Blogging in Shadows

Hurt

If half of me gets stabbed, all of me feels the pain.

I don’t often read the papers, because I end up getting very depressed, very quickly. However I did hear about the Ugandan queer rights activist found dead on 27th January 2011, and also about a lesbian threatened with deportation from the U.K to Uganda. When I opened the Guardian newspaper, I was shocked to see the photo above. I’ve heard plenty of people, both gay and straight talk about how bisexuals are sick, sad and evil, but it’s not often I’ll see the words in print. With such a powerful and unpleasant photo I was struck at how many myths were being enforced. Plus the woman above really hates bis. I mean she’s even hyphenated and shortened it just to be extra spiteful!

There are strong myth of all black people hating queers, and if, god forbid, we are actually queer ourselves, then we must be copying white folks. There are other stereotypes and lies: bisexual people don’t face the same stigma as gays and lesbians, which would be laughable if not for the little voice in my head that says, ‘if something bad happens because of my sexuality, just say homophobic, not biphobic, because no one will understand you.’ And then there’s the myth that says, If I act straight then nothing will happen. Well, could I look away if someone else were being hurt or threatened because of their sexuality? No, I could not. And in Uganda straight people don’t escape either, as failure to report a known queer person to the authorities can bring you the same grief as what will happen to them.

Things like this doesn’t just happen in Uganda. Black LGBT people are both highly visible (to bigoted straights) and invisible (to bigoted queers). I cannot and do not want to hide or look the other way. Even if I feel hurt so much of the time.