Out of the Closet

22 July 2007- Speaking about coming out of the closet, this is not an easy stage for an African gay man to come out. It’s a stage when you have to choose either to be outcast by your family, the community and the society, or be able to pretend all your life so as to keep your family close by.

There’s a lot that one has to deal with in Africa before coming out of the shell, mostly when you come out, more African men face worst nightmares of their lives. Basing on Africaveil's survey done recently, African gay men that come out of the closet, mostly come out to their grand mums and closest friends and lastly mothers.

In most African countries it rarely happens that most men that come out would be let free by their families, this is when the family forces them to commit to church so as to wash away the dreadful sins of homosexuality, or a witch doctor would be brought in to cleans you. These elders know that well that it’s a sin for a man and a man or a woman and a woman to have same-sex feelings towards each other.

Talking about church and homosexuality, we all know this is an issue that will never be accepted in Africa. It could also be the same in the western countries but I guess the level of persecution comparing to African is less. Now Inside the church there are elders that gather round from church who are called upon to come and pray for you this is only when one of your parents has raised the concerned, usually it’s the mums that do that that’s if they know and they by all means try not to let the father know about it.

There are a lot of tradition issues that would be raised if the father discovers that their son is homosexual or their daughter is a lesbian, one of the first issues will be blaming the mother that she never accepted to do few things either during her pregnancies or she could not obey some traditional law, now this might sound crazy to you all readers but when it comes to African traditional laws you will be surprised what’s accepted and not.

At this stage the family will try by all means to make sure that you change, please note that only a few parents these days accept their sons as homosexuals or daughters as lesbians, one of the reasons is most mother end up raising the children by themselves without their fathers.

When they realise that the church has failed, they bring in a witch-doctor, this is when you have to pay to the witch-doctor to cleanse his body, but we all know that eventually you will still be what you are. All this is done so as to show the family and the community that it is the sickness that would not be accepted, so by doing that they can deal with it in other ways they refer to it as a phase that you have to grow out of.

But we all understand why more of African gay men prefer more to be in the closet. In most cases, this is when they prefer to stay in the closet because you may face disownment from the family and being out caste, which most of us won’t go through.

Its not just African gay men that’s will have difficulties in coming out, it’s the same everywhere else, but the difference in Africa is that, it takes many years for some African parents, families and communities to accept other people’s sexuality.

What makes it even worse is the thought of two men trying to indulge in a sexual activity that will raise an alarm within the community, its sickening, madness, dirtiness etc. Like Robert Mugabe said that’s we are worse than dogs, those remarks will never be accepted but at the same time he has gained support from other African leaders that will not speak out but rather send out forces to make arrests of homosexuals.

Coming out of the closet is the most feared stage for an African gay man, it affects you in everything, family, Identity, dignity and career. For most African gay men you have to have 7^th thoughts to think about coming out. South Africa has attracted many African gay men all over Africa.

It’s a great pathway to freedom of expression regarding homosexuality, although the law out there is trying to close of that section due to others taking advantage of the reasons. But not everyone is making it on, its like you have to live a different life, name and country just to make sure that your family has no clue of who you are, what you do, so you literary become your own captivity.

So coming out of the closet is not as easy as speaking about it. There are other African gay men that spoke out freely, some are in relationships whose partners are mostly from western countries and are out. Some other African men come out to their families and have been rejected completely and some have been accepted so it also depends how your family will look at it.

But let’s not forget that being out and knowing that your outness is well accepted is such a nice feeling because you feel you have a life to refer to as normal. We all live a normal life but in our closetness we know that’s it would never be normal for those that discriminate against us.

Report by ndanji.

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