Ugandan Drums and Gully Queens

June’s such a queer month:2015 has been such a queer year. Soon after I decided to mount my own online PRIDE with some of the stories I’ve been meaning to make available and said I wanted to focus on Uganda and then Jamaica for their homophobic reputation, I started to get distracted by all the places where there’s some sort of gay breakthrough going on.  The world’s talking about transgender identity; that I could cover on time more or less.  Africa is completely out of the radar because more significant movements seem to be going on elsewhere. Ireland is giving their first steps in a more open minded nation after the referendum to approve marriage equality only showed they already were. Mexico had some sort of legal instrument to validate same sex unions in the central state that is now extensive to all the country. The U.S. marriage equality approval is about to be decided in congress at a national level instead of the current state by state reforms.

If I wanted to focus on my current two countries, Italy and Costa Rica, I would have tons to say as well. I could tell the story of how open the Sardinian local government is about supporting equal rights campaigns and how ARC the local queer organization has had much support in their local activities at the island level. On the other hand, Italy remains the country in the EU with the most conservative politics on gender equality and where the conservative side is really making things difficult for the queer movement: Pride in Rome ended up with some hate fights and countered with a pro-traditional family demonstration where some big shots showed their adhesion to the defense of the traditional family. Costa Rica, on the other side, continues with the battle of the sinners against the holy representatives in congress: a medieval story of hate, deceit, irony, and absurdity. But while some politicians still recite the Bible in congress, our biggest cookie company just dropped a TV ad that talks about diverse families and that features a man-man couple. This is happening not even a month after the first and only gay couple recognition was granted in the country.

With all these events going on, staying fixed with the inequality for queer people in Africa and Jamaica seemed unfair. It’s not that their stories matter less; it’s just that their struggles have been outstaged by the victories and conflicts on the matter in much closer latitudes. My interest in Uganda was born after having clashes but also dialogue with people from there and after working on a project and seeing through footage how beautiful the country really was; unless you were gay that is: you’re not welcome if you are queer.  Then two years ago, when I had the idea of making the anthology of short stories “Pride Disguised as Shame”, homosexuals were being chased and killed in Uganda and not very soon after the world was outraged by their “kill the gays” bill: a legislation that rendered homosexual acts punishable with death. The law was dropped in August last year due to international pressure, but the homophobia of the nation remains.

I kind of included Jamaica in the planning of the discourse because both the land of Reggae and Uganda share the rank as the most homophobic places on earth (Russia’s bad, but not even Russia can compete with these two countries). I also had the opportunity to attend a conference with Christopher Geoghegan, a British journalist/photographer who went into the heart of the low neighborhoods of Kingston to portray the realities of one of the most struggling gay community in the world: The Gully Queens.  It makes sense to showcase both scenarios as they share some the historical past of being British colonies where the Buggery Act (law that penalized sodomy) was enforced (and in the case of Jamaica still is) and because both nations have seen an increase of the evangelical faith, and have had hate speech being widespread from the pulpit in the form of religious speech.

 The video for Gully Queens, Geoghegan’s work, is embedded  (above) to this blog entry. The following rant is a little prose I called “Ugandan Drums.”

Once again, thanks for reading.

Isaac wearing the rainbow flag.

Ugandan Drums
by Isaac López

Hear the beat of the Ugandan drums. Come to a safe country in Africa where locals welcome and praise the Mzungu people who are willing to pay to hear the Ugandan drum beat, to see the dance of the tribes in an amphitheater. Come to see the milky smile of the African mother, the innocent laughter of the mob of children on the street celebrating your arrival. Hear the man who offers you a safari talk about the most exciting adventure of your life. Travel the country by jeep, bike, and ferry. Hear the call of the elephants, the beating heart of the Ugandan drums. Hear the voices of women celebrating the sun. It’s still Africa out there! You can drive to outside Kampala to see the sun setting big and red over the savannah skyline. You can climb the Mount Speke and throw snowballs to the side where Congo starts. You can hear the drum playing for you in the heart of the red soil, a heart that beats like yours. It is hard to believe you were not born among those jolly people that, even when they are charging double prices to the naïve foreigner, they intend you to enjoy the beat of the Ugandan drums to the fullest.

