Having spent the last three years working in media development in Namibia, Sierra Leone, and the occupied Palestinian territories, I was forced to climb back into the closet and-for the first time- learn to navigate queer life in some very homophobic places. While we Canadians debate the end of our gay rights movement, gay people elsewhere in the world are only just now testing the waters of their own inchoate struggles. I don’t live in Sierra Leone anymore, but when I think back to those days on Black Johnson I can still feel the sand in my toes and the esprit de corps of a group of men who risk their lives in order to be themselves for just one thrilling day. It’s the annual gay party on Sierra Leone’s Black Johnson Beach (yes, fitting name) and everyone on it has trekked tricky rainforest paths in order to find this one strip of private blue coastline where they can openly be pink for the day. It’s definitely not Mykonos, Fort Lauderdale, or even Vancouver’s Wreck Beach.
At the makeshift beach bar, ice is plunked into orange and incarnadine cocktails, and the bartender screams, “Cheers to queers,” kissing each customer on the cheek.Įxcept for my own, every body on this beach is black. The tropical sun has ensured all bodies are dripping. Somewhere a random diva is belting out a dance hit. I am on a gay beach, surrounded by half-naked, toned, tanned, Speedo-sporting gay men.
Out of the country, back into the closet.
