Midway through a sentence, Caine Youngman pauses, peeks at my notebook, and asks; “Ever considered being a doctor?”
Of course not. Why?
“Your handwriting,” he says shaking his head disapprovingly.
Oh gosh!
Somehow it seems unbelievable that this bubbly character has been to the brink of suicide ÔÇô not once, but a couple of times. It’s perhaps a miracle that each time he thought of doing it, something always happened to put off the act, such as someone turning up unexpectedly.
“I realised this wouldn’t happen, so I started to review who I was,” he says.
The “this” in the above sentence refers to taking his own life, and “who I was” is an allusion to his sexuality. Youngman first got an inkling that he wasn’t like the other boys at upper primary school. When other lads exchanged information about which girl they had a crush on, he realised that he didn’t experience any such fantasy. Not knowing what being gay was, he thought with time he would feel like the other boys. Of course, it never happened and it led to a life of frustration and depression. Then began the suicidal thoughts at secondary school. An acquaintance, who also struggled with his sexuality, committed suicide. It seemed a neat option, and thus Youngman began planning his own death that never came to pass.
Born into a Catholic family, he was educated in the church’s schools from pre-primary to senior secondary school. His next step was to look outside the family’s religious home.
“Pentecostal churches talked of being born again, and I thought that it would work for me. I hoped my sexuality would change. It didn’t happen. The pastors always talked of how wrong homosexuality was; how gays and lesbian people were destined for hell. That was the scary thing for me,” he recalls. “Then I subjected myself to professional counseling in the hope that maybe they would manipulate my feelings. I had read somewhere that homosexuality is a mental defect. The counselor said, ‘homosexuality is not a mental defect; you just have to come to terms with yourself’.”
Nobody comes to terms with such revelation on the first day, but it kind of lifts the veil.
Youngman recalls that from that point he began to rationally investigate his feelings. To confirm that indeed he was what he thought, he decided not to rush into a relationship ÔÇô and it remained that way until he was 24, which was in 2004.
While struggling with the emotional turmoil and depression, he bore it all in silence.
“Oh no!” he responds when I ask if he ever let his family in on what he was going through. “I never told my family because I was afraid. I had heard that some families would kick a child out because he was gay. Some would even disown you. Others would take you to dingaka tsa Setswana and that was something I didn’t want. I just wanted to be a perfect Motswana boy. Besides, I am from a generation where you were not supposed to talk to your parents about sex and relationships.”
So what was his initial understanding of that perfect Motswana guy?
“My understanding was a guy whose sexuality wouldn’t be put to question. Of course, that was a farfetched idea. It didn’t happen,” he says.
While counselling put Youngman on the road to accepting his sexuality, what really got him over the suicidal thoughts was a passage he read somewhere which described suicide selfish behaviour because one didn’t consider the people left behind.
“That made me think of my mother. It really made me think through. Then I decided to come to terms with myself. My mother always loved me even when I didn’t perform well at school. So I didn’t think this would be different,” he explains.
Two years back, mother and son finally sat down to discuss his sexuality, and she was quite supportive, even enquiring if he needed help. Youngman says he could tell that she was really trying to understand what he was going through. He did the same with his aunt, the sister to a father who passed on in 2008 before his son could take him into confidence. She proved understanding as well. The only concern she expressed was for her nephew’s safety, perhaps from stories elsewhere on the continent where gays and lesbians are targets of violence. As it turned out, he hasn’t sensed disapproval from any family member.
Until four weeks back, many of Youngman’s relatives did not know about his sexuality. All that ended when it was announced that he had lodged a case with the High Court to declare section 164 of the Penal Code offensive to the Bill of Rights as enshrined in the country’s constitution. The said section of the law criminalises sex between people of the same gender.
After the press conference to announce his action, he has been overwhelmed by SMSs, emails and phone calls from relatives who all offered support. He has received calls from friends, former school mates as well as former colleagues.
One of things that came with accepting his sexuality was that Youngman gave up Christianity, which he found judgmental and unwelcoming to gay people. In 2007, he converted to Buddhism, after spending six months researching on the religion.
“I am a spiritual person. On top of depression, I used to be an angry person because of this. I wanted a religion that would calm me down. I find Buddhism a very comforting and non-judgmental religion. It’s about each individual getting enlightenment and helping other people; fighting poverty; your being there for the next person. As a child I went through emotional hell. I couldn’t talk to anybody. When I found out about Buddhism, it was a relief,” he says.
He has come to understand religion to be a personal choice and private matter between an individual and the Superbeing. He is yet to get his head around folks who shove the Bible in other people’s faces and tell them that their actions are ungodly.
“Such people forget that the Bible is not everybody’s book of worship. Why force your book of worship on other people?” Youngman quizzes.
He finds such attitude, especially coming from people in leadership, out of place because Botswana is a secular state.
In the same league with the Bible-thumpers, Youngman classifies people who say they are opposed to gay rights because gays and lesbians cannot procreate.
“I thought a child should never be a trophy to show that you can procreate. You should have children because you love them, not to show that you can populate Botswana. Question is once you have brought a life here, what are you going to do to take care of it? On Gabz FM the other morning, someone called to say the population of Botswana is decreasing. I said there are heterosexual couples who have been married for many years and they have chosen not to have children. Are they wrong? The government is struggling with orphaned and other vulnerable children. We can’t fight to increase our population while struggling with the small numbers we currently have. It doesn’t make sense,” he says.
As if to answer the remarks that people of his sexuality cannot have children, Youngman declares that if he chooses to have children, he will do so ÔÇô regardless of his sexual orientation. He has heard people say that a child needs to be brought up in a home where there is a father and a mother, and he wonders what such people have to say about the many female-headed single parent families that have raised children who became worthy citizens.
“I plan on having children, and I will have children. I love kids. Whether biologically or not, whether I am with someone or by myself, [really] how it’s going to happen is not a concern for the moment. Right now I am concerned about stability. Once I am stable, that’s when I can think about having children,” he says.
He is equally dismissive of people who label gays and lesbians unAfrican.
“What defines African? I was born and raised here. My parents were born and raised by the community. What is unAfrican about me? What I would like to find out is what people are saying about the society that raised us. Gay people are born of people in this community; they are not made by some scientific experiment. If they are unAfrican, what does it say about their families and community? Ke gile metsi mo sedibeng. Ke apere tshega. Who can question my Africaness?
So why the court case?
“I got fed up with the way gay people are treated in this country. I have lots of gay friends who committed suicide because of their sexuality. If another parent doesn’t have to deal with the suicide of their child, then I would do everything in my power to prevent it. The other day I heard someone say if we decriminalize same sex relationships, soon murderers and thieves would demand similar treatment. Some of these comparisons are appalling. Gay people are consenting adults who consent to have a loving relationship. Thieves infringe on people’s rights. Whose rights do you infringe on when you get into a loving relationship? The other thing is each time gay is mentioned, people think sex. It’s not about sex. It’s about a consenting loving relationship. When a guy introduces me to his girlfriend I wouldn’t ask them about their sex life. Sex is a private matter and should remain private. People shouldn’t have a say in others’ sex life. Why impose your choice of lifestyle, ethics, and religion on the next person?”
