LGBTQ Breaking News Service

I was in fourth grade when I found out about gay people. My family had driven to Provincetown, Massachusetts, for a day trip, and as we walked down the street, I watched shirtless men holding hands and kissing. Suddenly, it felt like the hurricane in my head that’d been picking up speed for months had quieted; everything clicked into place. I felt, for the first time, not alone and not insane.

I didn’t have the words at the time, but that didn’t matter because my male middle school classmates did. It was only months after Provincetown that they started calling me gay, pointing out the way I talked (“gay”), walked (“gay”), sat (“gay”), and more or less just existed (“gay!!!!”). The word and its synonyms—“homo,” “fruity,” and “faggy” choice among them—became my waking nightmare. I started correcting my behavior and amending my taste, hoping it’d stop the onslaught. Instead, I retreated even further into the closet. I was only 11. Twelve years would pass before I could call myself by their names.

I’m one of the lucky ones—the only physical harm I faced at the hands of my (assumed) sexuality came when I was pelted in the stomach with a dodgeball at 14 and threatened by a group of high schoolers with lacrosse sticks when I was 15. But not everyone has that luxury. It’s a gay blessing to be able to spend decades unpacking childhood trauma, big or small, instead of falling victim to it. It’s a shared language we lucky ones speak, and the strongest of our ranks can channel that persecution into power—which is why there’s no bigger thrill as a member of the alphabet mafia than to see someone vocalizing and externalizing their queerness in bright, bold strokes.

Someone like Lil Nas X.

The 21-year-old star proved that we don’t make progress by only preaching to the choir when he shook up the music industry with “Old Town Road,” a 2019 chart-topping and Grammy-winning sensation that appealed to country fans, hip-hop obsessives, parents, and children (even though the track is about “lean and adultery,” something he’s not shy to admit).

His new single “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” is a tongue-in-cheek track that flips fire and brimstone into art and profit. Predictably, it’s earned a truly ridiculous amount of pearl clutching from conservatives who claim he’s poisoning his young fans with images of him grinding on Satan. But Lil Nas X has always shown who he really is: He came out as gay months after “Old Town Road” dropped, although it seems like fired-up right-wing Twitter abusers (Candace Owens and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem among them) missed the memo.

In the “Montero” music video, the singer pole dances his way to hell and gives the devil a lusty lap dance before usurping his throne, a literal and laugh-out-loud reclamation of the eternal damnation we’re told to prepare for if we “choose” to lead our lives as gay people. It’s gleeful, it’s glorious, and it’s very, very gay—and it’s been pissing off mommy bloggers and Christmas Christians for almost a week.

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The conservative and religious outrage that followed the release was immediate, red-faced, racist, and predictable, playing perfectly into the media-savvy entertainer’s expectations. None of the backlash acknowledged the genius of flipping decades of homophobia on its head. “They will say I’m pushing an agenda,” Lil Nas X wrote when the song dropped. “The truth is, I am: the agenda to make people stay the fuck out of other people’s lives and stop dictating who they should be.” His note ends with a promise: “Sending you love from the future.”

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To see Lil Nas X lift the curtain on still-lingering homophobia is to find hope again, to believe that we’re actually making progress by just forcing the conversation to happen in the first place. “Montero” holds up a mirror to the very insults many of those enraged by the video have been lobbing at gay people for a century. This time, people aren’t mad because Lil Nas X is in on the joke—they’re furious because he’s pointing out that they’re the punch line.

Things are better for LGBTQIA+ people in America than they were even a decade ago, but they’re still not great. Just days ago, Arkansas passed horrific and extreme anti-trans legislation, then South Dakota’s governor killed a sports bill that would have banned trans women from participating in female sports but quickly reversed course with a pair of flimsy executive orders that showed her true colors. “I spent my entire teenage years hating myself because of the shit y’all preached would happen to me because I was gay,” Nas said last week, “so I hope u are mad, stay mad, feel the same anger you teach us to have toward ourselves.”

One song won’t change the world, but it might make a dent. “Montero” is trending toward a number one debut on the Billboard Hot 100 next week. Like it or not, people are finally listening, and maybe—just maybe—better days are coming for the little Monteros of the world.

