The Lesbian Interview that had Gaetano Roasted

By now you are possibly aware that Capital Radio presenter Gaetano Kaggwa has been suspended by the Broadcasting Council for letting a lesbian use vulgar language on his breakfast show. Julie Victor Mukasa, 31, from Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) was interviewed by Gaetano and his co-presenters Lillian and Oulanyah on August 23, a day after droves of people assembled at Kyadondo Rugby Club grounds to demonstrate against homosexuality. The protest followed a press conference by gays, lesbians and transgender Ugandans in which they launched a campaign asking the government to let them live in peace. Many listeners were infuriated including a bitter-sounding caller who said "it's totally unacceptable to bring a lesbian in Capital FM studios". Well, the Broadcasting Council heard their cries for which Gaetano and the program controller were suspended. I recorded the interview and herebelow bring you the juiciest details. Gaetano: We've got Victor Mukasa and she's a human rights defender, a lesbian, and speaking out. Oulanyah: Victor, in Uganda we've laws that condemn activities that are criminal in nature. Someone who involves in acts of homosexuality commits an offense and therefore is liable to punishment. Therefore if the law says that, and you are agitating that that is supposed to be a right, aren't you going against what the law is saying? Maybe that is why these people [the police] are raiding your places because what you are engaging in is an illegal activity.Victor: We are talking about our lives. Why is it that Victor's house can be raided by the police just like that --because I'm a homosexual? Does being a homosexual deprive me of my humanity? Besides, the laws are very clear. There is no law in Uganda that is against one being a homosexual. It's not there. But we have a law --the penal code articles 140 -142 --these laws are against acts of homosexuality.Lillian: We've had homosexuals in Uganda before but they have not been so open about their sexuality, but now you are holding press conferences and trying to come out to be recognized and be accepted. Why have you chosen now? Gaetano: Can I add on to the question as well: you were covering your faces, do you really believe in what you were doing? Why cover your faces?Victor: For us the time is now. We don’t just wake up in the morning and say lets go and do this. We are just like any other organized group in society. We have a plan. And according to plan we were supposed to have a press conference last Thursday. We were supposed to launch a 45-day campaign and we did. And many of us were hiding our faces to send out a message to Ugandans that we don't have a label on our foreheads that this is a lesbian, this is a homosexual; we could be your daughter, we could be your parent, we could be your employee, we could be your wife, we could be anything, and before we tell you, you don't know that we are homosexuals. We could be living with you and while we live with you we don't harm you in any way. It's the reason we had many of them in masks just to send out a message:please let's be, let's live in peace. Gaetano: Were they afraid of persecution?Victor: Well, many are but can do anything if only to get their rights. Oulanyah: I can hear it in your voice, you've lots of anger about how this whole homosexual thing is being taken in society. Do you feel offended by how people are reacting towards your sexual orientation?Victor: I'm not offended. All I need is space to show them the human side of homosexuality. And to assure them that we are not beasts, we are not pigs. Oulanyah: But do you agree that it's not human?Victor: It's very human. I'm human. Oulanyah: Why would somebody that is human decide to go against humanity?Victor: What is against humanity and who defines it? Gaetano: Oulanyah, that's your question, answer it. [Desperately] Answer the question. Oulanyah: Humanity is something that is natural, a gift that has been given by God. And the gift is: for any body to have any relationship that is intimate, it has got to be done the natural way. The way we perceive a natural way is a man engaging with a woman and that is it. And that is what it will always be. Do you agree with me?[Victor stammers] Gaetano: I'm getting lots of SMS's and I must admit most of them are very negative saying we will not allow gay people in our society, and I've been trying to tell people that it's backwardness; we got MPs who are supposed to have been educated and supposed to have gone to school abroad and yet they come back with this dark mentality. To me that is actually a sense of not knowing, or having no iota of what's happening in the world. You go to South Africa, there are organizations across our borders that literally deal with this issue in terms of being together…we could form a committee of gay or maybe bisexual men or whatever…Victor: We've coalitions. We've networks. We are working with the gay and lesbian coalition in Kenya, we are working with the lesbian coalition in Tanzania but also we belong to mainstream human rights organizations because they are defenders of human rights and this is a human rights issue. Lillian: When did you realize that you are a lesbian?Victor: I think I was in P.5 i.e. 1986 and I just got feelings for a friend at school and she was female and it shocked me too. Oulanyah: Were you mad?Victor: [Laughing] I was very, very sane, Oulanyah. Lillian: Homosexuals are walking around with pampers. Pampers are for babies. This is what was happening yesterday.Victor: But it is ignorance that gay men are walking round with pampers because they are having all these things oozing out them. [Gaetano laughs]. Just like a woman may be abused by a man to cause problems in her vagina, even a gay man who is abused by another man will get this kind of problem. But if they are two consenting adults doing the right thing there is no way that they start having those problems in their anus. And as a lesbian, I know that there is no problem doing what I do because it does not make me sick. Gaetano: When people here in Uganda say they have a sexual orientation different from others, how do employers deal with this?Victor: Even just after the press conference, we've members of our community who have been fired from their jobs in the three days. This boy in particular is transgender; he's biological male but he behaves like a female and he was excellent at his work. She was fired following pastor Ssempa's comments about homosexuality. And the church is the worst; we've been abused in churches by those very pastors you see out there. Oulanyah: Abusing you sexually?Victor: I call it sexually because if a man touches my private parts in the name of chasing away the spirit of lesbianism, he's abusing me. Gaetano: The church that's supposed to be the most tolerant place is the one that's abusing, imagine! We are taking up calls now, remember, if you are rude, if you are inconsiderate we will hang up on you. Oulanyah: You should give people chance to air out their views. Gaetano: Okay, okay, fine.