Uganda's LGBT community celebrates Pride – discreetly

[Calllaris]

 

*Risking violence, ostracisation from their families and media threats, activists are planning the country’s biggest festival yet

 

 

*Uganda’s annual Pride festival begins in Kampala today, with organisers promising a week-long celebration for the country’s LGTB community. But rather than a triumphant parade through the city centre, in Uganda Pride will be marked at secret locations away from the public eye.

 

Link: http://edition.cnn.c....html?sr=cnnifb

http://www.theguardi...de-lgbt-kampala

 

Uganda's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex (LGBTI) community is preparing for its annual gay pride parade, taking place proper on Saturday 8 August. This year's event has special significance -- it's been a year since the controversial anti-gay law was scrapped.

 

Pride parades are held all over the world and are an opportunity for the LGBTI community to come together and raise awareness of their rights -- and Uganda has been no different.

 

The inaugural gay pride march was held in the city of Entebbe, some 20 miles south of the capital Kampala, in 2012. That was also the year the anti-homosexuality bill was tabled. "Organizing pride at that point was an act of defiance," explains Neela Ghoshal, senior researcher on the LGBT rights program at Human Rights Watch. "It was the LGBTI community saying: 'We are here and we are not going away.'"

 

 

Richard Lusimbo, who is heading up the committee behind this year's parade and the three days of preceding events, reflects on the toll the bill had on the people he knew: "There are many people who are still languishing in refugee camps in Kenya.

 

"The lucky ones have gotten to western countries but there are people who remain [in Uganda] and the thing that keeps them going is family."

 

“It’s not a protest but a celebration,” says organiser Richard Lusimbo of the fourth annual Uganda Pride, which includes film screenings, a cocktail party, a (discreet) parade and a Mr and Ms Pride contest.

 

 

He continues: "It's not just biological family -- it's also the allies that stood by our brothers and sisters."

 

'We are Family'

It is in recognition of those allies that the Pride Uganda Committee have chosen "We are Family" as the theme for the 2015 march.

 

Lusimbo, who is an activist and research manager at Kampala-based NGO Sexual Minorities Uganda, talks about some of the work that has gone into putting this year's events together.

 

"It's a very big task with lots of organizing to do. There is a new team of 25 people -- individuals from different organizations -- and we have taken up new initiatives to raise local support for Pride and get a cross-section of individuals involved."

 

Participants in the annual gay pride in Entebbe on August 9, 2014.Pride marches might seem like an occasion for people to celebrate their difference but for Lusimbo, it is an opportunity to show just how alike all Ugandans are. "We are encouraging LGBTI people to come out with their families to show that gay people also have children or supporters within their families," he says.

 

Lusimbo talks excitedly about the program of events that start Wednesday and end Sunday: the fashion shows, the documentary screenings, the events that promote better health awareness and spread information about where people can access the services they need. He hopes the traditional and cultural performances will prove that the LGBTI community shares the same cultural heritage as other Ugandans and, as he puts it, prove "that we are not aliens. We have always been here."

 

'Super excited, super nervous'Lusimbo is particularly keen on the opportunity to build bridges with the transsexual individuals who he feels are not well understood by the gay community. But he admits also to being anxious. "As the coordinator, I have to be on top of my game. I have to be alert."

 

For security reasons, Lusimbo cannot reveal the location of this year's parade, a deft reminder that the anti-homosexuality bill may have been defeated but tensions remain. Following the stabbings during gay pride in Jerusalem, Lusimbo is taking no risks. "[The possibility of violence] is a concern we don't take lightly," he says.

 

"We have been raising awareness through membership organizations and through social media, reminding our members of the political and social climate. Within the penal code, the act of homosexuality is still criminalized. Socially, we can't say that anyone won't be throwing stones or homophobic insults."

 

Both Lusimbo and Ghoshal are keen to point out that despite past hostilities, life continues. "The situation faced by LGBT people in Uganda is more nuanced than is portrayed by the western media," Ghoshal says. "Some activists gain protection by speaking out. They become so well known that it protects them but most people keep a low profile and have small communities where they can be themselves."

 

"This is not to undermine the risk of violence," Ghoshal adds, "but people have been able to negotiate a space to live their lives and are able to work with institutions like the police to make sure an event like Pride can take place."

 

The risks may be ever-present but for Lusimbo the most immediate one is the risk of failure. When asked if he will be organizing Gay Pride Uganda for the next three years -- as his predecessors did -- he laughs and says: "That depends on how things end the 9th! I am super excited but I'm also super nervous."

[Calllaris]

About 100 people marched in Saturday’s gay pride parade, held at a secluded beach near Lake Victoria in Uganda. Homosexuality is still illegal in Uganda and punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

The Ugandan LGBTI community celebrated their annual Pride Uganda festival last week. Because Ugandan law criminalizes homosexuality, participants met at private or secluded venues over a five-day period.

More than a dozen contestants from the Ugandan LGBTI community competed for the title of Mr. or Miss Pride in a contest held at a local bar, hotel and massage parlor in the nation’s capital of Kampala.

Gay pride participant "Badru" said his landlord cut him with a machete after finding out he was gay. He then evicted him.

“Today is rights day, but I don’t know why I should be celebrating,” Badru (above) says. “Pride is meaningless to me.” He's now homeless, jobless and desperate, he says, after being evicted from his home when his landlord discovered he's gay. Badru says it's hard to get a job despite his college degree: People won’t hire him because of his sexual orientation and sometimes he’s forced to resort to sex work in order to survive.

Someone attacked him after learning about his sexual orientation. “He cut me with a panga (machete),” Badru says of the wound on his forearm.

“My dream and my hope is to have a better life,” he says. “But every dream of mine is shattered.”

Some members of the Ugandan LGBTI community wore masks to conceal their identities at Saturday’s gay pride parade. Gay and transgendered Ugandans frequently face violence and discrimination due to their sexual orientation and are often unable to find — or afford — legal assistance.

The first Pride Uganda celebration was in 2012; the following year the Ugandan Parliament passed the Anti-Homosexuality Act, which punished same-sex relationships with life imprisonment. That law was later ruled invalid based on a minor voting technicality. But same-sex relationships are still illegal in Uganda and are punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Hundreds of local spectators attended Friday’s Mr. and Miss Pride competition. Teetering atop a wobbly red-carpet runway, more than a dozen contestants from the Ugandan LGBTI community showcased their dance and lip-syncing talents.

When asked why she wanted to become Miss Pride Uganda, a contestant named Arianna said, “I want to come out as a trans woman so they stop discriminating against us. I want to come out to show everyone that trans people are people.”

Pride Uganda coordinator Jay Mulucha attended the first Pride Festival in 2012. Today, he and coordinator Apako Williams say that Ugandans are more accepting of the LGBTI community than in the past, thanks in part to the legalization of same-sex marriage in other countries.

“It all starts from somewhere. I believe a time will come when Uganda will legalize it too,” Mulucha said.

“Things are shifting. I see the future is bright,” Williams added.

[Calllaris]

What gives a community this kind of support, unity or bravery?