How I'm bringing queer pride to my rural village

In a poetic, personal talk, TED Fellow Katlego Kolanyane-Kesupile examines the connection between her modern queer lifestyle and her childhood upbringing in a rural village in Botswana. "In a time where being brown, queer, African and seen as worthy of space means being everything but rural, I fear that we're erasing the very struggles that got us to where we are now," she says. "Indigenizing my queerness means bridging the many exceptional parts of myself."

"You don't belong here"

almost always means, "We can't find
a function or a role for you."

"You don't belong here" sometimes means,
"You're too queer to handle."

"You don't belong here"

very rarely means,

"There's no way for you to exist
and be happy here."

I went to university
in Johannesburg, South Africa,

and I remember the first time
a white friend of mine

heard me speaking Setswana,
the national language of Botswana.

I was on the phone with my mother

and the intrigue which painted itself
across her face was absolutely priceless.

As soon as I hung up,
she comes to me and says,

"I didn't know you could do that.

After all these years of knowing you,
how did I not know you could do that?"

What she was referring to was the fact
that I could switch off the twang

and slip into a native tongue,

and so I chose to let her in
on a few other things

which locate me as a Motswana,

not just by virtue of the fact
that I speak a language

or I have family there,

but that a rural child lives
within this shiny visage of fabulosity.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

I invited the Motswana public
into the story, my story,

as a transgender person years ago,
in English of course,

because Setswana
is a gender-neutral language

and the closest we get
is an approximation of "transgender."

And an important part of my history
got left out of that story,

by association rather than
out of any act of shame.

"Kat" was an international superstar,

a fashion and lifestyle writer,
a musician, theater producer

and performer --

all the things that qualify me
to be a mainstream, whitewashed,

new age digestible queer.

Kat.

Kat had a degree from one
of the best universities in Africa,

oh no, the world.

By association, what Kat wasn't

was just like the little
brown-skinned children

frolicking through the streets
of some incidental railway settlement

like Tati Siding,

or an off-the-grid village like Kgagodi,

legs clad in dust stockings
whose knees had blackened

from years of kneeling
and wax-polishing floors,

whose shins were marked
with lessons from climbing trees,

who played until dusk,

went in for supper by a paraffin lamp

and returned to play hide-and-seek
amongst centipedes and owls

until finally someone's mother
would call the whole thing to an end.

That got lost both in translation
and in transition,

and when I realized this,

I decided it was time for me to start
building bridges between myselves.

For me and for others to access me,

I had to start indigenizing my queerness.

What I mean by indigenizing
is stripping away the city life film

that stops you from seeing
the villager within.

In a time where being brown, queer,
African and seen as worthy of space

means being everything but rural,

I fear that we're erasing
the very struggles

that got us to where we are now.

The very first time I queered
being out in a village,

I was in my early 20s,
and I wore a kaftan.

I was ridiculed by some of my family
and by strangers for wearing a dress.

My defense against their comments
was the default that we who don't belong,

the ones who are better than, get taught,

we shrug them off and say,
"They just don't know enough."

And of course I was wrong,
because my idea of wealth of knowledge

was based in removing yourself
from Third World thinking and living.

But it took time for me to realize
that my acts of pride

weren't most alive in
the global cities I traipsed through,

but in the villages where I speak
the languages and play the games

and feel most at home and I can say,

"I have seen the world,

and I know that people like me
aren't alone here, we are everywhere."

And so I used these village homes
for self-reflection

and to give hope
to the others who don't belong.

Indigenizing my queerness

means bridging the many
exceptional parts of myself.

It means honoring the fact

that my tongue can contort itself
to speak the Romance languages

without denying or exoticizing the fact
that when I am moved, it can do this:

(Ululating)

It means --

(Cheers)

(Applause)

It means branding cattle with my mother
or chopping firewood with my cousins

doesn't make me
any less fabulous or queer,

even though I'm now accustomed
to rooftop shindigs, wine-paired menus

and VIP lounges.

(Laughter)

It means wearing my pride
through my grandmother's tongue,

my mother's food, my grandfather's song,

my skin etched with stories
of falling off donkeys

and years and years and years
of sleeping under a blanket of stars.

If there's any place I don't belong,

it's in a mind where the story of me
starts with the branch of me being queer

and not with my rural roots.

Indigenizing my queerness
means understanding

that the rural is a part of me,
and I am an indelible part of it.

Thank you.

(Applause)