a good suspicious employee, I will suspect that something is happening. I have worked too long for my dear employer to be summarily dismissed. But, that can be done in increments. And I may decide to resign to prevent further embarassment. Not being needed, but you hang on desperately.

Pathetic?

Maybe, and maybe not. Ok, I was outed by the Red rug. That was last month. I thought that I had done something to create a soft landing for myself. I talked to my immediate boss. I talked to my ultimate boss. And things seemed to be cool.
A few days to the end of the month, I get the 'bad' news. Lots of apologies, lots of sorries, but it all adds up to me losing part of my income. And being left with this suspicious feeling that it is because of my damned sexuality. Or the sudden suspicion of it that my colleagues at work have!

Yet I am lucky. I am like most Ugandans. A lot of part time jobs to make the ends meet. It is at the other places that a fight has been occuring, just beneath the surface, buy my friends seem to be winning- I still am a member of that team. For how long?

And I am lucky. I do have options. A friend was about to start a job. Suddenly that is on hold. Another is seeing suspicious foot dragging on a number of things at work. Others are having it worse. Others better.

Expected. The fact that my sexuality was so blatantly announced by the Red rug made it a given. People would know. People would gossip. And those with the ability to do something about it, in the name of god, or country, or morality, or sheer 'hate' would try to do something. And what proof have I about that? Absolutely nothing. Except I did not expect to have a decrease in income so fast, so unexpectedly, with such short notice.

But I am alive.

Think of the brighter side. I can stay up looking at the sky, reading and writing poetry. And doing things which I would rather not mention here. And I do have options!

So, nothing to do but to stay alive. And to be resilient.

We Ugandans are tough and resilient. We are, and very much a product of a tough environment. It can be tougher for me. But you know, we still are.

Not quite the time to start looking for a job. Too many people remember, it is too soon. But you know, the memories will slide, and something will happen, and I will still have my skills, and I will still be able to get a job, or something.

I am still alive, so, yeah, I can take the blow. And roll on, and I can be myself. No thanks, no pity for me. Even my lover will not be able to give it to me.

GayUganda

A Stonewall Moment?

I have already commented on the spirit of defiance in the Kuchu community at the moment. I saw more evidence of it yesterday.

I was at one of ‘our’ bars. Fact is, I had not been there in some time. Too much pressure and tension, as a matter of fact. Last week, guys were outed. This week, girls were outed by the Red rug.

Yet the atmosphere was celebratory to say the least. We were there. Gay men. New and old. Kuchus. We were together, and we gathered, and danced, and talked and laughed. We joked about being in the ‘Top 50’ and shared each others moment of pain. A sense of community had been created. We shed off the fear and the pain of the week, the anxiety about jobs and work and relatives and homes. We were out as kuchus with other kuchus. And we enjoyed our company.

We were so focused on making merry that someone commented that we were paying no attention to the show on the stage. We were not. We were celebrating being alive. Facing one of the things that all kuchus dread, and surviving. Yes, not all of us are out of the woods. There are others who could not come. Some are still in hiding.

And there were some ugly moments.

Witch hunting. We are all kuchus, so who spilled the beans to the Red rug? Commendably, little was revealed about the girls. But the guys! We can suspect of course, but with no proof, witch hunting hurts all of us. We are kuchus under siege. We all are kuchus under siege.

As we were leaving, a thought struck me. Was the press conference and aftermath a ‘Stonewall’ moment for Ugandan kuchus? Stonewall was the turning point for the gay rights movement. All over the world, kuchus were oppressed customarily. It was when the police raided the gay hangout Stonewall and they rioted, that is when the gay movement was born. Check out the film ‘Stonewall’.

Unbelievable as it is, oppression occurs with the passive consent of the oppressed. Yet many a time, a point is reached when defiance is sparked. And like a brush fire it is fanned by the anger and emotions of years of oppression. Kuchus in Uganda may have gotten to their Stonewall moment.

We just have to watch and see.

GayUganda

The Red Pepper, Again.

