Bombastic Magazine Issue #1

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It did take me quite some time to recover from the break up. I remember during my campus days I took a break from serious dating though there were occasional pick and plays which also came with a lot of drama with gals and with guys because of their girlfriends.

brought my wife home. Some people even came to my father. We were then kicked out of home, fuelled by my step sister who even called into the radio and our names were mentioned on air. Since the whole town found out, wherever I go someone felt threatened when I was in the company of their women and even warned me off as if I were some kind of alien. It used to hurt me a lot but not anymore.

I have also had lots of stigma and harassment from men. Imagine a situation where wherever I went, heads would turn and fingers point at me. At my place, when you finish school you are supposed to get married regardless of whether you have a job or not. So three years past and some relatives started asking questions why I wasn’t introducing them to someone. But by then I was in my third relationship with a woman and we were living together as friends. As fate would have it, my Dad was operated upon and it was on me to take care of him in hospital so my girlfriend, under the pretext of being a friend, was very helpful and supportive. So much so that she earned the love and trust of my father and an invitation to our home in Lira. We did arrange and went home with her. I remember we reached Lira at11:30pm and there was a heavy down pour but my father braved the rain to pick us up. Three days later we started hearing rumors that I had

I remember one time a guy pounced on me from the bar and beat me up. It left me puzzled but later some guy walked in and said I was lesbian that was why I was beaten to teach me a lesson and dared me to report them. Just like I mentioned earlier, it’s not a pleasant path because within the relationship itself there are lots of fights. For instance in 2008 when my girlfriend stabbed me in the back with a knife and pierced my right lung. I spent a month getting treatment and trying to protect her from her from going to jail. My family got to know, though I had told then I was stabbed by a thief. There were very angry with me and my elder brothers suggested to my father that I be left to die. Thanks to my father who wouldn’t t let me die, I am still safe.

my LifE story as a LEsBiaN iN UgaNda By Ray Rachel I remember after school in 2002, I was determined to find a job. I searched and in the end the one I found was good for me because it was my profession. Unfortunately some of my workmates didn’t like me due to the fact that they were suspecting me to be Lesbian, so they talked to my boss about it but he didn’t care because all he cared about was my good work. They planned to have me fired and they started blackmailing me until I decided to leave on my own in 2004. I went back to Makerere University to further my studies. I had friends I used to hang out with and most of them were girls so some boys used to mock as they were interested in me. When i told them I was not interested in guys, they decided to take it out on me and whenever I got to the computer lab, I was left with no space to sit. My grades deteriorated and my lecturer was mad because I was brilliant.

I tried to explain to the lecturer but all in vain so I left class and was constantly bullied at campus because many students already knew that I was a lesbian. With time the lecturer called me and talked to me. I proved to him that I was a lesbian and not ready to date gays. He was bitter but said he was sorry. As a football player, there was a time I was denied the opportunity to join a certain football club because of being lesbian. They said we ( my friends and I) would recruit the rest of the team members into homosexuality. In 2009 I decided to have a child but after conceiving, I had misunderstandings with the father of my daughter at 6 months over my sexuality. He told me to never see him for anything. I had huge bills at the hospital and with the rejection I had to face I felt all alone in the world. I have lost many contacts and jobs because of being a lesbian due to my dress code. It’s not an easy life since I have a child to feed.

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