Courage

Sometimes we think we are courageous when we march in a Pride parade or stand up to a bully, however, our courageous acts don’t even come up close to that of Jay Mulucha where he puts his life on the line every day.

Meet Uganda's transgender basketball players: discriminated, harassed but unbroken
Life as a transgender athlete in Uganda is a dangerous proposition: the heavily Christian country is one of the world’s most homophobic. For Jay Mulucha and Williams Apako, of the Magic Stormers, it’s a reality they have come to terms with together, as a team
The Guardian
By JP Lawrence
Sunday 15 March 2015

On a black tarmac court in Uganda, Jay Mulucha dribbled the ball between his legs as he surveyed the chaos around him. The 5ft 2in point guard, his eyes up, concentrated on knowing where to be and to what to do, where each player on the court was and where the danger lie. But everything was all wrong. No one seemed to be in the proper place. A whistle blew.

Jay picked up the ball and joined teammate Williams Apako in the huddle as the coach re-explained the play. Jay and Williams are players on the Magic Stormers, a women’s basketball team in the Federation of Uganda Basketball Association (Fuba). Jay and Williams also identify as transgender men in one of the world’s most homophobic countries. And much as we like to think of sports as a refuge, their story is a bit more complicated than that.
[…]
But Jay was also grappling with his identity. It was a long process, Jay said, and he struggled alone, until a friend introduced him to Uganda’s LGBT kuchu community. “I got to know I belonged to somewhere and that there were people just like me in this world,” Jay said. “I wasn’t alone.”

This, however, is a dangerous proposition in Uganda. The heavily Christian nation, like many former British African colonies, has long had anti-gay laws, including the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2014, known by Western media as the “Kill the Gays bill”. At least 500,000 gay people live in Uganda, according to the BBC, but many Ugandans understand homosexuality only through what they’ve learned from religious leaders.

His family has rejected him, and as word spread about him being trans the dangers increased,

Jay remembers the urgent phone call he got one night last season. Williams had been assaulted. Jay rushed to the clinic where Williams had been taken. Williams’s eye was gashed and swelling, his arms and legs bruised. And he was crying.

The Magic Stormers had had a game earlier that night. Normally, the Magic Stormers go home after games, but Williams had stayed to watch the remaining games alone. The rowdy crowd began pointing fingers at him, yelling at him, hitting him. “They said, ‘We will rape you, we will teach you how to be a woman,’” Williams said.

After the beating, Williams stayed in treatment for a month. He was scared to come back to the team, back to the sport he loved. Additionally, the 2014 passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act left him without a job. Only after much cajoling did he decide to return to the team.

That is what real courage looks like.