Understanding Transnational Ethiopian LGBTQ Identity formation through Oral History
Since the turn of the 21st century, there has been a spike in awareness, visibility, and discourse surrounding LGBTQ rights, minorities, and the breadth of identities and experiences that make up such a large and expansive community. While this is an incredible achievement and an ongoing battle for recognition and humanity, it seems that the conversation may be leaving a significant portion of the world out of the picture. The LGBTQ movement has always been centered in the west, the acronym itself being coined in the largely white Euro-American understanding of gender and sexuality. Many times, the non-western world is left out of conversations and strides for visibility and awareness when it comes to non-normative sexuality. This is a topic that does not come without great difficulty, contention and complexity. In much of the non-western world, including the continents of Africa, Asia, and South America, homosexuality is outlawed and often punishable by imprisonment and, in extreme cases, the death penalty. Historically, the instilling of homophobic ideals can be traced back to colonization and the implementation of western religions and traditions. So, what happens to the people who are left out of these conversations and strides for visibility and awareness? How do non-heterosexual people come to understand their identities within and without the contexts of their geographic location. My research in this essay explores the specific experiences of Ethiopian LGBTQ Transnational subject’s identity formation through their personal accounts using Oral History. My main question of inquiry is: How does migration affect LGBTQ transnational Ethiopian subjects’ understanding of their own national, ethnic, and sexual identity, and what cultural, historical, and social influences create such conditions? This project fills the vast knowledge and research gap on transnationality and non-normative sexuality in Ethiopia, and Sub-Saharan Africa in general — by looking at understanding identity formation and causation through first person studies. In this essay, I will give background and historical context on the topic, provide a review of existing literature, outline the methodology and project design, and provide a close reading of the results of the study.
Homosexuality and all homosexual activity is illegal in Ethiopia, and is punishable by imprisonment of up to fifteen years (Tadele et al, 506). Many Ethiopian citizens are highly religious, wherein most the population falls under the faiths of Islam, Protestant Christianity, and the largest majority falling under Orthodox Christianity. In the Global Encyclopedia of LGBTQ History, Getnet Tadele et al. write of Ethiopia, “Public opinion registers some of the highest disapprovals of homosexuality in the world (97%; Overs 2015). Whereas local advocates against homosexuality are vocal and enjoy a great deal of support and public platforms, advocates for LGBTI rights are hardly visible except in cyberspace (using pseudonyms), which appears to be the only safe space” (Tadele et al, 506). This information provides the context of conflict and sensitivity in which this project moves. Understanding this current landscape, guiding questions in research analysis include: What is contemporary discourse of homosexuality [politically, culturally, and socially] within Ethiopia influenced by? And how do queer immigrants, refugees, and citizens reshape and form notions of national identity, ethnic identity, and notions of family and belonging? These questions will ultimately help guide my research in understanding the differing pathways to identity formation for Ethiopian LGBTQ subjects.
Since the research I am conducting on LGBTQ Ethiopian transnationality has not been done before, the external sources I will review include studies conducted about people of color, transnationality, and the subject of homosexuality more widely. My intention with reviewing literature on non-heterosexual transnationality for people of color is to better understand and historicize queer migration and relocation experiences, as well as pinpoint important factors in identity formation — such as ethnicity, location, nationality, politics, religiosity, and culture — amidst hostile and violent environments before and after migration. In this pursuit, I seek to uncover related information that looks to answer these questions and have done so through qualitative research and sociocultural analysis. The literature I will review from several different sources deal with different subtopics and research models within the larger topics of Queerness and Transnationality for people of color in the non-western world. The texts in the following review will be categorized into two subtopics: sexual and national identity formation and attitudes toward homosexuality. The research models include qualitative studies including semi-structured interviews, in-depth interviews, and an article examining political anti-homosexual discourse in three African nations.
