"Where Love Is Illegal": Chronicling LGBT Stories of Love and Discrimination (Part 3) | Nat Geo Live

Our activism is continuing to evolve. In the next phase of Where Love Is Illegal, we are enduring to leverage our storytelling skills so we can further amplify the voices of LGBTQI+ communities around the world. And we're doing just that in Jamaica. Last month, we were recording stories of survival. So for the photo-interested people here, we shifted from the 4x5". This is now 8x10" that we use. I just make my life more and more difficult. But we asked everyone to write their own testimonies. We sort of also moved up with technology as well. Rather than just writing them and me photographing their testimonies, we asked people to read them and I filmed them. So in the spirit of amplifying voices, we're gonna listen to Mo.

Hi, my name is Monique. I like to be called Mo. I am an out member of the Jamaican LGBTQ community. Jamaicans are very intolerant and homophobic. Nonetheless, I live my life fearlessly. It takes a lot of courage to live an openly gay life in a place like Jamaica where people are so violent towards gay people. To be honest, I'm always on the alert and really on the defensive because when you have a predominantly male look like I do, you can never tell when you may become a target. I'm always cognizant of that and ready to go in defense mode. I really love Jamaica; it's a beautiful place. It's my homeland. I just wish it were a safer place for LGBTQ Jamaicans to live, love, laugh, be happy, and to be free to be who we are.

So, given that we are Witness Change, and the change part is an important aspect of what we do, we know that recording these nice stories is not enough. And so we asked ourselves, what more can we do, other than just document stories? This next phase is also about working closely with LGBTQ groups on the ground. We decided to do, in addition to portraits, workshops in the country where these stories are being recorded. We're working with the communities there with the aim that we hope stories can start to come from the community and not just be about the community.

Furthermore, there's more story-making, right? We still need to have those stories make a difference. I sat with the LGBT activists and we talked about how these stories can make an impact locally. We brainstormed about different ideas on how story-making can impact on the ground and came up with an idea. Many times when I was working in Jamaica, the reoccurring theme was this conversation about navigating safe places. I didn't know what that meant at the time, but they explained it to me. They talk about places where they literally fear for their lives. They describe this dangerous mob mentality where one of two things will happen if they face abuse in the street, which is regularly, sadly. Either someone will call out homophobic or transphobic abuse, and everyone will fall silent, or, worse, people join in and you have this mob mentality where things escalate and it becomes very, very dangerous.

What there is not, is people standing up for them. On one hand, the other thing which they complained about a lot is that ten years ago, Time magazine did a story naming Jamaica as the most homophobic country in the world. Ten years later, they're still pretty pissed about it. They explained to me that actually there are many allies in Jamaica. It's just that they too don't want to come forward because they face ridicule as well. They wanted to create a campaign where they could use the stories they write in the form of a letter and photographs, in order to interact and engage allies, and directly request that these allies pledge to take a stand for them when they need their help.

We're in the very early stages of this work, but I'm going to share with you one story written by Christina. The line is rubbish; she recorded it on her phone from Jamaica and sent it to us. It was very kind of her. But what's really interesting is that not only is it a request for allies, but she's coming out in this letter to some of her close friends. Listen to her; already in her letter, she knows what they're going to say, and she's already sort of preempting the argument.

[Christina] By the time you read this, I will have told you that I am bisexual. To be completely honest, I cannot predict how you will be responding, or what thoughts will be running through your minds. You're probably asking, why is your friend bisexual? What can you do to change how I am? Will she ever be happy? What will everyone else think? The first thing I want you to know is that I have always been bisexual. This is not a temporary phase, and it is not something I ever chose or decided to be. I've thought about it a lot, and as best as I can remember, I first knew I was bisexual at age 10 or 11. But even years earlier, I knew I was different.

I am completely convinced that being bisexual is the way I was born, and nothing you or anyone else ever did made me bisexual. My natural orientation and preference is towards men and women, and as for it being a choice, my only choice, as I see it, has been whether to be open and honest about my feelings or to continue to deny and hide them. Being bisexual is simply part of who I am, and a part I've been longing to share with you for quite some time. The question of telling you has been, without doubt, the ultimate pressing issue on my mind for quite a few years. I knew it was something that would eventually have to be done.

Of course, there was always the possibility that I could just never tell you and keep that part of my life permanently hidden from you. For one, you are too close and too important to me for me to keep such an important part of my life from you. Up till now, I have by default excluded you from this part of my life, but it has become painful to keep something so important to me hidden from you. I love and appreciate you, Trishann, Krissann, Shantile, and I want to give you the opportunity to share this part of my life with me.

I would really appreciate your continuous love and support to cushion the blows and discrimination from the wider society and to stand with me and publicly say you will support me despite me being bisexual. My greatest fear is to be rejected by the people I expect to be there for me, so I am really hoping that you don't. I want you to remember, Trishann, Krissann, and Shantile, that I'm the same person today that I was yesterday. I still want to enjoy being with you; only now you know a little bit more about me.

And we now have before us a tremendous opportunity to become closer than we ever have been, a chance to share all my hopes and aspirations for my life. I still love you and will always love you just the same, and I hope you will be there for me. Will you be my ally?

