Growing up in a homophobic era where everyone questions my identity; being called ugly names and being referred to as a tom boy! I want to live a life where I am understood but I hide. Society only honors boys and girls. Homosexuals, lesbians, transgenders, intersexuals and bisexuals are evil! My faith declares it straight away! No man is to have sexual relations with another man. God hates that; Leviticus 18:22. The discrimination and hate started right away from home. From my parents to my siblings, it sparked out to my peers at school and my teachers too. The trouble of identifying as a homosexual and worse still a transgender pains. I have lived a life of hate; a life where society imagines my sexual orientation is too hard a sin for the world to accommodate. I want to smile but I hesitate. I want to realize my full potential but my sexuality deters me. The homophobes make it look like sexuality is the only aspect of humanity. Their God hates me. My parents disowned me. My siblings embarrass me. My peers tease me, and society wants me dead. That kind of life has defined my life as a Ugandan LGBTI! “Write your network, your sponsors and how you get your funding”, the police investigates. They associate homosexuality to foreign aid.

It does not end there; for coming out is a process. Living a life where I want to express myself by my identity but I fear to take the risk! I mimic myself in the trends of the world; marry a wrong “partner” for the sake of pleasing my community while I die in pain eternally. Having survived the rape for cure, church sessions of repentance, and of course hard labor punishments meant to let me learn to be “normal”. I finally met Him. However hard life goes, it is impossible to change who l am. Even when I wished, prayed and fasted for my identity to change, it still kept with me like a nick name. Succumbing to positive living amidst the homophobic home is like a web less toad in the water. But finally I got there; I meet my creator!

There is no better verb, adjective or conjunctive that I can use to construct a sentence that deeply describes the appreciation I feel for the Bombastic Magazine. Knowing someone out there shares a story with me dignified me. Seeing my pain written about like I told it myself was breathtaking. Knowing someone out there suffers my “disease” healed me. I finally met God. I have heard that God has unending love for his children and yes I have seen it through the magazine his children wrote. I know there is no family better than the family that unites to be hated.

I have read the writings of Dr. Stella Nyanzi, I have heard her articles speak with a soothing voice to me, and I have felt her hand caress my wounds with a healing touch. I have learnt that, heterosexuals can love us; they only love to hate us. Honestly such a woman of great integrity to withstand the insults, abuse and embarrassment she has had but stand with the Ugandan LGBT community; who other God do we need to seek? Dr. Tamale Sylvia stood against all odds to extensively carry out research and document the “Out of the Closet: Unveiling Sexuality Discourses in Uganda, 2003”, a supportive, educative and well informed paper about African homosexuality. Her presentation on the 18th Nov 2009, at Makerere University during the public dialogue about the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was thrilling! With such a character that understands me to the peak of my beauty, believes in me to the strength of my forearm, stands for me during the Cold War. Which other God do I need to seek then? After all, she is created in God’s image!

The team of lawyers; Prof. Ogenga Latigo, Andrew Mwenda, Nicholas Opio, to mention but a few whose efforts led to the nullification of the Anti-Gay Bill; at a point when the evil church is preaching against is me, the culture is repelling me, family disowning me and politics playing their dirty game on me. Who would I want to call my God other than these guys? Correct me if am wrong! If is true God lives among us, then these are the guys who live among us as God. I am proudly Catholic and not an atheist. I see God in these people! I am proud of the founding members of the outstanding organizations that have shielded the gay community from the ultraviolet light. It took them courage, enthusiasm, commitment and sacrifice to fight for a cause whose end is hard to define! You have stood arrests, death threats and all sorts of harassment; just to see the LGBTI community exist! Much as the fundamentality of religions has taught us to seek belief and have faith in the unseen God, it is important we take a step to appreciate the selfless; the Jesus hearted people that exist among us. The outstanding members of the community whose efforts, air, they breathe is dedicated and driven to the success of the LGBTI community. Congratulations upon winning your favor from God; “you dressed me while I was naked, cared for me while sick and saw me while in prison!” By associating with the sinners you are portraying your level of Godliness. The men and women of God who by nature of their calling are called Holy names; pastors, priests, the clergy who have preached love for the marginalized, your efforts shall retire you to paradise! The outstanding funding organizations whose resources have fueled the works of the LGBTI, thank you for singing our anthem along with us!

The measure of humanity is not about whom I share a bed with or who my heart loves. It’s about my level of being just. It’s about my level of understanding circumstances with patience, and behaving wisely and living diligently. If my sleeping with my fellow female doesn’t offend you in any way, if it hasn’t stopped God from performing his usual role of blessing the world, why does society feel so intolerant to bear me? Why do the homophobes use God in judging the homosexuals as if they have met Him before, as if homosexuality is the only sin that caused the existence of hell! As a teacher in a University? My lectures to the medical students haven’t in any way harmed or mislead the doctors to be because they are from a lesbian!

My mentor is one of the brightest women, very active researchers my University has, yet she loves her fellow women! Her sexuality hasn’t in any way affected her service delivery and her mentorship to me. I see not in any way how homosexuality hinders or interferes with any one’s life! Whether God blesses it or curses it, whether society condemns or condones it, it doesn’t make sense for one to feel so religious (holier than the Pope) and so culture loving ( more than the Kabaka) to paint hate on their faces; as if the definition of love is hard to cram! For as long as I find some who interprets my ability, helps me realize my full potential, but spares not to know what happens in between my bed sheets, such persons qualify to be my God, besides everyone has their own God.

I was created with the beauty of not just my appearance; but my heart too! A couple of people have admired my honesty, my hard work, my faithfulness and my being considerate. Many men have wished they had a child with a woman as beautiful as Marisa. Many parents have wished they had children as intelligent as I am! This beauty I carry on my DNA, I wish to transmit it to the next generation. Who knows, through the work of natural selection, one of my offsprings could make a gay saint. The beauty in this is that I already found a co-creator who finds the definition of beauty in me. My darling wife to be is willing to spare nine months of her busy schedule to nourish a baby with her antibodies simply because that baby shall carry half of its DNA whose origin is Marisa. Her and I, plus our gay friend whose other half of DNA we shall receive are very committed to this noble cause of responsible living; passing on our genes for the continuity of life, continuity of the mighty work of God; “go co create and fill the world!” Of what harm have we caused to society then for being gay apart from creating a child who has three parents? If I don’t want to call my fiancé my God then I should reserve that title for my doctor whose brains we shall lean on to see our baby come to join us on earth.

God loves us all, I am told. But even the most useless pieces of fools our societies have care to feel homosexuality is unnatural! Every Tom, Dick and Harry wants to split their lips open as they spit bitterly at the homosexuals. You would want to imagine they have just passed the test for entering heaven. I can’t fight because i am still under the closet but my words are loudest and clear, I know they throw the signal. Human rights for every one everywhere! It is from the inspiration of those that God has called that I hope for the future!