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Lil Nas X recently released his “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” music video and instantly the internet exploded with, “This person is making our children gay! Hide your very straight kids who will see A Gay.” For so many reasons, I have questions.

Some of the concern behind this music video in particular apparently stems from the belief that there is a “machine” that wants your kids to “turn gay.” And while it goes without saying that no devout heterosexual can “turn gay” simply by seeing a music video, I can tell you if we have any “system” at all, that system wants to “turn you” straight.

Lil Nas X, previously known to many parents as the person who sang kid-favorite “Old Town Road,” acknowledges this system in the music video. He begins with a voiceover about how we are asked to hide the parts of ourselves that we don’t want the world to see, and introducing the idea of a world called Montero, where we don’t have to hide the true parts of ourselves. I think if you asked the average parent which kind of world they want to see — one wherein their kids are allowed to be who they want to be, or one wherein they’re forced to become something they are not — they would unanimously favor the latter.

Unless, of course “being who they’re allowed to be” means they are LGBTQ.

The truth that so many of these Very Concerned Parents are ignoring is that heteronormative culture actively encourages kids to “turn straight.” It dictates what someone’s assigned gender means, and how they should act because of that, and which gender they can love. From birth, many of us will only see stories of heterosexual couples being told on screen, and notably many of the queer characters we will see will die tragic deaths, or one of them dies, perpetuating the message: “Be careful kids, being queer has consequences!” The happy endings, the acceptance, the happiness, often belongs solely to kids who go down the path society really wants you to go down: heterosexuality.

When you have kids, you’re supposed to have them with the idea that you have no idea who this person is meant to be.

The idea that you can be worried that kids can “turn gay” simply from seeing openly queer performers not only doesn’t make any sense — How does someone turn gay? Are they removed from the lumber yard at Home Depot and, as though in a trance, they turn to kiss someone in the Garden Center? — it also speaks 100% to the base issue that you don’t like queer people.

When you have kids, you’re supposed to have them with the idea that you have no idea who this person is meant to be. Yes, you bring them into the world, but kids come into the world, even as babies, with their own personalities, their own things that make them unique and special. If your child is born queer, and sees a queer performer, that can only, and will only, open up an entire world of possibility for them. However, if your child is born queer, and sees only heterosexual performers and icons, and is told those are the only appropriate figures to view in the world, that child will feel immense shame that will negatively impact them for as long as they hold onto it. It is actively damaging.

People talk about seeing queer figures in media as though they’re cigarettes: something unhealthy and bad and wrong, and seeing them look cool means your kids will get evil gay cancer by trying them. This is incorrect, and says so much more about someone’s view of LGBTQ people than it does about a system they made up.

Queer people are not cigarettes. They are not meth. And the fact is, if you’re really worried about your kids suddenly becoming something other than who they really are, due to media influence, I’d ask you to acknowledge that it’s already doing that. So many queer people I know, myself included, never saw themselves fully in media, and even now, only very rarely even though the strides made have been wonderful.

The only thing the increased visibility of queer artists like Lil Nas X will do is show your child that if they are queer, it is beautiful, and it is acceptable, which he has repeatedly done in his response to criticism. And if there’s one thing every parent should want for their child, it’s for them to know they are beautiful and worthy no matter who they are.

KAKUMA, Kenya — An attack at a Kenya refugee camp earlier this month that left two gay men with second-degree burns has once again drawn attention to the plight of LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers who live there.

A press release the Minnesota-based Black Immigrant Collective sent to the Blade last week notes “petrol bombs were thrown into a group of LGBTQ+ refugees, allies and their children who live in” Block 13 of the Kakuma refugee camp on the morning of March 15.

“This attack not only set people on fire, but also destroyed beddings and personal belongings as many of the refugees sleep in the open air,” reads the press release.

The press release also notes the men who are described as “organizers” suffered second-degree burns throughout their bodies.

