Unsafe to go to Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda as a queer woman?

[idiotwhoworries]

I have a new job in the third sector. Very much in the future, there are opportunities for work (not permanently, but for short term projects) in several countries in Africa.

I'm married to a woman and feel so stupid because I can't safely go and work there at all, can I? Perhaps Rwanda but not the others?

I have obviously known for a long, long time why this would be problematic in theory, but it's never been relevant personally before and only now I actually have this job and the potential opportunity on the horizon am I thinking of the reality.

If any immigration officials either looked at my phone or questioned me ("are you married?" "what is your spouse's name?") they would know quick enough I am in a same sex marriage and while I imagine they can turn a blind eye and ignore - that seems like a big gamble?

@idiotwhoworries threads like this remind me why I really, really need to get off Mumsnet. It’s such a toxic horrible place even though there are genuinely helpful people amongst all the crap.

I can’t believe that people aren’t content with questioning your identity and sexuality, they’ve now decided to attack your chosen profession and your hopes for your career too. Yes AIBU is notoriously nasty but threads like this are just horrible to read. Some people apparently really get a kick out of ripping apart an OP for no good reason.

I hope you’re ok and don’t let the bullshit get to you too much.

@XmasElf10

I grew up in the times of “queer bashing” and I am definitely not normally woke but I completely understood the OP referring to herself as queer. She is fully entitled to use any descriptor about herself that she wants. I wouldn’t call a homosexual queer unless that was the descriptor they had claimed as I would not want to offend but in this case the OP has chosen queer so it would be rude not to use her chosen term.

OP I’d consider this a little like working in strict Arab countries with dubious womens rights. I think personally that I would find it very stressful to work in a place where I worried about getting into trouble just from being myself. I think it’s easy to say “it’ll be fine, particularly as you are a woman and not a gay man” but you only need to find a pocket of homophobia (and this thread shows how easy that is) and you could end up in a lot of trouble…. Particularly when the homophobia is backed by the law. I think I would not take the risk but I am a pretty risk averse person generally.

This is actually what I was trying to say re countries with dubious women’s rights. Sort of even if nothing happened the risk/worry that it might would just ruin the experience for me.

Having lived in Uganda I definitely wouldn't go and be open about being a woman married to another woman. One girl I worked with was a lesbian and referred to her partner as 'my partner' and had no issue. So it depends how much you want the job i.e. enough to keep your private life private?

I want to add that, having travelled the world extensively and lived as an expat in a number of countries (as I still do today) Uganda is my favourite country in the whole world and I'd definitely recommend going. You can politely decline to answer any questions about your personal life. That would be the professional thing to do anyway.

You shouldn't be sent to/expected to go to a homophobic country. We should not be offering assistance or support to countries who can't support basic human rights.

Also

If you're not a lesbian you are bisexual. Please use the right words. Queer is a word used by violent homophobes.

@bellinisurge

You shouldn't be sent to/expected to go to a homophobic country. We should not be offering assistance or support to countries who can't support basic human rights.

Also

If you're not a lesbian you are bisexual. Please use the right words. Queer is a word used by violent homophobes.

You cannot tell somebody what their sexuality is 😃 OP may be pansexual, asexual or a whole other bunch of things but she has made it clear that she doesn't call herself what you're saying. Anyway it's been done to death Good luck whatever you decide about work OP

@bellinisurge

You shouldn't be sent to/expected to go to a homophobic country. We should not be offering assistance or support to countries who can't support basic human rights.

Also

If you're not a lesbian you are bisexual. Please use the right words. Queer is a word used by violent homophobes.

Snorting with incredulity here.

Who do you actually think you are?

You can call yourself bisexual if that's your preferred choice, I don't care how anyone else refers to themselves. If it's right for you, it's right for you.

However, you don't get to dictate how I refer to myself. I am a queer woman.

I do not owe you, or anyone else, an explanation as to why queer is my preferred choice. My reasons are valid.

@Grumpasaurusrex

Having lived in Uganda I definitely wouldn't go and be open about being a woman married to another woman. One girl I worked with was a lesbian and referred to her partner as 'my partner' and had no issue. So it depends how much you want the job i.e. enough to keep your private life private?

There's keeping your private life private and then there's having to hide and possibly lie about your spouse for months on end and live in fear that you might be discovered.

If she was 'discovered' nothing would happen though. Not as an aid worker from overseas in any of those countries. I live in a country where it is illegal to be gay. I know absolutely oodles of gay NGO workers here. There's a vibrant gay scene and LGBT+ local NGOs. It's not without difficulty for highly visible local activists at all, and they are sometimes arrested. It does not happen to overseas aid workers because the government knows full well they would have a diplomatic incident on their hands and they frankly couldn't be bothered.

Congratulations on your new job OP. If it helps, I used to pretend I was married (and wore a cheap ring) when travelling. I work in an Arab country now and while DP and I are not married people just assume we are and I let them. People will assume the norm- if you mention a partner people will think they are male. I really can't see why you would need to go into it.

I'm sorry people have been horrible to you- I'm an aid worker too and Mumsnet not only really hates us, it also assumes we have no critical faculties (instead of grappling with these questions daily). I work on Human Rights and so of course the work is where HR abuses are worse- I can't very well say I won't go to those places. Enjoy your new job, it sounds great

Yawn.
Good luck in your new job.

The Q word is as vile as the N word.

I've worked in/visited all of the countries you mention OP. I'm a straight woman, but I was never asked about my husband/marital status at immigration. I wasn't often asked about my husband in country either - people I met were more focussed on the fact that I didn't have kids. That was a big deal and something they struggled to understand.

