3 Queer Communities you need to support this Pride Month
In the past, NGOs and organisations created for Queer people in Africa have placed a huge emphasis on HIV awareness, data collection and health. They have also concentrated on educating the public about the LGBTQ community. Unfortunately, they have not adequately focused on the people within the communities themselves. While discourse with the public is endlessly important, there is a need for a radical shift in how we approach awareness and these 3 Queer collectives built by Queer people for Queer people are doing a great job when it comes to promoting wellness within the community.
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HQ Collective
HQ Collective is a collective of queer bodies seeking to redefine the sociopolitical climate for Queer people in Zimbabwe. One of their main focuses has been on highlighting queer artists in different forms, from drag shows and fashion to music and podcasts. They have been partnering with different organisations to give LGBTQ+ artists a platform. The collective has also utilised its growing platforms to fundraise and provide cash to people within the Queer community. During lockdown, they managed to raise USD$15000 in a bid to help those without a source of income.
One of HQ Collective's co-founders, Jordan Chanetsa, believes that wellness needs to be central to the activism of the future, sharing with Document Women, “I believe that our representation needs to move away from only sharing stories of trauma. The thing about sharing trauma stories is having the risk of re-traumatising people, as well as contributing negatively to the mental health of these already marginalised and disenfranchised groups. Wellness plays a critical role in the future of activism because it's changing the way that we approach activism. It’s more of a well being based approach, it's more human-based, as opposed to trauma-based. It focuses on the fact that this community has been traumatised, and we don't need to re-traumatise them in our quest to acquire rights for them.”
Jordan through the collective is pushing for activism that is focused more on building and uplifting the community by showcasing how people within the community are already empowered. She has also shared her journey through the documentary, Transgender In Mugabeland.
She states, “This was the purpose behind building the HQ. To show how Queer people have empowered themselves within their own spaces. Instead of spotlighting the pain, we wanted to spotlight our humanity. To provide Queer people with spaces to experience art, and perform art. To showcase how people, regardless of how oppressed they may be, are creating happiness for themselves, advancing into the future, and forming positive communities."
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HOLAAfrica!
HOLAAfrica! is a Pan-African platform based in South Africa that focuses on all things sex-positivity, sex and sexuality in a fun and funky manner. Spanning across various platforms including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and the podcast sphere, HOLAA! Is trying to make sure you get yours and you get it right!
Founded by Christel Antonites, Siphumeze Khundayi and Tiffany Kagure Mugo, HOLAAfrica! started as a space for queer women in the continent to speak about their experiences, and chat about whatever they wanted. The platform soon took off as there wasn’t yet a space like that in 2012. HOLAA! provided a platform where people could come and share their stories, either anonymously or with their actual name, and speak about everything and anything.
On what inspired her to start talking about sex Tiffany shares, “I had always been a little conservative about speaking about sex and sort of stumbled into it. Initially, I was the person who wrote all about politics and government and all the serious things but starting HOLAAfrica! we began to see that people wanted to speak about sex, especially what queer sex looked like. As the curator, I kind of had to step up and make a plan, and equip myself to run a platform where people were speaking less about identity and more about intimacy. We started with everyone trying to unpack what it meant to be a lesbian, to publishing some erotica and fantasies (our genesis was the curation of people’s stories) and we quickly saw that folks had some strange ideas about sex and so HOLAAfrica! moved from pure curation to also producing knowledge, which is a huge part of our work now.”
The platform has since grown from a blog to having a series of things that feed into this sex-positive knowledge economy, from free manuals such as the Touch Me Properly Manual to books like Quirky Quick Guide To Having Great Sex and Touch: Sex, Sexuality and Sensuality to the podcasts, Basically…Life and The Wildness with Tiff & Manda and the We Are Fucking Here – YouTube Series
As the platform grew so too did Tiffany’s career as she became a sex expert speaking on Ted stages and partnering with different platforms. On her journey Tiffany shares “To produce knowledge I had to create a plan so I started researching and writing from a research perspective, equipping myself and using the spaces I had access to write about sex and sexuality. I was lucky to have a brilliant mentor in Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah who ran Adventures From The Bedrooms Of African Women and was blessed with the AWDF writing fellowship in 2014. I grew more in my writing through using sex as a lens which is how I wrote a short story that won a prize in the Short Sharp Story Award, Adults Only Anthology. Sex became the lens through which I grew not only in the way I think (by becoming more sex-positive) but also growing how I write and how I speak and engage with my work. HOLAA, as my baby, made me grow into my profession and hone it. “
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The Queer Republic
The Queer Republic is a borderless nation that was founded by activist, visual artist and writer Zawadi Mashego from South Africa and feminist queer radical Marylize Biubwa from Kenya. The Queer Republic was first created as a way to protest the Ghanaian anti-LGBTQ Bill. The pair realised that the laws that were put in place in African countries were strategic in their effort to erase or silence queers, making it difficult for queers to unite or form alliances in any specific place or country
They utilized this platform to launch and create a Queer Magazine; All Hail The Queers, as well as to host monthly group therapy sessions, write and share stories that are centred on queer individuals, and host open discussions about queerness and religion called Queerly Scriptures.
Grounded by the goal to provide Queer individuals with a space they can come to for safety and support. Zawadi shares with Document Women, “I believe we are getting closer to understanding where we were as black queers before colonisation. There have been archives of queerness in Africa and proof of our existence and we know that white people have been lying to us. We are currently witnessing the genesis of African queers intentionally celebrating our existence as unapologetically as possible. I feel joy knowing that despite the many times that they tried to erase queerness on this continent, we still exist and are becoming louder and prouder.”
As a co-founder of this borderless nation brought together by art and sharing, Zawadi is working on several projects including paintings that depict liberation, a theatre piece, ‘In The Name Of A Man’ and a book titled, ‘A Revolution In Motion.’
She shares, “I’ve reached this point in my life where I’ve decided that I want to fight for myself. I want to reclaim not just my queerness but my skin, my heritage, and my spirituality. I want to recreate history. I want to give myself the history that I deserve. I want to read about the stories that affirm me and my existence. Through my work, I’m reclaiming queerness in Africa and reclaiming the power of our beings and our truth. So that we will not be deceived again by someone telling us they gave us the light, where is the light? We are depressed because of your image. We have imposter syndrome because of your image. Because we didn't see ourselves. we couldn't grow ourselves and that is finally changing.”
Author Bio: Amanda Tayte-Tait aka Amanda Marufu is a Feminist, Tech- Entrepreneur, TV Producer, Freelance Writer, Blogger & Author of ‘At What Age Does My Body Belong To Me?’ Co-Founder and CEO of award winning media company Visual Sensation & feminist content archive, It’s A Feminist Thing. Amanda has been published by The Feminist Leadership Journal, Amaka Studio, Black Ballad, Document Women, In Her Words, Meeting Of The Minds and countless other platforms, dedicating her life to using media and tech to spread awareness and change lives.