A Very African Story

This is the story of a young teenage boy who would walk the streets of Nairobi on a Sunday afternoon, hoping to find someone with whom he could connect. Someone who would understand the kind of touch he needed and who would allow him to be seen as a lover and not as an abomination, curse, or illness.  

It's also a story of discovering a home, a home that embodies wholeness, love, compassion, dreams, authenticity, vulnerability, fun, creativity, and bravery.  My name is Kevin Mwachiro. I am a Kenyan writer, podcaster, journalist and LGBTQI activist. I am that teenage boy, and I'm a proudly African.

My Africa is a place of immense beauty, but it can also be dangerous for those who dare to be themselves. I chose to live my truth after being almost forced out of the closet in 2001 after I got caught kissing a guy. I had always known that I was attracted to other guys and acted on that feeling the first time when I was 16. That moment of freedom and pleasure was immediately followed by shame and guilt and hiding for over a decade. It was a struggle with self-hate, masturbation and low self-esteem. Post 2001, I was forced to look at myself in the mirror and finally admit that I was gay and for the next few years, I straddled the fence torn between desire and dogma. That period was confusing, exciting, lonely, and precarious. I say precarious because it involved having sex in risky places and with total strangers and, at times, the oddest time of the day.

However, it has been here within the bosom of Mama Africa that I have fully come out into my queerness. It has been a journey with numerous therapy sessions, self-acceptance and forgiveness, and finally, finding a community of Kenya and African LGBTQI folk that I started fully embracing myself.

My journey has been enriched by a unique African queer sexuality discovered during my travels on the continent. From Accra to Kampala, Gaborone to my home city of Nairobi, I've learned that one can be queer and thrive in Africa, and this is thanks to chosen family, allies, and the safe spaces they've created. I can't overstate the role of allies in my journey. They've spoken for me in spaces where I was silenced, unwelcome, or deemed too dangerous. They've seen me and my community for who we are, fellow humans.

It has taken many years to arrive at this part of my life. There has been lots of unlearning, learning and relearning about sex, sexuality and sexual health. Plus, I took ownership of my narrative, founded safe spaces, and used utu, aka ubuntu, to recognize my humanness and that of others.  

This self-acceptance and loving my queerness and the ongoing decolonizing of my mind, faith, education and surroundings has led me to a place of newness and authenticity. In looking back at my own life, I'm grateful that even when I was in the closet, I was not homophobic. Even though there was self-loathing, I'm glad I never directed this towards the community. From my Christian corner, I envied the gays and lesbians, for in my eyes, they had the gumption to be themselves in an Africa that was shunning them. The concept of othering and harbouring phobic attitudes has no place in the home of utu-ubuntu, and I strongly believe that is not who we are as Africans. Moralizing sexuality or sensuality or the shaming of bodies was imported onto our shores by colonizers. Eventually, it slithered into our education system, places of worship, governance, society and independent Africa. The unlearning I've had to do and still do has led me to where I am and the work I do. I am healing.

Over the last 17 years, I have used the tools of my trade to ensure that LGBTQI stories are told with dignity, honesty and hope. It is my curious mind delving into our African history to challenge notions that I am un-African and being elated by the discovery of same-sex relations being depicted by cave paintings of the San peoples or knowing that sex wasn’t a taboo or a hot topic like it is being made to be these days. In Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Northern Nigeria, and Senegal, we know from the existence of Indigenous (and sometimes uncomplimentary) terms for people who did not fall into the gender binary system (goorjigéén, tchié tè mousso tè, ‘yan daudu) that such people were visible and tolerated in their communities.   We had our ways.

It is now all the more important to have conversations about our past, present, and future in the language of the home, and that is how bridges and safe spaces are built. We are reclaiming and retelling narratives which call for bravery, boldness, and humility—humility to listen, learn, and respect.