My gay male colleague who also worked in one of those countries never mentioned his partner at all in conversation. If anyone assumed he was married (to a woman) he didn't correct them - he felt that it wasn't a risk worth taking.

The recent trend in development aid is for the work to be done by local staff so many less expat workers are being allowed, that is also the trend with church organizations. Developing countries have plenty of educated people capable, in fact the main restriction is the inability of the governments to pay salaries to those local staff, or deliver the materials needed to achieve the intended benefits.

One example recently is the government of one small African nation needed more food produced so fertilizer was obtained but delivery to villages was not arranged, when it did happen it was too late tohelp much.

I really do not expect much change in developing countries the political will is not there, they will accept whatever aid or investment is offered but a large part ends up with the elite not the population.

@bellinisurge

The Q word is as vile as the N word.

Plenty of black people use the N word. It’s almost as if the group it refers to are allowed to decide whether or not they themselves find it offensive. It’s ever so patronising to sit down a group and say ‘okay, now you must not refer to yourself as x! We wouldn’t want to offend your group.’

If someone is using the word about themselves they’re hardly going to offend themselves.

Having seen that you’ll only be there for a couple of months I suppose you could just lie. But I wouldn’t want to, it would just feel a very stressful experience and I would feel repressed.

You already know the answer - NO - because your life would be at risk in 2, probably 3 of those countries if word got out about your sexuality. It's okay until it's not.

I'm a lesbian and I cannot imagine taking a role like this which would mean hiding, and I mean HIDING, who you really are. It would be exhausting, you would only be able to trust a handful of people with the fact you have a wife which might sound okay bit on a day to day basis NEVER talking about your partner is very tricky. Never making reference to them, lying about why you're 'single' or lying about your 'husband'. Exhausting.

As a queer woman I turned down 6 months in Dubai for work - in theory a lot safer - but as soon as my HR dept were talking about having my wife coming over as the 'nanny' to our kids for visa purposes, and the issue of ours kids having both our names on the birth certificates, and advising me about how we might have to be very, VERY DIScreet etc I decided that no amount of money or job prospects or even experiences was going to throw me back into the closet.

And as for anyone saying that you'll be safe in Uganda or Kenya - Sexual violence and rape, and murder, against LGBTQ+ women, and men, is absolutely rife in those countries. But you can go and look at HumanRights Watch and others reports on that and decide for yourself. Being an Aid worker is unlikely to give you any more protection, in fact it's more likely to make you a target.
Those governments with their ANTI - LGBTQ+ laws give free reign to the homophobes and bigots who feel that they have the right to punish gay people for existing.

I would have said why would you go to work there if that’s the approach in that country, whether or not you could keep your relationship and sexuality secret. Similarly to others I have not chased opportunities in eg Saudi Arabia as I don’t want to work there with their attitude towards women, and to a large number of other groups (gays, lesbians, also migrant workers who aren’t well paid ‘expats’). But I see your medical field and I do understand why you might want to. It’s probably not a good idea though.

I really only ended up commenting to say that while I’m sorry your thread has been derailed, it has also actually been really useful- I haven’t tracked usernames but the original question on using queer is one ive wanted to ask, and there were very helpful answers.
I’m still stuck on another version of the question where eg at work making a general statement - can I use queer as it’s been reclaimed, or should I avoid it because clearly it offends some people? I do feel like the latter is the right approach, that I can’t use an umbrella term that will offside members of the community being described, but I’m keen to hear what others think. (Probably obvious by now that I’m straight)

If you are talking about/to an individual, you use the word they ask you to use. If you want an umbrella term to cover a wider range of people you can use LGBTQ+ or LGBTQIA.

I've not read on all the comments on the word 'queer' but I can tell you that I know many, MANY lesbian women who use that word and are comfortable with it - considering it reclaimed ( back in the 80s/90s) from the homophobes. I'm also aware of what I would consider 'annoying' straight people claiming some kind of 'queerness' because they don't like dresses or do like dresses or whatever but don't that let you for defining you. EVER!!!!

I am so sorry that such homophobia still exists that you have to think about this.

I think it depends hugely on where you go, you'd need to risk assess properly. If you'd be alone, not 'out' or actively seeking a relationship then it would be a lot easier to fly under the radar.

I worked for a few years in another African country (not on your list). My organisation did let two married women go to live there- one in aid, the second as 'trailing spouse'. They were advised not to say anything. I think they both understood the cultural aspects of the job enough to feel ok with that- and, actually, in my relationship we had had enough of a problem in that I was the one working and my husband the 'trailing spouse'. Cultural issues were something we all had to deal with.

To be honest I think they just never mentioned it, and it was outside the experience of the majority of the people in the country enough that I just don't think it would have been an issue. It would have just been considered another weird foreign thing. Possibly it would would have been considered hilarious.

Pretty sure they wouldn't have been in danger because of their relationship.

God, OP, this thread is batshit. Thanks for the good work you're doing. Yeah, you absolutely should get out in the field. It's important and you'll love it- but I think when you're working in aid you're working in areas where you're not always going to be mixing socially with the locals anyway. And I also feel like you're there with slightly different goals and attitudes from most people too. Not sure that your personal life will even be considered that relevant.

"If someone is using the word about themselves they’re hardly going to offend themselves."
Are you going to use the N word?

My experience after travelling in 6 African countries is that “westerners” are treated with more respect than locals but if you were to get involved in any kind of controversial activity you would be going home quickly.

As for safety in general, don’t go out unaccompanied at night, otherwise it’s OK. As an example in Zambia I met 2 French women, mid 20s, cycling from Addis Ababa to Capetown, no problem they arrive at a village enroute, asked where they could camp, they were always offered every hospitality including food. Where in Europe would you get that welcome.