1
00:00:00,760 --> 00:00:02,256
"You don't belong here"

2
00:00:02,280 --> 00:00:05,760
almost always means, "We can't find
a function or a role for you."

3
00:00:06,865 --> 00:00:11,240
"You don't belong here" sometimes means,
"You're too queer to handle."

4
00:00:12,200 --> 00:00:14,000
"You don't belong here"

5
00:00:15,360 --> 00:00:17,056
very rarely means,

6
00:00:17,080 --> 00:00:20,640
"There's no way for you to exist
and be happy here."

7
00:00:21,920 --> 00:00:24,336
I went to university
in Johannesburg, South Africa,

8
00:00:24,360 --> 00:00:26,789
and I remember the first time
a white friend of mine

9
00:00:26,813 --> 00:00:30,413
heard me speaking Setswana,
the national language of Botswana.

10
00:00:31,240 --> 00:00:32,896
I was on the phone with my mother

11
00:00:32,920 --> 00:00:38,336
and the intrigue which painted itself
across her face was absolutely priceless.

12
00:00:38,360 --> 00:00:41,016
As soon as I hung up,
she comes to me and says,

13
00:00:41,040 --> 00:00:42,656
"I didn't know you could do that.

14
00:00:42,680 --> 00:00:46,360
After all these years of knowing you,
how did I not know you could do that?"

15
00:00:47,280 --> 00:00:50,696
What she was referring to was the fact
that I could switch off the twang

16
00:00:50,720 --> 00:00:52,176
and slip into a native tongue,

17
00:00:52,200 --> 00:00:55,536
and so I chose to let her in
on a few other things

18
00:00:55,560 --> 00:00:57,520
which locate me as a Motswana,

19
00:00:58,400 --> 00:01:00,976
not just by virtue of the fact
that I speak a language

20
00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:02,616
or I have family there,

21
00:01:02,640 --> 00:01:07,696
but that a rural child lives
within this shiny visage of fabulosity.

22
00:01:07,720 --> 00:01:10,456
(Laughter)

23
00:01:10,480 --> 00:01:14,496
(Applause)

24
00:01:14,520 --> 00:01:17,736
I invited the Motswana public
into the story, my story,

25
00:01:17,760 --> 00:01:21,216
as a transgender person years ago,
in English of course,

26
00:01:21,240 --> 00:01:23,816
because Setswana
is a gender-neutral language

27
00:01:23,840 --> 00:01:27,176
and the closest we get
is an approximation of "transgender."

28
00:01:27,200 --> 00:01:30,896
And an important part of my history
got left out of that story,

29
00:01:30,920 --> 00:01:33,960
by association rather than
out of any act of shame.

30
00:01:35,400 --> 00:01:38,456
"Kat" was an international superstar,

31
00:01:38,480 --> 00:01:41,736
a fashion and lifestyle writer,
a musician, theater producer

32
00:01:41,760 --> 00:01:43,016
and performer --

33
00:01:43,040 --> 00:01:46,936
all the things that qualify me
to be a mainstream, whitewashed,

34
00:01:46,960 --> 00:01:49,096
new age digestible queer.

35
00:01:49,120 --> 00:01:50,320
Kat.

36
00:01:50,920 --> 00:01:54,296
Kat had a degree from one
of the best universities in Africa,

37
00:01:54,320 --> 00:01:55,840
oh no, the world.

38
00:01:56,480 --> 00:01:58,576
By association, what Kat wasn't

39
00:01:58,600 --> 00:02:00,976
was just like the little
brown-skinned children

40
00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:04,256
frolicking through the streets
of some incidental railway settlement

41
00:02:04,280 --> 00:02:05,776
like Tati Siding,

42
00:02:05,800 --> 00:02:09,015
or an off-the-grid village like Kgagodi,

43
00:02:09,039 --> 00:02:12,056
legs clad in dust stockings
whose knees had blackened

44
00:02:12,080 --> 00:02:15,336
from years of kneeling
and wax-polishing floors,

45
00:02:15,360 --> 00:02:19,496
whose shins were marked
with lessons from climbing trees,

46
00:02:19,520 --> 00:02:21,136
who played until dusk,

47
00:02:21,160 --> 00:02:23,856
went in for supper by a paraffin lamp

48
00:02:23,880 --> 00:02:28,256
and returned to play hide-and-seek
amongst centipedes and owls

49
00:02:28,280 --> 00:02:31,840
until finally someone's mother
would call the whole thing to an end.

50
00:02:32,440 --> 00:02:37,136
That got lost both in translation
and in transition,

51
00:02:37,160 --> 00:02:38,416
and when I realized this,

52
00:02:38,440 --> 00:02:43,536
I decided it was time for me to start
building bridges between myselves.