                Unless you are homosexual. Ugandan drums do not play for people who have put their asses to rot.

Ugandan Women like gays no more than they want a cobra in their backyard. They are dangerous. They pose a threat to the kids and their image of what they need to become to keep the Ugandan drum beating as it always had. “Gays are evil people” and I hear concerned in this woman’s remark: “They will take your husband,  get him drunk and then turn them. Gays steal good husbands” – and she has no clue she is even talking to one. What is to become of the country if they didn’t chase down gays? Their marriages will be in a constant threat; no woman, in Uganda or elsewhere, wants to feel less before the seductive devil that the gay man represents. Besides, the pastor said last Sunday that gay people were going to hell, and that’s probably where they should be heading already instead of threatening the sanctity of the Ugandan family.

                The Ugandan drums play for easygoing men outside the market, for the tourist in a kanzu and flip flops, and for whoever makes women the center of the conversation and a source of admiration. Men are not worried gay people exist. They just want them to keep their deviant practice private. Jokes come and go about those who now have their ass rotten “I knew that guy before he went gay. I see how he is walking now. It’s hard to think he will stop walking soon because all the damage his ass has suffered.”

                A gay mzungu is a white devil. They come here because they know some Ugandans will bend for the right amount of money. “It’s very sad!” - says  Bombo. “You have friends; you think they are ok. One day they start showing up with money, but they walk weird: that’s how you know they have sold their asses to the white man, and their soul with it.” Love is out of the question for Ugandan homosexuals. If they lay with men, it is because their lives have lost track, because they cannot control deviant thoughts or because they have yielded their bodies to the money of the white man.

                The drumbeat goes faster. Let Ugandans decide for their countries and don’t give us that human rights crap” the men in the crowd seem very comfortable accepting that their government plans to punish homosexuality with death. “Let them do what they want when no one sees them, but do not allow them to come on the public.” The man who is giving me the speech seems infuriated. “If the government passes the law, then they will stay hidden. If they don’t have a law controlling them and are allowed to show their horrible behavior on the streets, we’ll have to come and put them to death so that they stop threatening our people.” How sad, I think, the Ugandan drums are instruments of joy for the straight people and war drums for the homosexual.

                Just like the charm of a good, spicy alcohol, I’ve allowed myself to become inebriated of the bum bum bam bam of the Ugandan drum. Bum bum, and the sound of zebras. Bum bum, and the screams of a lynched black brother with some make up and glitter under his teary eyes. Bum bum bum, and then I’m drunk with Uganda. Bum bum bum bum bam. I woke up covered in my own drool and thinking that’s some alcohol I never want to have again; that’s an instrument that sounds similar to noise right now.

Extravagant

Extravagant

from the ongoing project "Pride Disguised as Shame: Queer Stories of the Western World"

Yesterday, I looked in the mirror, and I saw myself as a drag queen. I was standing tall and proud, admiring my fine jaw line and how it combined with my strong cheekbones. My eyes, heavy with black eyeliner smiled, as if they had life on their own, and I had the femininity of Catherine Z Jones trapped in a torso of wide shoulders and  long and strong neck muscles. I was as good as a model, just taller, a little more built: more fabulous! There I stood, queer and extravagant. I turned around and the reflection of my whole body shined in the mirror. I put my hands in my waist and leaned over to wink to my own reflection. My legs, shaved: What a wonderful length to be covered in sequins and feathers and improved with sparkly shoes!  All of the sudden, I saw myself with the posture and the dress of the Spanish “Maja,” tapping firmly with the shiny red high-heel shoes. My dress was red, like the color of passion, of sin, and lipstick. I could feel the fiery taffeta wrapping my best curves with zeal, and I feel the embroidery at the end of the skirt like a divine aura.  I allowed my imagination to keep on beautifying my inner queen, and then before I knew, this woman in the mirror was not only dancing for herself but   moving, flowing under a spotlight in the middle of a stage.

