To celebrate the 2016 Transgender Day of Remembrance, we share what was our lead story for the second edition of Bombastic Magazine. The piece shared by the courageous and beautiful Cleo Kambugu, explores her journey of discovery and transition.
Every life matters and Cleo, by standing against the odds continues to use her story to encourage and inspire many transpersons across the globe. We remember those who have lost their lives to violence, transphobia and hate.
This brief article seeks to survey the understanding of the sin of Sodom in the Bible. The name Sodom, which occurs for the first time in Genesis 10:19, occurs 48 times throughout the Bible, the bulk of the usage is within the Old Testament and nine verses in the New Testament makes reference to Sodom.
One way, that we have found useful in addressing the dangers of abusing the Bible in communities is through the Contextual Bible Study (CBS) in communities. The CBS is structured in such a way that it tackles head on the issues of justice, injustice, inclusion, exclusion and transformation of persons and communities.
In the period of my questioning, I don’t know the exact moment it happened but during my first term of Senior six when I came back to school after the long holiday, two weeks into that term I remember some loud classmate pointing me out as a lesbian, when I asked why, she answered “don’t you see your clothes, the ill fitting pants, the haircuts you wear,” she retorted.
When I live my life why do you have to have sudden control? I’m still the same me But once my sexuality is out you back stab me Am I really no good?
Am I good to belong in the trash with the verbal by pass? Do I even belong? They say we are but we must follow one law
As a lesbian, my mind first run to how many women I had undressed, whose vaginas I had leaked causing them to sing melodies of excitement and how many times I had been less careful not to contract HIV. Have I been keen enough not to have the live and bare engagement that predisposes me to HIV infection?
My dream is a society where all people are merely people without boxes, I dream of a conversation that goes “Hi my name is so and so, lets socialize,” without questions like are you gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, Ugandan, Christian or Muslim; these boxes exist to further separate us.
I did not speak to my parents for about six months after that call. Until one day one of my sisters phoned and said that dad had been to the doctor and there were concerns about his health. I quit my job within the week and was headed home. My sister had made that up in an attempt to get us to talk. I spent some of the worst five weeks at home then. But it did start a conversation. My parents denied ever saying that they would kick me out if I was gay.
Most historians agree that there is evidence of homosexual activity and same-sex love, whether such relationships were accepted or persecuted, in every documented culture. Doctors Sigmund Freud and Magnus Hirschfield’s writings were sympathetic to the concept of a homosexual or bisexual orientation occurring naturally in an identifiable segment of humankind, and Freud himself did not consider homosexuality an illness or a crime.
Societal attitudes towards same-sex relationships have varied over time and place, from expecting all males to engage in same-sex relationships, to seeing the practice as a minor sin, repressing it through law enforcement and judicial mechanisms, and to proscribing it under penalty of death.