Val Kalende and Walter Trochez

I like to think that various minuscule things I have done and continue to do on a daily basis in some small way contribute to the gay rights movement in this country, and hopefully abroad. It’s when I see people who’ve dedicated their whole lives to issues such as achieving marriage equality in the District, however,  that I feel that I can and should be doing so much more. Even so, in the United States these days, those who work vigilantly for the equality and advancement of the LGBT community are rarely in mortal danger and we are infrequently asked to put our very lives on the line for the cause we believe in. So it’s at times when the international press is full of stories of queer activists around the world standing steadfast against oppressive governments and intolerant societies, putting their everything on the line for their fellow LGBT peoples in their country, that I feel the least we can do is highlight and appreciate their bravery.

With the recent turmoil in Uganda gaining so much attention worldwide, the international community has been introduced to many different characters surrounding the proposed anti-homosexuality bill. We’ve met David Bahati, the young legislator who drafted the bill and just recently declared: “This is a defining bill for our country, for our generation. You are either anti-homosexual or you’re for homosexuals, because there’s no middle point. Anybody who does not believe that homosexuality is a crime is a sympathizer.” The world has also been alerted to the American ties to the current situation, in the form of conservative bigwigs such as Rick Warren and Matthew Crouch. The one group that has, ironically, been left out of most of these conversations is LGBT Ugandans themselves.

While leaving the names of queer Ugandans out of news stories for their own safety makes sense, very few reports on the subject seem concerned with the members of the very group that will suffer the most if this bill is passed. This is a disservice to those brave activists who are openly living their lives and fighting for tolerance in a country where queer visibility is risky, yet vital. One exception to this trend is Val Kalende, a Ugandan lesbian who, thanks to a profile in the Daily Monitor that has been subsequently picked up by various blogs, is getting her story out both within her sub-Saharan African home and around the world.

Val has been working as an LGBT activist in Uganda for some time, and is very involved in her church, despite the occasional tirades against homosexuality spouted by ministers there:

Ms Kalende has been openly gay since 2002, several years before she became a rights activist with the group Freedom and Roam-Uganda, six years before she met the woman she calls the love of her life…In the intimate scheme of things, Ms Kalende plays the stronger partner, encouraging her lover, whom she affectionately calls Mimi, to be brave and allaying her concerns about safety in Uganda. “When she starts to cry, I don’t cry,” Ms Kalende said. “I want to be stronger than she is. But I feel bad, of course. She is really scared about what’s going on at home.”

The fact that Ms. Kalende is being open at all, in a country where it’s becoming more dangerous to do so and the queer community is having difficulty finding allies, is a feat in and of itself. According to a recent piece for NPR, there is now danger in being anything but vehemently against homosexuality:

It is the first bill Bahati has ever written, and he calls it a “very wonderful piece of legislation.” He says he can’t imagine a Uganda in which gay people live freely, because the possibility is too horrible to consider. And he says if Western aid to Uganda hinges on gay rights, then the West can keep its money. His bill would impose the death penalty on adults who have gay sex with minors, or who spread HIV through gay sex. And it would jail anyone who fails to report gay activity to police within 24 hours.

And what if his brother were engaging in homosexual activity?

“I’d arrest him myself and take him to the police … because it’s bad for society,” Bahati says.

Many, like the anonymous blogger at GayUganda, are understandably concerned for Kalende’s well-being:

I know what is driving [activist like Kalende]. A reckless courage. This bill is so terrible, that, even now, if we cant speak out now, we shall forever be damned. So, they are speaking out. Getting out of the closets, making sure that the world out there in Uganda does know that they are Gay, and that they are Ugandan, and that they are threatened by death and life time imprisonment for being gay and Ugandan… Dont know what your lives will be worth once it becomes law. Dont know. Dont want to know. Hope I will not know. But, the very risks that you are exposing yourself to at this particular moment just makes me shiver with fear. I am a coward. But, I thank your reckless courage.

Recent events in other parts of the world highlight that their fears are certainly well-founded. Half a world away, in Honduras, one young man made the ultimate sacrifice for his sexuality and his political beliefs. Reports Doug Ireland:

Walter Trochez, 27 years old, a well-known LGBT activist in Honduras who was an active member of the National Resistance Front against the coup d’etat there, was assassinated on the evening of December 13, shot dead by drive-by killers. Trochez, who had already been arrested and beaten for his sexual orientation after participating in a march against the coup, had been very active recently in documenting and publicizing homophobic killings and crimes committed by the forces behind the coup, which is believed to have been the motive for his murder.

While Trochez’s life and work were both cut horribly short, his cause will live on. The Center for the Investigation and Promotion of Human Rights in Honduras released a letter last week, which was translated by American University Assistant Professor of Anthropology Adrienne Pine:

We denounce this deplorable act before all Hondurans and the international community; this death adds to the more than ten deaths already suffered by the gay, lesbian, trans and bisexual community of Honduras and to the persecution, harassment and threats suffered by human rights defenders and organizations since June 28th under the coup regime.

We demand to the authorities that this crime not go unpunished, that an investigation be carried forth and those responsible for it be uncovered.

Hopefully some good may come of this tragedy, as, undoubtedly, Walter would have wanted.

As the new year approaches and you join with family and friend to celebrate and reflect on all of our community’s successes and failures in 2009, take a moment to consider those whose fight for even the most basic of rights rages on and those who have given their lives in service to our global queer community.