People praised her – praised me! What a show I was putting. First, I could tap my feet gracefully and harmoniously with the music of guitars. After a transformation, I had curly and abundant blonde hair, and I could lip-synch perfectly to the sound of Cher and Kylie.  My performance put to shame the regent drag queen in the back of the bar. She grabs the microphone and mocks my leather leggings in return for her humiliation. She calls me a cheap slut. I grab the microphone and reply that I wish I knew the brand of the strap she uses to hide her penis since I’ll try to avoid it at all costs. “And guuuurl, I hope the bar has a regent psychologist because what a trauma we all have from seeing that thing sticking out. Ew.”  I’ve burned her deeply since the audience is uniformly mocking the slight protuberance she shows in her groin. I’ve won. The night and the crowd are mine. I am a queen and I have become extravagant. 

The daydream takes me to an unwanted place. It takes me behind curtains, once the show is over. I am getting rid of the wigs and the makeup, just that nothing really comes out. I had to stay as a woman. I do not really care, and I take all the glam of the scene into the streets. I notice people giving me dirty looks. I’m not deaf, and I can hear the slur on the streets. Oh, lucky me! The sound of the high heels pounding the floor with a regal rhythm makes the music of the march of an empress. Commoner’s opinion are to be dismissed; oh honey! They wish their woman walked like this, with the stride of a Victoria’s Secret Model and the swagger of a siren.

When the time comes to go back to the scene, I see how many people greet me with a smile, but butcher me with their eyes once they think I’ve stopped looking. Some others show their contempt for my shape right on my face, which I at least appreciate. “Bitch, you wish you were this fabulous.” I know these things happen. You would expect the scene to be all rainbows and smiles, but here I’ve been hurt even stronger than outside. Some gay guys like us when we make really mean jokes. Some others only approach when we show up with free shots or when I’m on the stage giving free dinners in a fancy restaurant to whoever loses the most clothes – it should concern the sponsors, not me. It’s yet another shift as a courtesan in straps and glitter, as the one who lights up the carnival at the cost of a bit of her own spirit every time.

This woman comes to a life of her own, and I am just witness of her doings.  After every show, she doesn’t loose her wig or remove her make up. She’s gone home now and she’s got someone waiting for him. She opens the door for a man shorter than she is. She allows him to get out of her life during daylight, while she goes back to be a male but only in the outside, as she looks herself in the mirror as woman most of the times. And she dreams of love, she dreams of her lover in pictures bright with sunlight and the invisible aura of happiness in them. She dreams of something she does not want to pursue, however. She dreams of waking up with him every day but in reality, she dismisses him every night just with a wave under the light rain that gives golden sparkles to a tingly road in a pale blue alley. She belongs to the stage. She belongs to the scene. She belongs to her newly found womanhood which allows her to be the queen of the night: the most extravagant.

She has made up memories to cover the bullying and the scorn of the first years of life. She remembers a school girl in its tiny flowing dress and high socks wanting to prance around instead of walking, the waist reduced some sizes and the hands gesticulating and spreading fairy dust. And the street was inclined and the girl grew up to become as regal as Beyonce, wearing a very tight sleeved golden dress; and I am, again, her, running down the runway.  This woman I see is extravagant, and it is me, and it lives not on the spotlight but in the cage I have built for her.

Now, again, it is me, stoned in front of the mirror, playing with some eyeliner some female guest might have left behind.

-What a bunch of crap! – I protest.

I removed quickly the eyeliner. Without looking again at the mirror, I got out of my restroom and rejoined my friends in the living room. We picked up the conversation where we left it: guy’s stuff.