53
00:02:43,560 --> 00:02:46,256
For me and for others to access me,

54
00:02:46,280 --> 00:02:49,080
I had to start indigenizing my queerness.

55
00:02:49,960 --> 00:02:53,376
What I mean by indigenizing
is stripping away the city life film

56
00:02:53,400 --> 00:02:56,336
that stops you from seeing
the villager within.

57
00:02:56,360 --> 00:03:00,736
In a time where being brown, queer,
African and seen as worthy of space

58
00:03:00,760 --> 00:03:02,776
means being everything but rural,

59
00:03:02,800 --> 00:03:04,896
I fear that we're erasing
the very struggles

60
00:03:04,920 --> 00:03:06,880
that got us to where we are now.

61
00:03:07,640 --> 00:03:10,216
The very first time I queered
being out in a village,

62
00:03:10,240 --> 00:03:13,216
I was in my early 20s,
and I wore a kaftan.

63
00:03:13,240 --> 00:03:18,176
I was ridiculed by some of my family
and by strangers for wearing a dress.

64
00:03:18,200 --> 00:03:22,656
My defense against their comments
was the default that we who don't belong,

65
00:03:22,680 --> 00:03:25,616
the ones who are better than, get taught,

66
00:03:25,640 --> 00:03:28,480
we shrug them off and say,
"They just don't know enough."

67
00:03:29,240 --> 00:03:33,696
And of course I was wrong,
because my idea of wealth of knowledge

68
00:03:33,720 --> 00:03:39,920
was based in removing yourself
from Third World thinking and living.

69
00:03:40,640 --> 00:03:43,296
But it took time for me to realize
that my acts of pride

70
00:03:43,320 --> 00:03:46,736
weren't most alive in
the global cities I traipsed through,

71
00:03:46,760 --> 00:03:50,816
but in the villages where I speak
the languages and play the games

72
00:03:50,840 --> 00:03:52,736
and feel most at home and I can say,

73
00:03:52,760 --> 00:03:54,656
"I have seen the world,

74
00:03:54,680 --> 00:03:58,320
and I know that people like me
aren't alone here, we are everywhere."

75
00:03:59,160 --> 00:04:02,496
And so I used these village homes
for self-reflection

76
00:04:02,520 --> 00:04:05,936
and to give hope
to the others who don't belong.

77
00:04:05,960 --> 00:04:07,616
Indigenizing my queerness

78
00:04:07,640 --> 00:04:12,000
means bridging the many
exceptional parts of myself.

79
00:04:12,760 --> 00:04:14,016
It means honoring the fact

80
00:04:14,040 --> 00:04:17,456
that my tongue can contort itself
to speak the Romance languages

81
00:04:17,480 --> 00:04:23,696
without denying or exoticizing the fact
that when I am moved, it can do this:

82
00:04:23,720 --> 00:04:27,680
(Ululating)

83
00:04:29,160 --> 00:04:30,416
It means --

84
00:04:30,440 --> 00:04:32,096
(Cheers)

85
00:04:32,120 --> 00:04:36,176
(Applause)

86
00:04:36,200 --> 00:04:40,136
It means branding cattle with my mother
or chopping firewood with my cousins

87
00:04:40,160 --> 00:04:42,576
doesn't make me
any less fabulous or queer,

88
00:04:42,600 --> 00:04:46,936
even though I'm now accustomed
to rooftop shindigs, wine-paired menus

89
00:04:46,960 --> 00:04:48,576
and VIP lounges.

90
00:04:48,600 --> 00:04:50,456
(Laughter)

91
00:04:50,480 --> 00:04:55,056
It means wearing my pride
through my grandmother's tongue,

92
00:04:55,080 --> 00:04:57,896
my mother's food, my grandfather's song,

93
00:04:57,920 --> 00:05:01,296
my skin etched with stories
of falling off donkeys

94
00:05:01,320 --> 00:05:05,440
and years and years and years
of sleeping under a blanket of stars.

95
00:05:07,240 --> 00:05:10,136
If there's any place I don't belong,

96
00:05:10,160 --> 00:05:14,736
it's in a mind where the story of me
starts with the branch of me being queer

97
00:05:14,760 --> 00:05:16,600
and not with my rural roots.

98
00:05:17,240 --> 00:05:20,696
Indigenizing my queerness
means understanding

99
00:05:20,720 --> 00:05:24,760
that the rural is a part of me,
and I am an indelible part of it.

100
00:05:25,360 --> 00:05:26,576
Thank you.

101
00:05:26,600 --> 00:05:30,360
(Applause)