I have just read the Red Pepper. The Red Chilli, as one joker called it. Of course I had to read it, but I had determined not to buy the paper. It is a joke. A bad joke, and the fact that I cannot seem to ignore its bad jokes is galling!

My lover saved me the struggle. He bought it, and left it still pinned in the living room. Eye catching headline, '20 Top City Lesbians Named and Shamed'. And inside, Part 3 of the Weird Sex Investigation Series’ Homo Terror!

I read it, and started laughing. It is so stupid that it is hilarious. This is a rug, not worth the paper it is written on. They seem to have checked out the ‘Gay Uganda’ website, for some information about Kabaka (King) Mwanga being gay. Curiously, this bombshell was actually dropped by Ssempa, when he wanted to prove that ‘state sponsored homosexuality’ was a bad thing. He stated that homosexuality was in Buganda, Uganda before the coming of Christianity. (New Vision, Martyrs day 03/06/2006). Talk about shooting one’s self in the mouth- Ssempa has this amazing capacity.

Imagine, hard as it may be to believe, Kabaka Mwanga was gay, and when the martyrs denied his advances, he killed them. As was his right as a demi-god!

Red rug presents this as new information.

And then goes on to say that we are sponsored by a world wide organisation called LGBT with headquarters in all continents. That is where I started laughing. The rest of the article is so much bull shit, that I could not imagine it was written. And people spend money on this shit? And they believe the Red Rug?

Apparently, LGBT is funding us. And they go ahead and list the monies we are supposed to have got. How lucky we are!

(To the un-inititiated, LGBT is what we call ourselves. Representing the diversity of human sexualities. Lesbian, gay, Bisexual, Trangender. They forgot one letter, I for Intersex.)

Some girls are named as gay. As are some more guys. Names, description, place of residence etc. And then they have the gal to say that the Red rug is helping the Tabliq anti-gay squad to find the homosexuals who they did not know.

Irresponsible journalism. Again they will move on, and we shall pay the consequences.

Kuchus are actually very angry. It is a measure of our helplessness that this rug has not been dragged to court as yet.

But we shall go on. We shall win, because we are on the side of truth. I have never been so sure of that. I do have a martyr’s complex. Not the Osama Bin Laden type. But I am so convinced of the rightness of my cause that the stupidity of things done in the name of ‘morality’ just makes me more determined. Nsaba Buturo and Ssempa will go ahead enlisting the likes of Red rug as allies in their fight against homosexuals. But we will win. Because we are human beings, and what we put across is the truth. And because we are betting with our lives. Our very lives, and nothing is more precious than that.

We shall overcome. Someday.

GayUganda

I Resist!

Its interesting. At the beginning, when one looks at the things that stand between us and a realisation of gay rights in Uganda, it seems that the problem is insurmountable. When I first entered the gay community in Uganda, Kuchus one and all seemed to think that they are a cursed lot that will remain cursed.

Yet in a few years, a change has occurred. Most of the reaction to the Red Pepper outing was at first a despair. Despair and a cringing fear of what is going to happen, what our hostile world is going to dish out to us because now they know we are gay. That was Sunday, and Monday. People had switched off their phones. Others were planning to go into hiding.

Wednesday, and it seems the consensus has changed again. Come up swinging. Fight back. Resist. Anger has come up at last, a definite pride at being Kuchu and also being human and why should we be 'named and shamed'?. Explore the legal issues. And how else can we fight back?

An email campaign. Letters to the Red Pepper, challenging the outing of presumed gay people. It worked before. It can work again. The Red Pepper is not immune to this kind of thing also. Oh, and don't buy it. Just do not buy that rug!

Yet it is invigorating. The desire to stand up and be counted, to get out of the rut of always presenting your pass with a bowed head, being down trodden. The point when I raise my head and start fighting back. That is a turning point that is remarkable. A David and Goliath moment. When the 3% steps out before the incredulous gaze of the 97% and demand to be recognised. That we are also human.

One of my sisters dared to imply that it was shameful that I was being open about my sexuality. That I should go somewhere and hide. I told her no way. I am as good a human being as her.

