When Steven Muleme got news that his sick father had died, he came undone. It was his 14th month in exile, and though he had sent money back home to Uganda to cover his sick father’s medical bills and even paid to move him from Uganda to Kenya with the hope that he could access better medical care there, he could not get past the fact that his 60 years old father who had been there for him in his best and worst days endured a failing health for 1 year without him being able to sit by his side and comfort him even for one night. With eight simple words he let the world know his pain. On Facebook, he announced “My life is shattered, my father is dead.”
Steven Muleme is a gay Ugandan man forced into exile by Uganda’s draconian anti gay Bill which became law in 2023. Prior to his forced relocation, Steven was a vocal equal rights gay activist in Uganda. He was deeply invested in organising, and providing community for gay people in Uganda. He did simple wholesome things like starting a Queer Netball team for gay Ugandans as being gay is grounds for disqualification from Uganda’s National Netball Team. He also founded the gay rights advocacy group Visual Echoes for Human Rights Advocacy and sat on the boards of Interpride, Out And Proud Uganda, Kuchu Shiners, Rainbow Africa Initiative and many more. Steven dedicated his life to highlighting gay voices in Uganda and other African countries and calling for the recognition of gay rights as human rights across these countries. After the signing of Uganda’s anti gay bill, which is seen as one of the strictest anti-gay laws in the world, Steven immediately became a fugitive in his home country and had to leave. Today, living in America as a refugee, Steven Muleme continues to push for the liberation of queer Africans in Africa. He currently sits on the board of Refugee America and continues to tell the stories of queer Africans and what it means to be African and gay as a playwright.
When Steven’s father died, he did not have the liberty to give him the final honour of being present at his funeral. Still unable to return home, Steven had to mourn his father’s passing alone in the US while watching from a distance like a stranger, as one of the people closest to him was sent off from this world. Beyond the emotional violence that his Exile-forced absence ensured, was also the cultural violence of not laying his father to rest that Steven had to endure because of his exile. Though he was able to get a one week leave off work to mourn his loss, streaming his own father’s memorial service and lying in state was an emotional scandal Steven could not have prepared for. “I watched everything from my phone,” he said while describing the days that followed his father’s death and his father’s funeral. “Ideally I was still supposed to show up to work but I explained to my employers and they were kind enough to grant me one week off work to process my loss. I was alone in my apartment and that was the worst part of it all.” Steven narrated.
Steven had shared a close and loving relationship with his father. “When I was outed, my family called a meeting to ask me to explain the news they were hearing to them. I could tell that my father was heartbroken because that was not the kind of news any parent in Uganda would like to hear about their child, but following the news, he did not act like most parents in Uganda would. He did not cast me off or stop loving me. He stuck by me as I navigated being an out gay man in a country where homophobia was as normalised as drawing in breaths,” Steven said while trying to give context to the relationship he had with his father. After he was outed, their relationship grew stronger. Even in exile, they spoke often. They talked everyday until his father succumbed to death.
“Even before the Bill officially became a law, being gay in Uganda was a dangerous thing. You get fired from your job when news comes out that you are gay. I know an athlete, a professional Netball player, who was sacked from the national team because he was gay. Family members and acquaintances distance themselves from you when they hear that you are gay. It was not any less for me. When my family heard that I was gay after someone who was close to me outed me, they called a family meeting. My parents, siblings and uncles were called and I was asked to explain the meaning of such news. That was how my whole life changed.”
Uganda’s anti gay law has some of the strictest punishments for being gay and for gay organising (activism and creating community for gay people) in the world. With punishments as severe as life imprisonment for “engaging in acts of homosexuality” and 20 years jail time for “promoting homosexuality”, gay activists like Steven immediately became wanted fugitives in their own country. For Steven, the only option, as far as his freedom and freedom of expression was concerned, was to leave Uganda.
The first few months in America were some of the harshest months Steven had known before the death of his father. Getting a job had not been easy and being a refugee, Steven’s movements in America were severely limited. “I did not get the job I had applied for which I had the skills and experience for because I did not have experience in that role in the US. I had to be offered a role in a level less than what I had applied for with the option of reapplying again after six months. I have been on the job now for about three months and hope to reapply again soon.” Steven said while explaining what settling in looked like career-wise. Another challenge Steven had was finding community. He had to begin to make friends and find community again from scratch in a new country because of his relocation from Uganda. Most of his friends, contacts and acquaintances had come from his life and time growing up and working in Uganda and some other African countries. In the US, Steven took some time before he could settle in again.
When Steven’s father died, his boss gave him one week off work to mourn. “Being a refugee, my work did not make such provisions but my boss was kind enough to allow me take time off work. I was given one whole week. In that week, I called my family every day, I cried, I sat around them and tried to process my loss. My inability to be present at the burial made it all worse. There was nothing I could do about the whole situation. I had to suffer the pain of losing my father alone, separated from the rest of my family in a foreign country.” Steven said, coming to tears again.
For Steven, the clear understanding that exile is a forced stay away from home and not a vacation marks the experience of being in New York. Knowing that this sojourn is only happening because he is gay and believes that his rights are human rights makes it even worse. While he tries to navigate the experience one day at a time, continually speaking up against the cruelty of the Ugandan government against its queer population, he only hopes that one day the Ugandan anti gay bill can be repealed and he can be free to return home whenever he wants.
Writer: Ernest Nweke
Editors: Chimee Adịọha, Amaka Obioji
Design: Kunle A.