LGBTQ community unites to empower one another

It is said that for years, the LGBT or LGBTQ community has been overlooked and discriminated against.

Over the past weekend, the LGBTQ community came together to find solutions to the problems that mostly affect them.

Enter Your New Dreams Media, in partnership with Engage Men’s Health, presented the Bring Back The Dignity of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex event at Znikho lounge, Sangweni, Thembisa.

The event was aimed at addressing the issues of discrimination, hate speech and behaviour towards this community in public spaces. The event was hosted by Khosi Buthelezi and Nkosikhona Shaun Khumalo as the co-host.

Khumalo said they aimed at addressing issues that take away and shame their pride and dignity as the LGBT community.

“We hosted this event to try and bring back our dignity, looking at the statistics, we are the most trending on social media for all the wrong reasons and the society continues to be one-sided about us gays.

“Looking at social media trends, videos of gays engaging in extra-marital affairs are always trending, how can we say we love ourselves while things like this continuously happen in public spaces?”

Khumalo urged the gay community to keep their sexual activities behind closed doors.

“The problem is that we demand love from other people who are not gay, one thing for sure is that others will not accept you but they will tolerate or appreciate your presence as long as you love yourself enough to know your boundaries.

“We called the gay community here today to empower each other and maintain and protect our dignity. Stats show that HIV is high among gays than in lesbians.”

Furthermore, Khumalo agrees that though there are issues they have to deal with as the gay and transgender community, there are some issues that society has to look into as well for a prosperous united community.

“Discrimination remains at a high volume within our communities. At churches, it is even worse because others are being blinded by their religious beliefs and cultural perspectives at times.

“They say ‘God never created two Adams’ but the truth remains clear, if God did not want gays and lesbians he would have made it possible that we get aborted or our mothers miscarry us because it is said that he knows it all before our birth.”

Khumalo added that as gays, they get very angry when people call them names like sthabane or sis’ buti.

“For years now, through radios and TV programmes, people are being educated about the existence of our community but there are still those who provoke us intentionally to see how we are going to respond to them.

Pheello Shai, from AURUM Institute, said they have programmes to empower the community, particularly in practicing safe sex.

“We emphasise mostly on topics of sexuality and safe sex, risky behaviours and diseases that come with unsafe sex among the gay community. We have a programme called ‘Show me your pill’ where HIV-positive people are encouraged to take their meds, while negative people are encouraged to remain negative by practicing safe sex.

“HIV testing and counselling is done as well, plus we have a voluntary male circumcision (VMC) programme. We are based in Winnie Mandela Clinic and for any help, anyone can contact us through our website or social media page,” added Shai.

Patricia Naha, from People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA), said most people fight emotional scars.

“It is easy for someone to deal with physical scars because you can simply wear long-sleeve clothes or put on make-up. “With emotional scars, you may explode even to a joke at anytime.

“It is important we engage in counselling, build our self-confidence and never let minor things break us. What is more important is the love, respect and peace that we need to conquer the hatred in this world,” said Naha.

Mapule Morena, from Thembisa South Community Policing Forum, said main issues which are reported in the police station are related to gender-based violence and lesbian killings.

“We deal with different problems. We, the watch dogs of the community, deal with different cases in the gay community, especially of lesbian attacks or killings, most times on the weekends,” said Morena.