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Siyayinqoba Beat It! 2004 Episode 18 –
Male to Male Sex & HIV
Have men who have sex with men been ignored in our response to HIV in Africa? Statistics say that the majority of people infected with HIV they are heterosexuals. Twenty one years ago when HIV was discovered it was mainly a homosexual disease. Has the experience of gay men in particular been almost forgotten because of these facts? This episode of Siyayinqoba Beat It! set out to find out.
Jason Wessenaar: Kgotsong, re a le amohela mona mo Siyayinqoba Beat It! Support Group. {SeSotho} [Hi, welcome to the Siyayinqoba Beat It! Support Group.] My name is Jason each week I get together with other people who are living with HIV and AIDS to discuss issues that affects our lives from discloser to our partners, sex and sexuality and support. ISiyayinqoba yihlelo lakho lokhu phila kancono ne HIV. Uma uphila negciwane le HIV. {IsiXhosa} [Siyayinqoba is your guide to better living with HIV. If you are living with the virus] or you have a partner a family member friend who is HIV positive Siyayinqoba is for you. This week we ask ourselves and you at home these questions: “Have men who have sex with men been ignored in our response to HIV in Africa?” Statistics say that the majority of people infected with HIV they are heterosexuals. Twenty one years ago when HIV was discovered it was mainly a homosexual disease. Has the experience of gay men in particular been almost forgotten because of these facts? To help us discuss these issues, we are joined by Vasu Reddy a lecturer in Gender Studies in the University of KwaZulu Natal and a founder member of the Durban Gay and Lesbian Centre. First we visit Ishmail and his boyfriend Cyprian in Yeoville Johannesburg. Let’s take a look.
Finding Love and Support
Ishmail Mduduzi Ngozo Mclean (Behind the Mask): My name is Ishmail Mduduzi Ngozo Mclean and this is my little work, the little www.com world where I work and it’s a journalism activities LGBT-based organisation which is called Behind the Mask. The organisation has been existing for about two years now. The website focuses on gay and lesbian issues in Africa worldwide. I lived with my uncle, I think for about, I tried for three weeks. That was more than enough for me. The lifestyle it was very difficult, from being from Swaziland, being in the rural areas, coming to live straight in the welfare, from welfare going to live in Johannesburg townships. Things were too hectic, ’cause the people didn’t know me there, I was new in the field, so-called industry, and I got gang raped. It was my first time going out in the shebeen, hang out, street bash, it’s called a street bash. I got gang raped in the street bash. I got my results that I was HIV positive, and I didn’t know what to do. It’s difficult also not knowing when did I get it. Who did I get it from? Did I contract it when I got gang raped? Things get much better when I met other people at the Equality Project, that’s where they started giving me some counselling. I met other gay people. We’re at the Behind the Mask offices where we meet regularly every second week for Mpume’s Friends, planning an organisation to be.
Peter Busse: Mpume was a very talented gay filmmaker, a very young man with a lot of potential, and he died at the end of last year. And the whole experience of him becoming ill and dying was that there was nowhere to go, there was no support, there was no sort of structure around. The Friends of Mpume are basically just a group of people who either knew Mpume or who are interested in the issue of providing a hospice and also information to the lesbian and gay community on HIV and AIDS issues.
Nunu Sigasa: There’s a lesbian woman with HIV again also a chairperson of Mpumi’s Friends. I think it will be a much opportunity for everybody, you know, to be a part of this, to know about their status. Actually it will limit again the fear of death, the fear of stigma, of discrimination and homophobia.
Ishmail Mduduzi Ngozo Mclean: I knew that I’m positive and I knew that now I’ve gotta start living a healthy lifestyle and whatever. And he went for his test and he was negative.
Cyprian Thabata: The day I met Ishmail, it was Friday I still remember. I went out to Skyline, it’s the gay club. I saw this boy, Ishmail of course. I just had the feeling about him. You have to be very careful when it comes to sex, because there are some risks.
Ishmail Mduduzi Ngozo Mclean: We do love sex, and the part of us, we make the good, good, good sex. It’s very beautiful, but we’re gonna make it more beautiful by being safe, you know, you’re either with a girl of a woman, or a woman, a girl, protect yourself.
Cyprian Thabata: And you have to make sure you’re safe, because if you don’t make sure of that, no-one will make sure for you.
Support group
Jason Wessenaar: Ishmail and Cyprian have had to go through the same things that people who are straight go through: where one partner is positive, another is negative. Do we think that enough attention is paid towards men who have sex with men in terms of prevention programmes?
Busisiwe Maqungo: Okhokuqala andizo understander ukuba why izaba different i-attention kubantu aba-straight naba gay because i-HIV yi HIV okusalayo. Noba is straight or gay people but okusalayo I HIV iyohlala iyi HIV inezi effect ezifanayo. {IsiXhosa} [First, I don’t understand why there should be a difference in the attention given to straight people and gay people, because HIV is HIV. It doesn’t matter if it’s straight or gay people, HIV is HIV. The effect is the same.]
