African queer women will reclaim their 'hood in Nairobi

This posting is dedicated to F, K and all the other queer men and women of the African diaspora who are claiming their dignity and space in a time of intense homophobic and misogynist attacks and threats of violence against them.

Last weekend, I received a message from a friend K, who lives in Nairobi. She related a horrible incident whereby some friends, 2 women (F & M), were leaving a club, Florida 2000. This club is frequented by everyone...queer and straight...mostly Africans. As the women walked out beyond the entrance, they were verbally assaulted with homophobic slurs by another woman--unknown to them.

Then this woman, brandishing a broken bottle, attacked F---cutting up her face.

The two male security guards, instead of trying to protect F and restrain the attacker, held on to F, prevented her friend M from assisting her, and joined in the assault against F. Eventually this melee was broken up when enough onlookers became involved and M prevented the attacker from leaving. F was taken to the emergency room at Nairobi Hospital and police reports have been filed. Human rights and feminist organizations in Nairobi have been contacted.

Two men held a woman who was attacked by another woman. No words.

F's face was severely cut up. She's had at least one round of surgery and was discharged from the hospital a few days ago. But she was readmitted to the hospital today because she's been losing consciousness at home.

F is surrounded by a lot of love and comfort from her sisters. The scars will be a testament to her survival, as well as a reminder of how precarious our lives still are as women and as queer people when we choose to live and love openly--without shame and fear.

A community that thought it had a safe place to just BE was severely traumatized. For some time.

But as K wrote me today, this despair, fear and disbelief is now starting to morph into reclamation and organized resistance amidst the women of her found family.

I feel hopeful and anxious about the news of what the women will do next.

So here are the words of Essex Hemphill for solidarity for F, her Nairobi peeps, and queer people in and from the motherland just trying to live their lives:

Everything different
tests my faith.
I have stood in places
where the absence of light
allowed me to live longer,
while at the same time
it rendered me blind.

I struggle against
plagues, plots,
pressure,
paranoia.
Everyone wants a price
for my living.

When I die
my angels,
immaculate
Black diva
drag queens,
all of them
sequined
and seductive,
some of them
will come back
to haunt you,
I promise,
honey chil'.

(excerpt from 'The Tomb of Sorrow')