Leading Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina has, in an article entitled: I am a homosexual, mum, coinciding with his 43rd birthday on 18 January, come out to announce that he is gay. Making him one of the most high-profile Africans to do so. Binyavanga doesn't mind that homosexual acts are illegal in his country Kenya. And since after his revelation, people have been congratulating him for being so brave. Read his story:
I am twenty nine. It is 11 July, 2000. I, Binyavanga Wainaina, quite honestly swear I have known I am a homosexual since I was five. I have never touched a man sexually. I have slept with three women in my life. One woman, successfully. Only once with her. It was amazing. But the next day, I was not able to.
It will take me five years after my mother’s death to find a man who will give me a massage and some brief, paid-for love. In Earl’s Court, London. And I will be freed, and tell my best friend, who will surprise me by understanding, without understanding. I will tell him what I did, but not tell him I am gay. I cannot say the word gay until I am thirty nine, four years after that brief massage encounter.
Today, it is 18 January 2013, and I am forty three.