Lihle Dlamini: Culture for instance or society or your community may force you to stay in the closet and not come out with your sexually orientation and I think people should not be judged according to their sexually orientation because we are all human beings, we all have equally rights or we should have equally rights any way so but it should not happen like that be it you are HIV positive, be it you a gay, be it you are lesbian whatever we should all have equally rights.
Vuyani Jacobs: But actually the mere sense that HIV has been very much been communicated to be a gay diseases for many, many, many months because I mean when I tested it was quite very early, I tested around about 1992 and I mean for me it was a shock Freddy Mercury was dying of AIDS and he was openly gay and I only knew him as a person who was dying of AIDS and the first support group I encountered was a support group of white gay men. And I was like, oh jirre, [Christ,] I might be gay I had sex with a man somewhere maybe in my sleep, maybe in my drunkenness or maybe in the party somewhere you see agter die boom [behind the tree], no but I never had it but then I had HIV. When ever I speak with men nowadays wherever we talk I always put this kind of talk a things and say I’m gay, they would like get a big shock because I’m trying to figure out, you see that, that whole fear saying we are gay or not, I know I’m heterosexually but I want to enhance the situation I want to have gay men feel comfortable in society so that they can able to practice safe sex, so their rights can be protected, so they can feel comfortable to walk tall in the township elsewhere, anywhere.
Vasu Reddy: I mean as we say when the virus was identified was know as the gay diseases, the gay plague, the gay cancer right and as I say the perception still exists today many people still say you know AIDS is a homosexually diseases but we do know in terms of the present situation current context and you know that the disease is largely represented at the heterosexually sexually population. And to some extent in terms of prevention programmes have ignored the gay community and we are saying as gay and lesbian community that while it was strategic and important and politically necessary for us to de-gay the diseases in terms of when that perception happened in term of the gay plague, they gay cancer you know when it was identified it is also important and politically necessary now to re-gay the diseases and what do I mean by that, that precisely what you are saying, what is been done within the gay and lesbian community and also where the community of men have sex with men to address the epidemic and so when you re-gay what you are actually asking for is not stigmatization but you are actually asking to address the unique problems that gay and lesbian people experience especially those who are infected by the virus and when you do that you naturally have to deal with issues around silences in the community, issues around discloser, issues around oppression, issues around people being kick out of their homes from their churches not simple because they are gay but because they are also HIV positive. And I think those sort of stereotypes and you know misperceptions do exist and that is why is necessary but more than that and I think is also crucial that the gay and lesbian community educates its community.
Jason Wessenaar: We will talk more about gay men and HIV emva {IsiZulu} [after] the break.
Jason Wessenaar: Mmuhi re a le amohela hape mona ho Siyayinqoba Beat It! Support Group, {SeSotho} [Welcome back to the Siyayinqoba Beat It! Support Group,] the programme for everyone affected and infected with HIV. We are back with Ishmail. The Siyayinqoba team attended a conference which focuses on gay men and HIV in Africa.
Gays & Lesbians across the continent
Amadou Moreau: My name is Amadou Moreau. I’m from West Africa, from Senegal. I’m here in Johannesburg because I’m invited to attend the All Africa Symposium on HIV/AIDS. We have to discuss during the week-long conference here about HIV issues, and all about LGBT. The problem of lesbian and gay in Africa is a difficult problem, a serious problem in the era of HIV and AIDS, findings about prevention about behavior MSM (Men who have Sex with Men) in general in Senegal, sexual practices and all about social stigma, denial, ill discrimination at least criminalisation if I can say because the phenomenon of homosexuality is not accepted in our context. It is a difficult problem, a serious problem.
Peter Joaneti: My name is Peter Joaneti, I’m from Zimbabwe. Actually I’m from Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe which is for gays and lesbians in Zimbabwe. Brothers, sisters, friends in my community, they all know that I’m gay. And they are very supportive. I’m also HIV positive for the past eight years. HIV and AIDS when it comes to gays and lesbians it play an important role. I think in bisexuals or men who sleep on, MSM or men who sleep with men there is a higher percentage of transmission of HIV/AIDS. And with our society and our community and our culture, people tend to do things behind their backs, and people tend to cheat, because they are being forced by culture to marry, and that’s not what they want. And then they end up having two partners: a heterosexual and a gay.
Ian Swartz: My name is Ian Swartz, and I’m the Director of the Rainbow Project which is the national gay and lesbian organisation in Namibia. You find in Namibia two kinds of men who do not identity as gay, but who have sex with men. You find the man whose orientation is gay, who gets married because of pressure in the family. All of that is dependent on you being heterosexual and proving that you’re a man and adhering to what is called ‘African culture.’ This is where you find the spread of HIV across these boundaries that we’ve created. We felt that we had to do something, and so we can talk to people about HIV, about protecting themselves, about positive living.
Support group
Busisiwe Maqungo: I have a friend he is HIV positive his gay, he was not open before he met met me at Emfuleni because this was at Emfuleni but when we met I was was like to him, I mean it’s your life, you live your life for you not for me, not for him, so why would you spend your life like this, I mean life is too short to do this thing and he become a little open after that.
