Namibia Chips Away at African Taboos on Homosexuality

[IndianaGreen]

A long 3-page article but it is worth reading in its entirety.

Namibia Chips Away at African Taboos on Homosexuality

By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 24, 2005; Page A01

WINDHOEK, Namibia -- As a boy of 14, Petrus Gurirab worried that he was gay. Seeking advice from a trustworthy adult, he went to see a teacher who had treated him kindly.

"I have feelings for other boys," Gurirab recalled telling her. "Like love feelings."

There was a long silence.

"My advice is that it's not African" to be gay, the teacher replied, using a slur for the term. "Ignore those feelings and try girls."

She also apparently gossiped with colleagues. Other teachers started teasing Gurirab, asking him why he didn't play soccer and why he spent so much time around his mother. Then one morning, he said, the gym teacher invited him into his office, locked the door and forced him onto the desk for sex.

"Let's see how good you are at it," the teacher said, according to Gurirab, now 25, who recounted the story through tears. The ordeal left his legs and arms with red bruises. The next day, distraught and confused, he had sex with a female classmate.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/23/AR2005102301163.html

[applegrove]

1. Namibia is a place that wasn't even allowed to be its own country

15 years ago.

And look at them being democratic and valueing freedoms - or trying to.

[davidinalameda]

2. what a fantastic article!

thanks for posting it