[A few calls –all against homosexuality. Someone sends an SMS asking how procreation will go on among homosexuals, and Isaac says if we go on like this, we shall end up eating from the nose] Victor responds: Everyone is looking at children, children, and children. There is a lot of ignorance. If I choose to have a child I'll have a child. I can use artificial insemination; it's my body, it's my vagina, it's my uterus, am free and I've all rights to do whatever I want with it as long as its not affecting any other person. To Isaac who says if this goes on we shall find ourselves eating from the nose: I think this is ridiculous. Eating from the nose will cause a lot of problems. And it will harm you in so many ways and it will cause so many people coming to hospital with blockings in their noses or somewhere. Oulanyah: Exactly, you are putting it very well. Eating food from the nose is as unnatural as someone penetrating... [Gaetano interrupts but Oulanyah ignores him]...as unnatural and dangerous as someone fixing his penis in another man's butt –willingly or unwillingly --it is not an act that is natural. Lillian: Oulanyah, let her continue answering the questionsVictor: Vicent was saying that God created male and female and brah, brah. I'll answer Vicent's question with another question: did God create blind people? It's very clear in the Bible that God looked at his creation –Adam and Eve –and said this is perfect and we are not told anywhere that they were missing any parts of their body. And yet today we've people born blind. People born with one leg, people born with two heads. Should we say this is horrible and that they are not God's people and that we should not accept them, we should throw them out of our community? I think that is indecent because I know that God loves homosexuals; he's not mad at homosexuals because he knew them even before their parents. Oulanyah: If you were given an opportunity to change, would you accept it? Victor: I wouldn't. And I think I'm one of those gay people who have tried all their lives to change from homosexuality. I tried so many times, even church. I've asked my family if you have a pill that can heal me from homosexuality give it to me because I need it. I went to school because I wanted to do something in my life. I'm a person who has not harmed people just like that but I'm only suffering because of how I feel. So if I had a choice or there were opportunities for change, I would have changed long time ago. I went to the best schools in this country. People who were in my class are already somewhere up there but I've lived on the streets. I'm from a rich family and I was okay until I said am gay. I've been fired from jobs, I've been denied jobs, I've gone hungry, I've begged, I've lost my dignity, why would anyone just sit there and say I prefer suffering even if I can change this. I cannot change how I feel inside. Caller: Have you ever had sex with a man and if yes what was it like compared to sex with lesbians?Oulanyah: And what style did you use [Lillian and Gaetano laugh] Victor: I've had a penis penetrate my vagina. I did not willingly go to sleep with a man but I've had a penis enter my vagina. I've been raped; I've been abused in many ways. I've had a penis --not just once --into my mouth because am pleading not to be penetrated because it is horror for me. I've had big men in this country –some of them soldiers –force me into these things and I get down on my knees and I beg them please at least let me suck your dick! It has been painful. It's something that still hurts me and I don't think I'll ever get healed of this. Gaetano: The thing that really gets to me -it's not only sex -there is more to being a homosexual than just sex.Victor: Homosexuality became an issue in society because people made it an issue. Homosexuals did not make this an issue. And we cannot sit there in our houses while everyone is saying all these things about us. That's treating us badly. It's the reason we come out here and it's the explanation for us being very loud about our lives. Oulanyah: Explain to me what is right about being gay?Victor: God is right about being gay. If you are a human being it's right to be a human being, it's right to have feelings because these are very natural; that's me, that's my sexual orientation. Even in my faith as Victor, I don't do things that are against my faith like I'll not go around playing with so many women because I know that my partner is going to be hurt. I also have my values as a Christian and I apply them to my sexual orientation. Lillian: What do you have to say about Sodom and Gomorrah?Victor: The Bible says Gomorrah was destroyed because of sin, not because of homosexuals. The same thing that happened in Sodom happened in the city called Kibea, I think in the book of Judges and they were these straight men doing exactly the same inhuman thing that the homosexuals in Gomorrah wanted to do. Surely how can a human being say am going to rape that angel? The sin is they wanted to rape angels and that is evil. It's against God. Also, the sin in Sodom and Gomorrah was explained in Ezekiel 16: 49. That's why God set that city on fire. It's nothing to do with homosexuality. Gaetano: You talked about the institutions, you talked about police, the government; I mean the pressure…what is the way forward? What’s gonna be the next step?Victor: I think that everyone by now is aware of our 45-day campaign. We've gone five days now. It is called 'Let Us Live In Peace'. All that we are asking for is space. Let us live in peace as homosexuals. We are not hurting anyone. If any of us harms you, let them be treated the way heterosexuals who hurt others are treated. If what am doing does not affect you in any way, let me live in peace. And to the government, this is the time for us to have a discussion instead of them pushing us away. The first step they should be doing is invite us or allow us to host them in our space to address them about who we are, our rights and how we behave but if they go on demonstrating against homosexuality when in actual sense we are angry because we've been killed, we're angry because we've been chased away from schools, we are angry because our houses are hunted illegally by government officials; things are not okay. Gaetano: Before we let you go, you said off air that there is something you wanted to point out?Victor: Rape. Corrective rape. It's rape intended to change a lesbian or a gay man from homosexuality to heterosexuality. It's very common in our communities. Our own families have organized for lesbians in this country to be raped, to be 'healed', to be corrected which is so horrible because many lesbians are suffering at the hands of corrective rape and many are suffering from HIV/AIDS as a result of that. Gaetano: [Passionately] Victor, it's been an absolute pleasure having you in the studio with us, we wish you all the best and success in all your endeavors. Wanna advertise of this site, contact Adsense on google.com