We are excited to present this series in celebration of pride month. Titled Out, Proud and African, we are curating stories of Africans on the continent and in the diaspora who are out, visible and living their truths. We recognise that to be out as an African is not easy and we celebrate these individuals who are at the forefront of the fight for equality. Today, our feature is from South African Writer Siya Khumalo who is the critically acclaimed author of You Have to Be Gay to Know God, a book in which he explores what it is like to be LGBTIQ in South Africa. This is his coming out story.
ON COMING OUT
I understood that the only reason I’d stay in the closet was shame. Shame is incompatible with healthy, authentic expressions of human love. I only have one life to live (that I’m certain about) and if I live it on another human’s terms, that human isn’t going to recompense me in some way. When I’m dead, society won’t give me a second chance as a reward for observing its norms, many of which make sense and many of which simply don’t. Heterosexism and heteronormativity make no sense. I wasn’t going to yield my birthright to a full life in exchange for this deal. And too many LGBTI people before me have sacrificed too much so I could live out in the light for me to crawl back into the closet as though straight society was somehow holier than I was.
TO BE OUT AND AFRICAN
In South Africa, class is the decisive variable behind how one is affected by racism and homophobia, so for me, it’s been possible to remain relatively sheltered from the brunt of the homophobia that faces many South Africans (despite our progressive laws). I have faced a few close calls in terms of risk and safety, and I was bullied as a kid, but overall I have been fortunate and seek to have this fortune extent to more members of the LGBTI community.
It’s given me the opportunity to meet amazing people and to influence a lot of young people towards wholeness (I think and hope). Meaning, a lot of the people I meet are still in their formative years, and they’re working out how they’re supposed to present themselves to the world. And the message I think they’re getting from me is they don’t have to have social approval based on their possession but based on well they treat others and themselves. The gender of one’s partner is less important than how one treats that partner. I stress the centrality of love. I wouldn’t be able to say these things if I weren’t out.
CHALLENGES OF BEING OUT AND AFRICAN
The number of worlds I have to navigate makes it difficult to have a unified identity. I can’t always practice my spirituality in the same place where I am open about my politics and vice-versa. I can’t romantically hold a boy’s hands in the neighbourhood I share with my family. None of these points are nearly as severe as the challenges faced by fellow LGBTI Africans, and I am aware of my privilege in that regard.
ON PRIDE AND ITS IMPORTANCE
Pride is wild! Most of the things we commemorate and celebrate involved shared geopolitical and geo-spatial histories. The Civil Rights’ movement and the end of Apartheid were about race and were specific to nations and their laws. Pride, however, is about the overthrow of discrimination on the basis of something that cuts across the human race, something rooted in very intimate experiences. When I’m at a Pride march and see someone who looks nothing like me, I know that this person is part of a very special portion of the population that knows what it’s like to be distinguished by an attraction to someone of the same sex, or be distinguished by not experiencing gender and sex the way others do. This transcends so much (at least in theory) and I hope what unites the LGBTI community will prove stronger than what divides us.
ADVICE TO MEMBERS OF THE LGBT COMMUNITY STRUGGLING WITH THEIR SEXUALITY OR GENDER IDENTITY.
Give yourself time because a lot of your angst is the function of the times you live in. Had you been born in another century, you’d have faced discrimination for being left-handed by people who’d have no issues with you being LGBTI, or discrimination for being short, or something else. There has always been and will always be reasons to hate perfectly decent human beings, and if you’ve internalised some of that then awareness is the first step towards healing. But don’t give the broader world too much time to adjust to you because if you can’t stand up for yourself, who will? If you let others walk over you, you don’t get a second chance at life. Who’s supposed to live for you if you won’t?
HOPE FOR THE LGBT COMMUNITY IN AFRICA
We’re the ones who are going to overthrow the legacy of colonialism and poverty. Africa’s fate rises and falls with ours. We fall, Africa falls. We rise, Africa rises. Many people think it’s the other way around. But it isn’t. Just as a body can die if it’s amputated, Africa is doomed if it dooms us and Africa is saved if it accepts us as part of itself.
Follow Siya Khumalo on Twitter and Instagram. You can also visit his website for more information on his book.