These first three studies include semi structured interviews of African and Indian non-heterosexual subjects dealing with transnational migration and sexuality and national identity formation. The study titled “From Moral Ambivalence to Differential Congruence: Understanding Transnational Sexuality Using Cultural Schemas” examines how Lesbian, Gay, and Queer Indian subjects construct their sexuality through cultural schemas, diasporic experiences, and diffusion of global mass media. The sample includes 18 respondents all identifying as lesbian, gay, or queer and ethnically Indian, 12 of whom are active in LGBT activism in India (Ghosh, 11). The respondent’s responses varied from being influenced from experiences outside of India that shaped their view, experiences relating to American LGBT media and music, to their relationship with their families (Ghosh, 15). Like this study is the study entitled “‘Elvis Died and I Was Born’: Black African Men Negotiating Same-Sex Desire in London” Wherein the author conducts semi-structured interviews of Gay and Bisexual African men in London, gathering responses about their experiences in their home countries, migration, personal experiences, and their ideas about sexual and national identity. One quote from one of the participants reads ““Being gay, being black, being African is really something different. Because being gay is a white man’s culture… you’re not really part of it, you’re not really part of them, you know… No, I couldn’t disclose it. I just couldn’t disclose it to anybody. I had to keep it to myself and it’s quite a heavy thing” (Doyal, 177–8). In “No Place Like Home: African Refugees and the Emergence of a New Queer Frame of Reference” the author interviews Queer African Asylum seekers in Canada on their experiences in migration and acculturation in Canada (Massaquoi, 43). These studies look at the intersections of sexuality, identity, ethnicity, culture, migration, and transnationality at equally important sites in these subjects lives in forming their responses — as well as the visibility of the LGBT identity movements in the west being influential in subjects relational understanding of themselves within whichever geographic context they find themselves in.
The following literature includes semi structured interviews dealing with attitudes toward homosexuality influenced by religiosity, politics, and national belonging. In the study titled “Somali American Female Refugees Discuss Their Attitudes toward Homosexuality and the Gay and Lesbian Community” the author conducts a study with 15 heterosexual Somali female refugees on their ideas about homosexuality both within Somalia and in their current environment in America. The interview captures the sentiments and ideas from those outside of the homosexual community in Somalia and provides insight on cultural/national notions of belonging and the anti-homosexual discourses that are interwoven into political/social/cultural rhetoric (Hunt, 597). This study also provides insight into how immigration may possibly shift homophobic ideals by way of acculturation. The last piece of literature related to the topic is an article entitled Ready Rhetorics: Political Homophobia and Activist Discourses in Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda”wherein the author examines the political discourses around anti-homosexuality in Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda, and links them to a larger concept of responses to social change, political power, and global status hierarchies (McKay, 397) and in some instances, strategic evasion of other Human Rights Abuses by creating inflammatory rhetoric targeting and demonizing homosexuals (McKay, 399).
For this research project, I found three transnational Ethiopian subjects who identify under the LGBTQ spectrum. The demographics include: one 32-year-old gay man, one 24-year-old queer man, and one 22-year-old bisexual woman. All three of the subjects were found through my own personal social networks — through social media. Their personal identities will be shielded through the use of pseudonyms. For this project, I employ black feminist epistemology and standpoint theory as my theoretical framework, using the first-person accounts and experiences of LGBTQ Ethiopian subjects as incredibly important knowledge. For the method I utilized Oral history, asking each participant twelve open-ended questions that I prepared discussing their childhood, experiences in Ethiopia, post-migration experiences, and experiences with community, ideological messaging, and identity. The questions included:
· Can you talk to me a little bit about how you came to understand your sexuality growing up and as a child in your home country?
· What were some experiences and messages that influenced your understanding of homosexuality while growing up?
· From where and whom did these messages about homosexuality in Ethiopia normally come from?
· What common ideas about homosexuality and gay people did people commonly have, and what factors were those ideas influenced by?
· Were there other queer or gay people in Ethiopia that you knew of? Describe, if any, the community and your relationship to them
· Did the west have any influence over how you understood homosexuality?
· What factors led you to migrate to the U.S.?
· In general, how was assimilation into U.S. culture challenging, what problems did you come across?
· Has your understanding of your sexuality/identity shifted since migration? If so, How?
· Have you come to create and cultivate community of people around you while in the U.S.? Describe your relationship to them.
· Describe your relationship to being both Ethiopian and Queer, and how has it shaped your perspective of community, nationality, family, and belonging
· How do you understand home?
Using these guiding questions, participants could give stories and anecdotes, go into depth about their experiences, and reflect whilst telling their stories.
My positionality and identity as the researcher for this specific project played an important role in fulfilling this project. As a first-generation Ethiopian American lesbian, I was able to access the participants in this study through my own social networks. Because I have a personal relationship with each of the participants as friends, as well as sharing multiple axes of identity, this may have provided a sense of familiarity wherein participants were comfortable and willing to open up to me.
