Kom ut!

The staff gathered outside the office, Nthateng is second from the left. Photo: Doris Yee.

The Panafrican news site Behind the Mask (BTM) uses journalism as activism. They strive both to highlight abuses of LGBT people, but also to showcase some of all the resistance to homophobia and courageous activism that takes place in every corner of the continent. The managing editor – Nthateng – welcomes us to join her into the heart of the work at BTM.

Text Nthateng Mhlambiso

It’s Monday Morning and walking up the stairs to my office, the phone is already ringing. Picking up, a hysterical voice states “please call me back, it’s about two lesbians who were attacked and raped last night.”

While I prepare to call back, another call comes in “I have been expelled from my home, when can I come to your offices for help?”, while I try to explain that we can not really offer accommodation, there’s a knock on my door, the visitor is married and has children but she knows that she is a lesbian and she needs advice on how to come out without hurting her family and her children!

The joys of being the Editor of Behind the Mask, a news website covering lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people’s issues in the African continent.

Behind the Mask was formed in 2000 by Bart Luirink, still a board member, after he traveled the African continent and came across many gay people who were living heterosexual lives while behind those masks, they were homosexuals. That is how the name Behind The Mask was born.

Through journalism and activism, Behind the Mask has, for ten years now, provided reliable information and initiated dialogue about LGBTI issues in Africa to ensure that human rights are recognised as indivisible and are guaranteed for everyone.

This type of information, provided by Behind the Mask, takes place in the context of widespread homophobia, criminalisation of homosexuality and prohibition of same-sex relationships in many African countries.

BTM is acknowledged as the prime source of reliable information on LGBTI affairs in Africa by a growing constituency, locally, regionally and internationally.

With the website, the organisation strives to give voice to LGBTI communities in Africa whose issues have previously been sidelined by the mainstream media. At the same time, we aim to inform, educate, raise awareness and lobby for policy changes with a view to, among other things, change negative attitudes towards homosexuality and perceived notions about gender appropriate behaviour in Africa.
Our newsroom is always a beehive of activity as my team of three reporters and two interns follow leads about issues affecting the LGBTI community in the continent.

The leads followed on a daily basis vary from verbal abuse, harassment by the police when victims report victimization due to their sexual orientation, being disowned by families, unwanted pregnancies due to corrective rape, country laws that silence the gay community, lack of justice for perpetrators of hate crimes to arrests, torture and murders of LGBTI people.

For years, news about the gay community has been either ignored or found “not news worthy enough” by the mainstream media, as a result the little that was covered focused only on scandals and in the process, the gay community has been grossly misrepresented.

Behind the Mask is here to bridge this gap, giving voice to the LGBTI community in Africa, through issues taken up, angles followed, sources chosen etc. and we aim to represent the LGBTI community the way they deserve to be represented through respecting their privacy, sexual identities and their views on issues affecting them.

Even so, reporting about this community is not child’s play. Behind the Mask, reports in a context where many LGBTI people are closeted for fear of being identified as gay because they will face persecution.

Many prefer to lead their lives away from the media, choosing to ignore the role the media can play in bringing their issues to the fore, with the aim to foster positive interventions.

Others are just not aware of what is happening around them regarding the struggle for recognition of rights for LGBTI people.
It becomes a challenge then for a BTM reporter to write a news article entirely out of anonymous sources since this could affect the credibility of a news story.

It is a mission to write a news article with the aim to amplify the voices of people who just do not want to talk, even worse to quote people who offer uninformed comments for lack of knowledge on current affairs in this regard.

Some issues that usually makes it not so easy to be a BTM reporter, or for any other publication for that matter is when one has to detach themselves from the issues faced by the sources, just get the story and bounce.

I did a story about a rape victim some time last year. She was living in unpleasant conditions, was unemployed and clearly also a victim of poverty. She was willing to share her story and even the photographs.

Despite referring her to institutions that could offer counseling to deal with her situation, it felt so bad to leave her without offering more than just a hug of comfort.

Our policies as a media house forbid us from offering money or any other kind of incentive to news sources but it always feels so inhumane to just get the story and disappear!

Even after getting the stories careful decisions need to be taken on what and what not to publish. We have had experiences in the past where people would go to gay pride parades and they would pose for the cameras but two days later when they see the story published with their names or images they lash at the Behind the Mask for “outing them.”

With the new sexual identities and titles rising such as Men having sex with Men (MSM) Transgender, Gender fluid etc. we have also been at logger heads with people within the LGBTI community. We interview a person this week while she is still just a lesbian, by the time a story is published the person has changed into a Transgender and that means we have now misrepresented them.

As a media house, we have been accused of “promoting homosexuality”, we have been accused of pushing propaganda and our journalists have been accused of not being objective since some of them are also homosexuals.

We have tolerated ridicule by other media and individuals at press conferences just at the mention of the publication we work for.

Despite all these challenges Behind the Mask is still standing and is making strides. We still manage help people like my first caller by exposing attacks and rape issues and holding the government accountable on the safety of our streets.

Through our Link Project, which links victims of persecutions and any other forms of crimes due to their sexual orientation with institutions that can help, we have successfully managed to help people like my second caller and my visitor.

We have reported good news too, such as the passing of the Civil Union Act of 2006 which allowed same sex marriages in South Africa.

We have documented same sex couples getting married and raising their children in warm and comfortable homes.

We have reported about welcoming churches where gay people can praise and worship just like everybody else!

The two lesbians who we attacked were Sizakele Sigaza and Salome Masooa from Soweto a township in the South West of Johannesburg. They were shot to death and their tortured bodies were found by a passerby in a mine dump in 2007. Their case shook the LGBTI community throughout the world as they were believed to be victims of homophobia, to date their murderers have not been found and many murders of LGBTI people have taken place after that.

Nthateng Mhlambiso

The lesbian who was expelled from home is presently staying with her partner and it has been two years since she has spoken to her family something she says leaves a big gap in his life and has prohibited many developments in her life. She hopes that one day her parents will understand and accept her the way she is.

On the other hand the mother of two boys who wanted to come out has decided that there is a lot to lose and has remained in the closet to date, “for the sake of my children”, she had said.

When all is said and done Behind the Mask has touched lives of many people some way or the other in Africa , it continues to be a platform of expression for many voiceless people and the satisfaction of hearing someone saying “for that one article that you published, my life has changed for better”, is immeasurable.