I was casually walking from the headmaster’s office. It was just our first break and as usual, I headed for the administrative block of our school. Most of my time was spent at that block anyway, especially if my friend Chanel was absent from school that day. As I made my way down the hallway, I saw Mrs Flatwell-Rogers approaching. Mrs Flatwell-Rogers was always a fascinating teacher to me. She always had witty remarks, her mastery of the English language was unparalleled (I am biased, I loved language teachers the most. They just seemed to get people, you know) and she always had a certain presence about her. As we neared each other, she turned to me and pulled me to the side. She slightly leaned forward and gently but pointedly asked ‘What are you hiding?” I looked at her perplexed. “Hiding? What do you mean Mrs Rogers?” I asked. She leaned back. “Yes, what are you hiding. Usually, people who consistently wear hoodies like that, covering their face, have something to hide.” I smiled and said I am hiding nothing. Smiling we walked off in opposite directions. This was more than seven years ago and for the first time, I am recounting this memory publicly.
Apart from wearing a hoodie to school under my school uniform, I was certainly not hiding anything. Or at least that’s what I thought when I went to bed that night. I suspect Mrs Rogers is right in most instances, and she was right that day. I was hiding. I was around sixteen years of age and have known for a long time that I am gay and Queer. The hoodie hid my peripheral vision, and I could just tunnel through the hallway, hasting past bullying remarks and ignoring the stares. Although I was the top student in high school and the chairperson of the Representative Council of Learners. None of that protected me from the violent little schoolboys and girls who only saw a moffie (an Afrikaans word which could equivalently be faggot), a freak, an ashy boy that wanted to be a girl. But also, the hoodie, being available in different colours and having such a pleasing cotton-like feel to it was in many instances my hair. In the wind it blew, it covered parts of my face like long hair (ideas of beauty, femininity and hair were still massively influenced by Western standards, I know now better). The hoodie both hid parts of me but it also prophesied of this deep need in me to express who I truly was.
LGBTI+ History Month in the UK
It is no surprise to me then that the United Kingdom’s first celebration of LGBTI+ History month was organised by teachers and activists. From discussions with my friends, I have realised that teachers were many of our first role models. They literally shaped our world with their words, questions, literature and guidance. Schools are also one of the primary sites of socialisation. It is the space where we learn how to be gendered. Racialised. It is where we see the class inequality between my school-sponsored peanut butter sandwich, a friend’s shy quip that they forgot their lunch (when I knew they did not have any) and someone else’s McDonalds Happy Meal. When in 2005 the educators and activists Sue Sanders and Paul Patrick organised LGBTI+ History Month as part of the Schools Out UK Project. Their goal was to make classrooms, schools and communities safer for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex human beings. Today the celebrations have evolved into many aspects and permeate into different corners of society. It has indeed become a celebration of LGBTI+ History. There has been progress.
Which History?
I am no longer wearing the hoodie. I do not like hats and head-adornments (I think I might like crowns if it is accompanied by wealth too). Similarly, the qualms of the previous decade are not necessarily that of contemporary. History is exactly that, but it also permeates. Shaping the relations, we have with ourselves, others and the institutions in the world. Celebrating history also means acknowledging the silences, violence and the agents who so strategically silence and violates. As an African who is queer (enjoying the perceived safety of the UK while completing my PhD), I find that the British public often struggles with having conversations about colonialism. Even its parliament is intent on silencing any education or critiques of colonialism, critical race theory and now I hear they want to protect freedom of speech. However, the matrix of colonialism with its Christian infused values changed gender and sexual relations during colonialism. Much of the rhetoric that same-sex attraction and diverse gender identities are un-African, stems from this reconfiguration and have violent consequences. People pay with their lives, their dignity and their futures. However, colonialism also imposed violence on its own subjects, of which we are still feeling the effects. Coincidentally when LGBTI+ history month was started in February 2005 it followed the 2003 abolition of Section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act which prohibited “intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality “. Further illustrating the ways in which “anti-sodomy laws” and Victorian gender norms are still institutionalised and have the power to shape our realities.
In South Africa, my home country, ideas of sexology (and eugenics) which enjoyed the space it occupied in British mind and institutions, informed how homosexuality and transgender persons were policed in South Africa during apartheid. No one is really safe from colonialism’s reconfiguration of sexuality and gender. Now, presidents of African countries go on live television and call homosexuality un-African. This myth often co-opted by those in power denies the is clear evidence that sexuality and gender were way more complex and diverse pre-colonially. We know about mudoko dako of the Langi communities in northern Uganda and the inkotshane (male-wife) of the Shangaan peoples in Southern Africa. Our own African Traditional Religions and cultures are witnesses to the complexity of sexuality and gender throughout history. It is not only presidents of African countries, but the peoples too. Our families believe it which is why families are often the first ones to enact violence on their children be it by kicking them out or tormenting them inside their own homes. This continual silencing often edges us towards beautiful communities.
Silencing
In our quest for creating communities and safer spaces to exist, to live, we have managed to replicate power dynamics that alienate some of the most violated and vulnerable members of our community. Gayness takes up space and suffocates. During the Stonewall Riots, it was a black transgender woman Marsha P. Johnson, who started the protests. In Cape Town, the Pride Parade became synonymous with gay identity, white gay identity. And gayness flattened queer and silences LBTI+. The Independent says LGBTI+ History month wants to teach the youth about the ‘gay rights movement’. Transgender persons are more likely to feel unsafe and have a lower quality of life. Addressing the challenges, the world poses to trans kids and adults cannot be done through a gay-centric regime of political activism. Not everyone is gay. The community is comprised of multiple identities who all have different access to power, safety and dignity and resources. Too many gay men are transphobic. Too many gay men are violent toward lesbian women. Some gay men still think bisexual persons are confused. While other gay men believe their gayness absolves them from the power of patriarchy. We cannot build a community on power relations we happily reproduce. Power of which we often felt the life-causing implications for the very people we are claiming to be in community with. The gay rights movement is invaluable and has brought us many victories. We will build on it and continue the work to question and advocate, in and outside of our Queer community.
If we are going to celebrate together, as a community, we need to have difficult conversations too. Colonialism and the Silences we perpetrate are but a few of these conversations. If we fight against things that deny us dignity and the right to Be, we will have to be honest about issues of power. And then there needs to be action. Always action, just like the many movements that have not made it onto celebrated lists. If there is one thing that I know is that queer persons across the globe have an uncanny ability to find light and strength and power, so indeed we will celebrate a history that illustrates power, resilience and joy. We will celebrate progress made in the safety, and the recognition of our Being. We know what it means to hold complexity within us. So, Happy LGBTI+ History Month.
the depositaries 