All three of the participants in this study have differing backgrounds, experiences, and ages in which they migrated. Benny age 24, immigrated to the US. from Ethiopia with his family at age 14. Ruben age 32, migrated to South Africa from Ethiopia in 2012 at age 25 for graduate school and later immigrated to the U.S. in 2016 at age 30. Hailey age 22, immigrated to US with her family in 2014 at age 18. The beginning part of the interview was spent asking about their experiences growing up understanding their sexuality as youth in Ethiopia. All participants recalled similar feelings of internal difference, often contrasted with public condemnation of homosexuality. This is common in any ‘coming out’ process, though because of the illegality of homosexuality and ubiquitous disapproval of homosexual people, the process of understanding oneself as a youth is fraught with much confusion and shame. When asked about his understanding of himself in his youth, Benny states it was the use of real homosexuals as shameful examples that exposed him to what he had been contending with. Benny states “I knew I was different, I just didn’t know exactly what. To me, my feelings were normal. But I think it was like around middle school, there was this magazine where they brought in actual gay Habesha (term for Ethiopian and Eritrean people) people. Of course, it was like really spun to make them look like bad people, but at least they kind of gave them some space to talk about themselves. And then I was like “oh shit… that’s… me.” I think I was in 10th grade when that happened. But after that, I didn’t really want to accept it.” Ruben states that being characterized as “feminine” characterized him as different to the outside world before himself, stating “when I was younger people knew I was different compared to my brothers. Everyone in my family or in my area — they used to say you are too soft and too feminine. In elementary school people used to bully me because I would play with girls mostly. But I didn’t know what that meant, I was just doing it because it was what used to make me happy.” Hailey discusses how the influence of religion and consistent silence around the taboo and shunning of homosexuality played a part in her own conflicting notions in understanding of her internal feelings of difference in her youth. She notes “I realized that I was different when I was about 8 years old. Both my parents are very dedicated to the church and pastors. It was really complicated but it was just something that was very strong and persistent in me. When I was in like the fourth grade I would think ‘Well all these girls, they like guys, and I like my best friend!’ And I remember we would even put on fake weddings where we would get married. I was never allowed to talk about it, though. I never talked about it with anyone, it was just something that kind of brewed inside me, and I just let it. I didn’t suppress it the way other people may have around me. You wouldn’t believe the amount of [presumably non-heterosexual] people who were like “Oh well, a demon made me feel this way, but I just prayed it away” and I would just say to myself “no, I don’t think I want to do that.” and the times I did try to do that it was very painful and it made me feel very disassociated from myself, so I stopped doing that at a very young age.”
When the participants were asked about the messaging they received about homosexuality and where these messages came from, all participants mentioned the Church and religion as highly influential. Because Ethiopia is a highly religious state that does not enforce a separation of church and state, homophobic rhetoric most notably and boldly stems from religious rhetoric. Discourses of religion seemed to have fractured the sense and understanding of themselves regarding sexuality because of the incessant public condemnation of homosexuality. Hailey discusses how much of the discussion of homosexuality is centered around corrective therapy and religious intervention. Though, internal feelings of difference and internal conflict surrounding the messaging was still present for her despite negative messaging in which she notes, “The only messages I heard was that it was wrong, over and over, and that you were going to hell, that it was a disease. An older woman that I knew actually made a documentary about how homosexuality was a disease. And I was forced to watch it, it was so terrible. I remember after watching it I kept asking her questions, and they just kept praying for me saying that I wasn’t ‘receiving’ the message. And I just knew there was something wrong with that message, but we never talked about it again.”
Upon being asked about an underground gay community in Ethiopia, Benny and Hailey had heard of its existence, though had no relation or communication to it because of their young ages of migration. Only Ruben had relationship with this community, where he notes the difficulty in finding the community, but its existence being helpful to him. Ruben states “There was definitely a community, but for me to find them was very hard for the first time. First you have to know one gay person, then they have to trust you enough to take you where they are mingling. So, it took me close to 2 years to meet friends and know people. And I still didn’t accept myself even then, I always would doubt myself, or hoped it was a phase because I wanted to be happy and make my family happy. But there is a community, it was just hard to find. But through time I started finding people through my campus and they made me comfortable, we had the same language, and we could relate.” This reveals the complex reality of forming community and under hostile subjugation. Despite the possibility of community bonds being formed, this may not be enough to create a sense of safety or security in one’s sexual identity because of the imminent threat of danger or exile.