Gilbert Kagarura, a human rights activist and refugee from Uganda who lives in Block 13, on Tuesday sent the Blade a series of pictures of the two men that show burns on their arms, legs and other parts of their bodies. Shifra, an 18-year-old refugee who also lives in Block 13, on March 24 during a virtual press conference the Black Immigrant Collective and other advocacy groups and human rights activists in the U.S., Kenya and elsewhere around the world organized recalled the attack.

“I thought we were all going to die,” said Shifra. “Everyday I relive this horrible experience that I have.”

The U.N. Refugee Agency in a March 25 statement notes it “organized” the men’s transfer to a hospital in Lodwar, a town that is roughly 75 miles away from the camp. The men are now receiving treatment at a public hospital in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.

“UNHCR organized their transfer to a regional hospital in Lodwar and, following expert advice from burn specialists, to a Nairobi hospital,” says UNHCR in its press release. “Both are receiving specialized treatment for their burns and progress in their recovery is being closely monitored by the local medical team and a UNHCR doctor.”

Kakuma, which is located in northwest Kenya near the country’s border with Uganda and South Sudan, is one of two refugee camps the UNHCR operates in the East African nation. The other, Dadaab, is located near Kenya’s border with Somalia.

Kagarura told the Blade that UNHCR created Block 13 within a section of the camp known as Kakuma 3 in May 2020.

The press release the Blade received from the Black Immigrant Collective notes “most of the 135 refugees at Block 13 fled Uganda for Kakuma when the anti-gay bill was introduced.”

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in 2014 signed his country’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, which imposed a life sentence upon anyone found guilty of repeated same-sex sexual acts. The law was known as the “Kill the Gays” bill because it once contained a death penalty provision.

Scott Lively, an anti-LGBTQ evangelical pastor from Massachusetts, is among those who urged Ugandan lawmakers to support the measure. Uganda’s Constitutional Court eventually struck down the Anti-Homosexuality Act on a technicality, but consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized in the country.

UNHCR defends efforts to protect LGBTQ refugees

Kagarura on Tuesday noted to the Blade that LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers who live in Kakuma have endured attacks, harassment and discrimination for years. Kagarura and participants in the virtual press conference on March 24 said UNHCR has failed to protect them.

They demanded UNHCR immediately evacuate Block 13’s LGBTQ residents “and fast-track the LGBTQ+ Block 13 group for expedited resettlement as they are survivors of intensive and unending homophobic violence.” They also demanded UNHCR transfer the two men burned in the March 15 attack to a private hospital in Nairobi “with specialized, competent and humane burn care treatment” and allow their caregivers “to accompany them at all times.”

UNHCR in its statement notes it “hosts around 300 refugees and asylum seekers with an LGBTIQ+ profile” in Kakuma and has “stepped up our services on the ground.” These include investing “heavily in building capacity and ensuring more attention is paid to the specific and profound challenges that LGBTIQ+ people face.”

“Despite the challenges of life in a refugee camp, the overwhelming majority report to us that they have been able to live peacefully within the Kakuma community,” reads the UNHCR statement. “This comes in stark contrast with reports of security incidents, including on social media, by a small group of refugees with an LGBTIQ+ profile residing in Kakuma 3, who are requesting urgent resettlement out of Kenya.”

UNHCR, however, acknowledged it is “concerned by these incidents as well as by the increasing tensions between this group and other refugees, including some with an LGBTIQ+ profile.”

“Several have reported being threatened or attacked by members of this particular group for refusing to join protests or lend their voice to the call for urgent resettlement on security grounds,” reads its statement.

UNHCR says “police patrols in Kakuma 3, medical, legal and psycho-social assistance has been strengthened in the camp.” The statement also notes UNHCR, along with Kenya’s Refugee Affairs Secretariat and partner organizations “have also held meetings with community leaders in Kakuma 3 to identify solutions and reduce tensions, although the smaller group of LGBTIQ+ persons has (sic) declined to engage in these dialogues.”

The statement further indicates UNHCR in recent months has “relocated” more than 30 LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers “to other parts of the camp based on the protection concerns raised by them and following careful assessment by our teams on the ground.”

“UNHCR does not tolerate discrimination or any form of violence against refugees, including violence committed by other refugees, and works with law enforcement and other branches of government in Kenya to ensure that refugees are protected and safe,” reads the statement.