So here's our group in Jamaica, and they and we are very excited about making this project a reality. Despite the success that we have had as Where Love Is Illegal in disseminating and sharing these voices and amplifying them, one of our continuous struggles is funding. This is the one and only plug I'm going to make tonight, and that is, we need $15,000 to make this happen. If anyone is feeling particularly generous, please let me know. We're a registered charity and a 501(c)(3), tax-deductible. We'll make good use of your money.

We keep moving on with the idea that if we can create locally produced anti-stigma campaigns, that's a really effective way to be using storytelling. Next week on Wednesday, I'll be going to Tunisia where this work will continue. I want to point out that most of this work that we've been doing so far has been in developing countries, and most of this work has been done in the 75 countries where same-sex acts are illegal. But we are acutely aware that the struggle goes on in many countries around the world, including this one. We are aware because we read the news, but also because many of the people who share their stories with us, people like CJ, are from here in this country.

So the next country after Tunisia is, the next chapter is, we would like to do Where Love is Illegal USA. There have been some really great gains in this country, but those gains are fragile. We think it's really important that LGBTQI+ voices continue to be heard in a significant way in this country so that we don't risk having those gains disappear. Not only that, while there are gains, there's also massive progress still in many, many areas for many people.

We think, in particular, we want to be able to make some strong work about transgender people of color, and homeless youth, and other very vulnerable groups. So, okay, second plug: if you're interested in doing anything on Where Love is Illegal USA, let me know. We need funding for that as well. We’re proud of the work that we’ve done, but we also recognize that it's just been a beginning.

We know it's just a beginning because most days we receive messages from people around the world sharing their experiences. We feel like we're in a desperate rush because we know that every day, today, this week, last week, and next week, every single day, people are dying because some consider who they are or who they love to be unacceptable. Unfortunately, our intervention was too late for B. B died just three months after this photograph was taken.

He wasn't executed or murdered like many others in his situation. He was killed by poverty. You have to understand that to be LGBT in many countries is to be desperately poor. It means to be thrown out of schools and jobs, abandoned by families, forced to flee abuse, and so many end up on the margins of society. I met B in the tin shack that was his home in Cape Town, South Africa. He fled to Cape Town from Kenya.

I sat with him on this tiny little bed with my arm around him, trying to comfort him as he wept about the man he dreamed of marrying—a man who was now dead. He told me about his relationship with this man. He told me how it was a first-sight love. He shared the apprehension of introducing his partner to his family, and he talked about running away from the mob at his engagement party who were intent on killing them. He described how his fiancé was stabbed in the chest and he wept because he was heartbroken.

He wept because he was too poor to pay his rent and would be evicted any day. He wept because he saw no future. Ultimately, this lovely man died because bigotry had made him too poor to afford the medical care he needed. One of his friends informed me of his death, and he told me that there was nothing to remember B by except for his story. He begged that I tell it so that we would remember B, even if it was only a sad memory.

So here I am, telling you about B, as I do whenever I get the chance to talk about this work, in the hope that his memory will survive and the tragic story of his life can serve to save the lives of others. As sad as B's story is, the more sad thing is that there are thousands like B. But that doesn't have to be the case.

I believe that we cannot care less for people because they are further away, or a different religion, nationality, skin color, gender, or sexuality. With witnessing comes responsibility, and with privilege comes obligation. None of us, lesbian, gay, trans, bi, intersex, straight, none of us are free until we are all free.

The survivors whose stories I've shared with you tonight told them in the hope that people would listen and that their lives, and the lives of people in their community, would become more free. For many, it was the first time they shared. For many, it was their first step into activism. D and O shared their story because they hoped people would hear their voices. Before they were attacked, they were not activists. Appearing in this photo was their first act of defiance against those who would deny their love.

This young Russian couple were attacked because they dared to walk in the street holding hands. They wrote their testimony as a dialogue between each other, a paragraph each describing the night as it occurred. But something unexpected happened. This testimony of violence turned into a love letter.

I'm going to read you the end of it. It ends with O reading to her partner, "After the attack, I felt even more strongly how dear D is to me, and how scary the thought that I could lose her. The worst thing that I felt was an absolute inability to protect the one I loved, or even myself. Yes, now I look back on the street and look at every passing male as a possible source of danger. But every time now, when I'm in the street, when I take her by the hand, I do it consciously. It is my choice. D, hold my hand. This is my reward for your courage."

In the course of this social media campaign, hundreds of thousands of people have liked and followed. In places like this, for survivors like this, that barely-conscious action is like a hand reaching out, offering support, and a sign that says that you're not alone. A sign that says, I acknowledge your courage. It says, who you are is natural, normal, and moral. You deserve to be seen, and you need to be heard.

It is in these stories that have the silenced heard, and the hidden seen, that we can connect. We can connect online, we can connect through brave organizations fighting for equality, and we can connect through here. It is in that connection that there is a chance that just maybe, maybe, there is a bit of future. A future where no one needs to cover their face or change their name or hide who they are. A future where everyone's story matters, and a future where love is never illegal.

I'm very grateful to be given this opportunity to talk to you tonight, because you've helped me to fulfill my promise to the people whose stories I said I would tell. Today I act as their intermediary. They allowed me to photograph them and record their words in the hope they would be heard. I'd like to thank you for listening. Thank you. (applause)