All participants discussed the great importance in discovering LGBTQ media and information in the process of understanding themselves and forming their present-day identities. It is important to note that there is no existing term for homosexuality in Amharic (Ethiopian National Language) outside of highly derogatory slurs that reference specific sexual acts, or that are in biblical reference to sodomy. Hailey notes “In our culture, [homosexuality] is very taboo. We don’t really talk about it. Even the word in Amharic is ‘Sodomawit’, which is a very bad term.” All participants use English sexual identity markers that they have come to know through research and exposure to LGBTQ information. Access to this information was imperative to identity formation because of the lack of positive information otherwise. Both Ben and Hailey note that they had no contact with LGBTQ information or media before they immigrated to the US, Ben stating “I think freshman year in college after I came here (to the U.S.) that’s when I started to accept it, that’s when I started doing research, and kind of found out what being gay was.” Similarly, Hailey notes how LGBT media helped her in her personal life, enabling her with more confidence to explore and accept her sexuality, stating “Ultimately [LGBT Media] helped me see different relationship types, different perspectives. Especially YouTube — I watched a lot of different YouTubers. I would watch couples and how they interact, and it gave me more confidence to go out and explore, look into how to approach it.” Though Ben and Hailey note the importance of exposure to this Media to accepting and embracing themselves, Ruben first had exposure to LGBT media pre-migration, that didn’t immediately lead to accepting himself, but rather illuminated and validated his feelings of internal difference. He notes “I got to grade 10 and at the time there was dial up internet, so I started reading things when family was not around, so that helped me. It used to be yahoo, there was no google at that time. I used to search like ‘Why do I like this and that’ and ‘I like boys, where can I find people like me?’ Out of the blue I just found some article [in English] that used the word “gay” and then I thought, okay, I think it is this word.” Though in different ways, all three participants note the importance in discovering information and affirming media on LGBT people in their pathways to their identity formation.
For all three participants, the existence and cultivation of community after migration was vital in their survival and self-esteem. Outside of Ethiopia, being able to freely express curiosity, exploration, and openly commune with people within their sexual and ethnic community was central in developing a sense of self and autonomy. Upon being asked about finding a community in the states, Ben states “Yes, especially hanging out with other Habesha (term referring to Ethiopian and Eritrean) queers. Some of them have been here for almost 30 years and they have had some of the experiences that I’m having now and I can relate. They’re my family and my support system. It also gives you hope. We usually meet through the internet, sometimes through work or mutual friends, and also Grindr!” Ruben states that the catalyst in his personal growth in attaining autonomy and realizing different viewpoints was migrating to South Africa and finding a community of activists there. He states, “[Moving to] South Africa changed my life in so many ways, I feel like I was almost born there. People never discriminated against me, I was able to go to school and get a professional job without a problem. I had the freedom to express myself and I was able to start an LGBT Ethiopian organization from outside in the public. I was just trying to advocate for my people. South Africa was very liberal, they had gay marriage legalized in 2006 and protections for gay people. People were okay with it. So, for me, as a conservative orthodox Ethiopian gay guy, I just felt like the whole world just fell in my face, because I didn’t know what to do! I would think ‘Is it possible to leave church? Is it possible to be like this?’ because I had only been taught that [being religious and conservative] was the right thing to do. Now that wasn’t working in South Africa. So, it was very life changing. South Africa gave me the opportunity to talk about my people, to learn about my sexual orientation, gender identity, and what blackness means.” Ruben reveals how being exposed to different viewpoints, realities, and immersing himself in a culture with completely different values was a catalyst in rearranging his thought processes and worldview. These cultural differences that were illuminated to Ruben in his migration further explain the cultural differences that all participants note as being a main point of difficulty in traversing post-migration. Ethiopian cultural differences as opposed to the West for example were highlighted as a point of difference that created tension for each participant; they all stated that in Ethiopia, the community comes before the individual, and individualism is not often encouraged. This point of difference was one that for Ruben, was liberating to break out of post-migration through being given the freedom of privacy, individuality, and autonomy. He states later in the interview “Even when I tell one person “I am Ruben” I am also referring to my family, my relatives, my siblings, my area, my school. Everyone has involvement in my life, there is no sense of privacy or independence. Everyone is just related to each other. When you are walking down the street, an old person can just come up to you and say, ‘don’t do this, don’t walk that way, guys don’t do this’, it’s just too much. Then you get to other countries and then you just get your personal space — you do what you do, I respect you.” While they both acknowledge the existence of this cultural difference, how Hailey found her sense of liberation in the US seems to be rooted in the culture of communalism, stating “Being Ethiopian, it kind of gives you this idea that individualism is not encouraged, and everything is about the community. So, I really did have to find a community here to grow with in order for me to grow.” Though ultimately the cultivation of community where a sense of safety and relation are fostered was one of the most important factors in identity formation and self-imaging for all participants.