That felt good. No longer acting the victim. Standing up and being counted.

The literal translation of Nsaba Buturo’s name is ‘I am requesting for refuge’. I don’t know why his parents so named him. But he feels that I should leave my country because I am gay. Me whose genealogy stretches back more than ten generations in this country, according to what my father tried strenuously to drum into my poor head. I don't remember my ancestors to the nth degree. I know my dad does, he still sings that song. But I remembered that when I heard Nsaba Buturo assert we should leave the country. Because we are homosexual. Being gay makes us less than human, undesirables that should leave pure, clean Uganda.

It feels good standing up to be myself. That is what they mean by Gay Pride I guess. It really feels good!

Kuchus, all. We shall overcome, someday. We shall because reason is on our side.

GayUganda

Red Pepper Expose; why does it matter?

I was at work, when my lover came. His face was long, and he had a newspaper. The early edition of Sunday's Red Pepper. He gave it to me, opened to a page for me to read. I read, looked up at him, a little stunned.

I have been expecting it. Outing, being outed, the Ugandan way. That means the Red Pepper. It is a rag. I don’t buy newspapers. Very simple reason. I spend less than five minutes going through them, and pick up all the necessary details in that time. I just find it easier to read the news online. If it is there.

But the Red Pepper, I do not read. Because it is just not worth the paper it’s printed on. Fact.

It has the most sensational headlines, and aims to publish the most ridiculous stories. With a minimum of accuracy, I may add.

About a year ago, they went out of their way to publish a list of those they said were gay people. They had quite a bit of problems, because of it. Since we outed ourselves this time, they kept a low profile. They have not been talking about the issue. That is, until today’s exclusive. The names of gay people.

Gay Ugandans outed by the Red Pepper again. The usual scenario. Enough information for you to suspect someone, but a hint here and there so that you cannot be sure. One of the facts wrong, or not exactly right. So that you cannot sue them, so that you cannot clean them out for libel.

For some reason they have not as yet put it on their online edition. They are lazy that way, but it may be that it is their strategy. Gay bashing is popular in Uganda, Africa, and not so outside.

It matters. For this campaign, my lover has been a reluctant ally. For the simple reason that I am taking too high a profile in it. It makes him uncomfortable. He would rather have not. And of course it exposes him too. Because he is my lover. Now, that fear has been realised. I feature, or at least I think I do!

It matters. How many people are innocently being tainted? I don’t know, because I do not know all those listed.

And those who are not 'innocent'? Those who are gay and Ugandan? They have done nothing wrong, just that they are gay, and Ugandan, and the Red Pepper wants to sell and cash in on the novelty of being believed that they have an exclusive. So, jobs may be lost. And children disinherited. The Tabliq anti-gay brigade, which I had nervously laughed off because they don’t know us, they can easily start the gay bashing nightmare. Lynching. Stirring up the mass to mete out ‘mob justice’.

Yes, it matters. It has been rumoured that the reason that Gaetano was censured alone on the radio show was because certain influential people like Nsaba Buturo suspect him of being gay. Because he was positive, not negative like the other 2 people hosting the talk show. Mere suspicion of a different sexuality may make him lose his job there. And the Nsaba Buturos’ believe that a homosexual should have no rights of speech, debate, public hearing, or anything. A homosexual is fair game. It is a fact that the police only made calming noises when the Tabliqs talked of forming their 'anti-gay' brigade. In a country where 197 people were lynched last year alone according to police records. Because a gay human being is less than a human being. We are fair game.

It matters. We went to bed early. My lover was not tired, spent a restless night. In the morning he had a migraine. Usual for him when he is stressed out. But now he has come up fighting. We have been 'outed' before, and now that it has happened again, we have to face the music. Nothing like experience to rely on.

For the Red Pepper, they are going on to other juicy stories. They promise more next Sunday. For those who have been exposed, we begin to pay. Blood and tears. Yet freedom is the pot of gold at the foot of that rainbow.

To all Kuchus out there; We shall overcome. Someday.

GayUganda