Anthony Fernandes: Busi, I think your friend sounds like a typical example of where I grew up in a small town like Worcester. You definitely know you’re gay, you’re out and about, you had an experience already with another boy or another man, and yet you feel like something is lacking: I don’t fit it, I’m different. So you go and marry, and you have a girl, and you have a house, and you have a job. And people don’t ask questions. And you still go and find the sex. Perhaps not every sinlge relationship is like that, it’s always the effeminate gay boys who flip their wrists and who dress like girls and, I don’t wanna describe a stereotyped thing, but people always think, those are the gays. Gay men come in all different shapes and sizes.
Lihle Dlamini: It also has to do with religion and with culture. You know, in the emalokishini [township] when you were young, you were told: “Vuyani, don’t cry idoda ayikhali [a man is not supposed to cry].” And all that stuff. And when you would go and wash dishes and play with dolls: “Are you isitabani [gay] or what? Are you a girl or what?” So, people are abakhulukile [not free] to come out with their sexuality, just because they are afraid of stigma and discrimination. It’s even worse if you are gay and HIV positive. You suffer double stigma and double discrimination also. And I think it’s very important that at a very young age, we must teach our children at a very young age ukuthi ene [that] they must learn to accept everyone. {IsiZulu}
John Vollenhoven: Does the churches and communities around you support people like you?
Vasu Reddy: The biggest problems that we have in society, especially with gay and lesbian people, is that they’ve felt excluded by the churches. Religion has actually contributing to repressing and also oppression gay and lesbian people emotionally.
Busisiwe Maqungo: I think this is very important because if for instance our children, leaders and ja, they get involved in things like these, like we get the support from them it is very important because for instance I think it was the same thing with HIV. If you are HIV positive you were not allowed to go near churches, and you were taken as though you were a whore or a slut or something. But they finally noticed that it happens to their children, it’s their children who die, so they needed to do something. And they came on board. Look for instance people like Nkulu Ntungane they come on board and they made a difference. Bishop Tutu is also joining hence in the fight against HIV and I think if they do the same thing they will finally release that gay they are also people and family members, they are also their children so they need to do something about it.
Jason Wessenaar: We will right back with Vasu Reddy, a lecturer in Gender Studies at the University of KwaZulu Natal ha re kgutla papatsong {SeSotho} [when we comeback from the break].
Jason Wessenaar: Welcome back to Siyayinqoba Beat It! We are talking about male to male sex and its impact on the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Busisiwe Maqungo: If umtana wakho uyakhula, ubonakhalisa ubufeminity so wena u trye to put engqondweni intoyokuba being gay is bad. Kanti kulam’ntwana ukuba uzoba gay uzoba gay cha ngenye imini uyathanda awu thandi uzaba gay xa afuna ukuba gay. And wena you need ukuba um’suppoter njengomzali wakhe. It is something enokuba difficult ukuba mawuyiyenze you need to do it. I come to I don’t want my child to be HIV positive. I’m already HIV positive; I want them to stay negative. So if ndi implya ukuba gay is something elantuka how am I going to communicate nabo nezinto ezindibane ne sex nobu gay okanye izinto ze sex from man to other man ndizayiyenza kanjani lento leyo. {IsiXhosa} [If your child starts showing femininity when they are growing up and you try to put in the child’s head that being gay is bad, if the child wants to be gay they will be gay, whether you like it or not. You need to support them as a parent. It’s difficult but you need to do it. It’s as HIV for instance. As a parent, I don’t want my child to be HIV positive. I’m already HIV positive I want them to stay negative. So even if I imply that being gay is wrong how am I going to talk to them about sex, being gay and issues of men sleeping with men?]
Vuyani Jacobs: There’s been a lot of things being done during the nineties on educating gay men you too said the something and then it went to heterosexual education, and now we see all billboards with girls and boys. I think it would be cute to have boys and boys now. Just to give the comfortability, because you see, I come from a township and I know exactly how it is to be black and gay. It’s not an easy thing. And I want to walk around next to the taxi rank and I want to see these bodies up there, because I want to see a bold informational board. So it means that our communication really needs to pick this up again, because it’s not only needs to be your struggle, should be Busi’s struggle, it should be everyone’s struggle to say that we will make sure that we will live in a community where gay men, lesbians, are not going to be intimidated or victimised in any other sense, in a church by their sexuality, by not being given condoms, or by being raped and so forth because those issues do come in.
Busisiwe Maqungo: I think for me it’s not all about who has sex with who. It really doesn’t matter to me kum noba u heva i-sex nabani with enye indoda noba ufazi no fazi or a man to a woman it really doesn’t matter {IsiXhosa} [whether a man sleeps with another man or a woman with a woman or a man to a woman, it really doesn’t matter]. As long as both people know that they need to practice safe sex. That is what’s important to me.
Jason Wessenaar: Re a leboha Vasu, le support group, le lona mono ma haeng. {SeSotho} [Thank you Vasu, Siyayinqoba support group and the veiwers at home.] We hope that you have enjoyed the show and are feeling the Siyayinqoba Spirit that together we can Beat It! We you have any questions please contact us on the numbers on the screen right now. Join us again next week on the Siyayinqoba Beat It! Support Group. Till then, stay healthy and stay positive. Salani kahle. {IsiZulu} [Goodbye]
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