When posing the question about how each participant understands their relationship to being Ethiopian and Queer, and how this influences their perspective of community, nationality, family, and belonging, Ben notes how it was music and literature that helped him find home in the seemingly contesting identities. He states “I felt like I was betraying my Ethiopian culture at first, so I tried to stay away from [being Ethiopian] but that’s impossible because I’m always going to be Ethiopian. For me, it started when I started reading these books by Gashe Sibihat, he writes these really [sexually] explicit books and it was interesting because in Ethiopian culture people don’t really talk about their sex life, and even if they do its very vanilla. But he went all the way! And that helped [me see my identities as being able to coexist]. Music also definitely helped, there are a lot of old Ethiopian songs that I liked that had this similar theme of the melancholy of diaspora, and I can kind of relate to that as a queer person — You feel like you belong somewhere, but you also feel like you don’t belong there. And I related to that, and it made me feel like I have 100% entitlement to that as my culture.” The relation to music and literature as a means of cultural relation through the commonality of the feeling being marginal, being outside, being in the different. All three participants noted that home is somewhere they feel safe, comfortable, and gives them a sense of stability. No one named one geographic location as the situation of home, but rather the sense of security and comfortability in themselves.
Throughout the research process, I was met with a few ethical issues surrounding the topic of research and the participants. Because the topic is a sensitive issue that still carries great weight for both the participants and myself — I was obliged to very carefully consider first and foremost the safety and comfortability of the participants. As previously stated, I asked all participants their desired pseudonym that would be used for them, as well as providing them all the information of where this information will go and intended results. Understanding the great ethical responsibility in ensuring safety for my participants, full consent, anonymity, and information fostered accountability and trust between myself as the researcher and the participants.
This research project was incredibly important in the current cultural, political, and social landscape because it created further visibility, recognition, and awareness for a largely marginalized and silenced group of people. Recording the stories and experiences of those who are silenced out of state-sanctioned violence and global erasure is imperative to historicizing and archiving these necessary stories. Analyzing subjects differing individual pathways to identity formation, we can better learn how queer diasporic identities are formed and contended with, even amidst hostility and contention. Along with sharing the results of this project, research participants will have the option of having the audio recording and/or transcription published on a Queer of color online publication (upon their consent) for others to witness, and/or obtaining the primary source material for their own personal use. This project exists as an addition to the line of activism opened by Queer Ethiopian activists by furthering visibility, fostering awareness, and opening a place for the some of the most marginalized within the larger worlds of research and activism.
Works Cited
Doyal, Lesley. “‘Elvis Died and I Was Born’: Black African Men Negotiating Same-Sex Desire in London.” Sexualities, vol. 11, no. 1–2, 2008, p. 177
Ghosh, Apoorva. “From Moral Ambivalence to Differential Congruence: Understanding Transnational Sexuality Using Cultural Schemas.” Sexualities, May 2019, doi:10.1177/1363460719850022.
Hunt, Shanda L. “Somali American Female Refugees Discuss Their Attitudes toward Homosexuality and the Gay and Lesbian Community.” Culture, Health, vol. 20, no. 5, 2018, pp. 591–605.
McKay, Tara, and Nicole Angotti. “Ready Rhetorics: Political Homophobia and Activist Discourses in Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda.” Qualitative Sociology, vol. 39, no. 4, Dec. 2016, pp. 397–420. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s11133–016–9342–7.
Massaquoi, Notisha. “No Place Like Home: African Refugees and the Emergence of a New Queer Frame of Reference.” Sexual Diversity in Africa: Politics, Theory, and Citizenship, by Marc Epprecht and S. N. Nyeck, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013, pp. 37–53.
Tadele, Getnet, and Marc Epprecht. “Ethiopia.” Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) History, edited by Howard Chiang, et al., vol. 1, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2019, pp. 505–507. Gale Ebooks, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3662300123/GVRL?u=umd_um&sid=GVRL&xid=d16bb130. Accessed 12 Dec. 2019.
