Picture: Baga Mothibi LGBTQI+ members during an awareness campaign
By OBAKENG MAJE
The LGBTQI+ members in Taung said people should stop their coercion to try and change their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. They said these kinds of attempts lead to emotional, physical, and mental damage.
One of the LGBTQI+ members, Kegomoditswe Phillips from Magogong village, near Taung said, for the longest time, they have encountered challenges about conversion attempts from people over their sexuality.
“In most cases, people will try to shame or ill-treat us. Some people will attempt to put pressure on us to change our sexuality, gender identity or gender expression. Most of our LGBTQI+ members have also been excluded from their communities.
“Our mission as Baga Mothibi LGBTQI+ community is to fight for the rights of the vulnerable and marginalised within the queer community. We also conceptualize to be in a free and safe environment as a queer community,” she said.
Phillips further said, their organisation is founded by strong-willed members, who wanted freedom and inclusion in society as a whole without being judged about their sexual orientation or having to explain themselves to the public.
She added that their organisation also fights the crime and injustices committed against queer people.
“So, the aim of this initiative was to clear the myth because a lack of knowledge is a disease. Many people misunderstood the LGBTQI+ community. They need to understand that, being a lesbian or gay is not a sickness, but that’s who we are.
“However, we are grateful that the message is slowly disseminated, even though there are challenges with the dressing quote, especially when we attend funerals. They expect us as lesbians to wear dresses, while gays are expected to wear jackets,” said Phillips.
Another LGBTQI+ member, Mpho Sekharume (39) shared the same sentiments. Sekharume said, they are concerned because some of the LGBTQI+ community are being killed for who they are.
“We have received complaints from some of our members from different schools that they are being forced to wear skirts even though they are comfortable wearing trousers. People should accept us the way we are and stop calling us derogatory names like twin plugs.
“We would also like to urge the traditional authorities to stop ill-treating us because we have never created ourselves the way we are. I think this awareness campaign will assist us in disseminating the message, especially to the traditional authorities as they still living in dark ages,” she said.
The Guardian 