Monthly Archives: July 2018

Johan, Copenhagen, Denmark

photo by Kevin Truong

Johan, in his own words:“Ultimately I think ‘being gay’ should only come down to sexual preference, but as we all know, things are not that simple. Referring to intersectionality, to me being gay means dealing with discrimination, norms and prejudice – just like other categories: gender, race, social class, ethnicity, nationality, religion, age, mental disability, physical disability, mental illness, and physical illness and so on. Resting on this topic I believe everyone, to various degrees, suffers from a marginalized identity and I wish that people would think more holistically when discussing feminist/queer etc topics – When you speak for an isolated group of people it will very likely have an impact on other groups or movements.

In my case I’ve been, and still am,unavoidably influenced by internalized homophobia but it was more present when I was younger – I felt more constrained as a person and more prone to adhere to whatever heterosexual norms and rituals I encountered in my everyday life. Since then I’ve been trying to be aware of whatever broader contexts and social hierarchies I’m being influenced by and try not to let them have too much of an impact on my personal identity as I don’t want to be a victim or less of a human.

Having this said, being gay definitely doesn’t define me as there are many other implications to an identity, but I do think that it has an influence on my life, even on a practical level when it comes to questions like how and where do I meet potential partners? how is it to be a part of a community that I only share a few common traits with? how and should I establish a family? To whom and when do I come out of the closet? (continuously!) and much more. The path is not as straight for me in comparison to people living the IKEA life. Sometimes I see this as a blessing and sometimes it scares me.

I also like to think and hope that being a gay man means that I’m more capable to sympathize with other minorities and able to break free from general conformity, but again, being gay is just one out of many variables. I often wish that sexuality and gender were more deconstructed in today’s society but just like people have tendencies to discriminate they also seek similarity and I think that many gay people find comfort and a sense of belonging in gay subcultures so I’m a bit torn about this. Regardless, no-one deserves loneliness.

On the topic about challenges/successes in my life I think I have been quite successful obtaining what I’ve been striving for. I have a great set of friends, a decent career and two good relationships while they lasted. The greatest challenge is myself, I’m always anxious of losing these things when I have them and I’m not always enjoying the ride.

I came out to my mum when I was 18. I think she was shocked, if not, very surprised. She took me to see a therapist and I’m not sure if it was to validate the fact or just help me deal with the topic. Since then she’s been great and she’s often curious as to what’s going on in my dating life. My dad knows but I’ve never had a proper conversation with him about it.
When I turned 28 my little sister came out as queer which is great, we have a lot in common and often go out clubbing together.

I’ve been very privileged having been born and raised in Scandinavia and I think that heterosexual norms (not to mention the law) are less intrusive here in comparison to many other places. A drawback of having established laws for gay marriage and gay adoption is that we’re currently lacking a clear agenda of how to improve lives for LGBTQA people. Statistics show high numbers of suicides, young people being bullied in school and and hate crimes towards LGBTQA people, especially trans-gender.

Overall I think the LBTQA scene in Copenhagen is friendly and open-minded. It’s also quite small and I think that people seem to be look out more for other people here and it’s less extreme in many ways in comparison to London where I lived a few years back. One thing that I miss though is that the scene could be more diverse. It’s very caucasian and it doesn’t have that queer club playing the Smiths and the alike.

Finally I just want to add that I’m happy to be a part of this project. It’s great to have a medium that highlights the vast differences of gay people and have each of them tell their personal stories. This is how we deconstruct stereotypes and promote something that other people (gay or non-gay) can identify and sympathize with. Media in general is, in my opinion, doing the opposite thing.”

Karanja, Nairobi, Kenya

photo by Kevin Truong

Karanja, in his own words: “To be gay is to live with valour. It brings with it a host of responsibilities because as a gay man I must help to rewrite a story penned over hundreds of years. Few living creatures are more misunderstood than members of the gay community and as a gay man it is my duty to shake up age old beliefs, world views, stereotypes and miseducation. More importantly, to be gay is to be who I was born into this world to be. It is not a learned identity and the day I accepted this wholly is when I truly begun to live; and boy have I lived. I almost did not want to be gay because my friends from the church talked me into believing life would be better with Jesus and a gay man cannot possibly have Jesus. This was one of the bleakest moments in my life. Not even death has brought me such misery. But now I know who I am and it is nothing I will ever keep secret because to do so is to allow the disgusting, bigoted social construct that is homophobia a victory. I must say though, I hope that one day my children will be able to live in a world where nobody needs to say whether they are gay or not, because it really does not matter.

I’ve met a myriad of challenges on this journey. None important enough to discuss. My greatest success is not being closeted, followed by the friendships and relationships I have built with people from across the globe, across all classes of the social spectrum, from across all races, religions and genders, from across all sexual orientations. With an exception of two stray individuals who are no longer a part of my life, there is not one person that I ever called friend or family that deserted me when I came out.

(My coming out) story is a bit of a legend among my loved ones. I had told two or three very close friends I was gay but when I was 17 mother and I had a ridiculous fight and she threw me out. As it turns out, when she was tossing my shit out the day of my forceful eviction, she found my stash of Gay Times, lube, condoms and some articles I had been writing on being a gay teen in Nairobi. Two weeks later I was summoned before her terrifying presence. She confronted me and asked if I was gay so I came out with it. In the two weeks that I was away, my ninja mum had gathered so much intelligence about where I hang out, with whom etcetera. I have never known how. Coming out was the best thing I have ever done. I become a man and I became independent and more confident than I ever was. Mum and I are now super buddies. She doesn’t directly approach the subject because it is not her thing really but I make sure she is well aware even when she slips and mentions girlfriends to me that I am her beloved GAY son.

Well (the gay community in Nairobi) is gloriously gay, I’ll tell you that much. We have a whole bunch of cross-dressing gays, we have butch gays, professional gays, rural gays, expatriate gays, professional gays, blackmailing gays, thieving gays….the whole ten yards. It is growing rapidly and it is vibrant and getting bolder. I much prefer to stay away from all of it though. Quite a lot of man stealing, backstabbing, hearsay, character assassination and mudslinging. It’s like an animal pen.

(Advice, I’d give my younger self) SLOW THE BLOODY HELL DOWN.”