UNHCR says an estimated 1,000 of the more than half a million refugees and asylum seekers who currently live in Kenya are LGBTQ. It’s statement also notes Kenya “remains the only country in the region to provide asylum to those fleeing persecution based on sexual orientation, gender identity or expression,” even though consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized.

UNHCR says 48 percent of the LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers who have asked to be resettled outside of Kenya have left the country.

“We strongly condemn this senseless violence,” reads the statement, referring to the March 15 attack. “We have been advised that the ongoing investigation by Kenyan police is progressing and we hope that it will bring full clarity in respect of this incident and that those responsible will be held to account in accordance with Kenyan law.”

A State Department spokesperson on March 27 acknowledged UNHCR’s statement about LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers in Kakuma.

The spokesperson noted the U.S. in fiscal year 2020 provided $120 million in humanitarian assistance to Kenya through UNHCR and other non-government organizations with which it partners. The spokesperson also told the Blade that the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration leads the U.S. government’s work with UNHCR.

“In working with UNHCR and other international organizations, we stress the need to make extra efforts and invest additional resources to ensure that vulnerable populations at risk of violence, abuse, and exploitation, as well as at risk of receiving inadequate assistance and protection, are themselves present in, engaged in, participating in, and contributing to humanitarian responses,” said the spokesperson. “The United States works with international and non-governmental organization partners to ensure and provide equal protection and support to at-risk populations who are particularly vulnerable due to their sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and/or sex characteristics.” 

“We have expressed our concern about this group of LGBTQI+ refugees in Kakuma and are in close contact with UNHCR on the situation,” added the spokesperson. 

The Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration is among the NGOs that works with LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers in Kakuma.

ORAM Executive Director Steve Roth described the situation in the camp “as complex and multilayered, and has yet to be fully understood.”

“ORAM is committed to working with partners to gather all the facts and develop a complete understanding of the challenges facing LGBTIQ refugees in Kakuma, uncovering root causes and identifying sustainable solutions,” he told the Blade. “We do know that some of the core challenges that LGBTIQ refugees face in Kakuma are economic — a lack of income and ability to pay for basic necessities, which in turn creates other insecurities.” 

Roth noted ORAM in 2019 partnered with a Kenyan NGO to support microbusinesses in the camp. One such program provides LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers in Kakuma materials that allow them to make soap and raise poultry they can sell in the camp and elsewhere.

“These programs help generate needed income for LGBTIQ refugees as well as providing skills training, a sense of purpose and the chance to improve their relationships with other camp residents by offering them products and services that they need,” said Roth. 

Freddie Mercury’s first girlfriend realised he was gay during a visit to an art exhibition.

Rose Pearson – who now goes by the name of Rose Rose – has recalled the late music icon becoming “enamoured” with photographs of men wrestling in the nude at the exhibition.

She told the Radio Times: “We had been to the V&A and seen Eadweard Muybridge’s photographs of men wrestling in the nude.

“I could see he was enamoured in a way that went beyond art appreciation. Then we went to see Ken Russell’s ‘Women in Love’ and he was dumbfounded by the wrestling scene.

“He wanted to stay in the cinema and see the whole thing again. My blood ran cold, not because it was a bad film but because of the implications. That was the tipping point.”

Rose decided to end their romance after they spent two weeks together in Russia.

The artist decided to “take matters into [her] own hands” and call time on their relationship, rather than allowing it to drag on.

Rose never spoke to the singer – who died of bronchial pneumonia resulting from Aids in 1991 – ever again and she subsequently made a conscious effort to avoid watching or reading about the Queen star.

Meanwhile, Roger Taylor revealed earlier this year that he still has his Freddie Mercury statue in his garden.

The Queen drummer claimed the statue of the band’s former frontman after it was removed from outside the Dominion Theatre in London, where the Queen musical ‘We Will Rock You’ was previously staged.

Asked if it’s still in his possession, Roger replied: “Yes, absolutely. I said, ‘Why don’t they just put it on a lorry and we’ll put it in the garden.'”