In 2012, I was living and working at a nonprofit in rural Uganda, far away from my friends at home. As a single gay man, I longed for community. I contacted Frank Mugisha, the executive director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, an umbrella organization for gay rights groups, after reading an opinion essay he wrote. Through Frank, I met Richard Lusimbo, the nonprofit’s research manager, and then others in the vibrant L.G.B.T. community in Uganda.
They are among the few public faces for many people in the country who must remain hidden and are slow to trust strangers. I was deeply touched when Pepe Onziema, the program director for Sexual Minorities Uganda, told me he had dropped his guard with me.
With the help of these friends, I was able to complete a photographic project for The Advocate, the American L.G.B.T. magazine, in which a dozen members of the community told their stories, most for the first time. My essay was published on The Advocate’s website in January 2013 and in the magazine’s February-March issue.
It was brave of the Ugandans to participate. They knew that the photographs would be on the web. We had many discussions about the consequences if the photographs were seen in Uganda. They realized that they were irrevocably coming out of the closet. But they were proud to be a part of a meaningful, personal story. The project is a nominee for a 2014 award from the gay rights organization Glaad.
Then, on Feb. 24 this year, everything changed. That was the day President Yoweri Museveni signed Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act into law. Two days later, Uganda’s largest tabloid, the Red Pepper, published an article titled “Homosexuality Could Cause Mental Illness — Medics.” One of the photographs accompanying the article was one — also published by The Advocate — that I had taken at Uganda’s very first pride parade in 2012, showing two Ugandans with broad smiles. The Red Pepper had not contacted me or sought my permission.
On many days since, similar stories and photographs have been published. The worst for me and my activist friends came on Feb. 28, when the Red Pepper reprinted — again, without permission — a version of my photo essay for The Advocate. The feature was retitled “Top Ugandan Gays Speak Out: How We Became Homos.” I had been given a byline as if I were one of the newspaper’s reporters. Some words were changed, and the photographs were cropped to cut out my copyright watermark. The Advocate was neither contacted nor credited.
Uganda has strong laws against copyright infringement. Although the Ugandan participants and I knew that the photos and stories might someday be used against us, we never thought the entire project would be stolen wholesale. A few Ugandans had most likely seen the photographs already, but the Red Pepper’s misappropriation was intended to distribute the material as broadly as possible in a hateful manner.
My friend Richard, who was named in the article, called me in Portland. His phone would not stop ringing. Friends had suddenly turned into homophobic enemies, shouting curses at him. He told me it was the worst day of his life.
My friends’ lives were at risk. I had to do whatever I could immediately.
I reached out to the Ugandans involved, via email and Skype. A few had closed down their social media accounts and turned off their phones. Nearly everyone was in a state of shock. Some were hysterical; a few were calm but angry at the Red Pepper’s malicious theft of our project.
My friend Dismus, in remote western Uganda, told me: “I’m so angry. Is life worth living now? I don’t know.” Elijah, who also lives in western Uganda, told me that he was at work when colleagues approached him holding a copy of the newspaper. The group soon grew into an angry mob that chased him away amid shouts and threats. Too fearful for his safety to return home, when I spoke to him, he was walking the streets of Masaka, a city several hours away by bus.
“Tell me, what am I to do?” he yelled into the phone. “I’ve lost everything!” I felt guilty and responsible; I worked with friends in Uganda to find Elijah safe temporary lodging.
Most of the people in my story have been forced to relocate or have gone into hiding. One fled the country. Several, like Elijah, lost their jobs. Mr. Mugisha and other prominent figures in the Ugandan L.G.B.T. movement have stayed put, working to assist others.
Uganda is often painted with a broad brush in the West, as though the entire country were stridently homophobic. But many Ugandans oppose this law, and most rulings in Ugandan courts regarding civil rights cases for L.G.B.T. people have sided with the activists. Several of them were outed in 2009 by the Ugandan tabloid Rolling Stone (which had no connection with the American music magazine). They sued, and won, in a ruling that called the outing a threat to “fundamental rights and freedoms.” The newspaper subsequently folded.
I am now preparing to file suit in Uganda for copyright infringement against the Red Pepper. So far, The Advocate, the oldest L.G.B.T. rights publication in America, has been reluctant to get involved. After the Red Pepper’s unauthorized publication, The Advocate took down the online version of the photo essay. The magazine’s editor, Lucas Grindley, said that before republishing the project, he wanted to contact all the participants to give them “a chance to reassert their intention to stand up while under these new, and terrifying, conditions.” As for the copyright theft, he said, “This is something our lawyers are investigating.”
“This is a very important case for L.G.B.T. advocacy and responsible journalism,” said my Ugandan attorney, Stephen Tumwesigye. “It is important that The Advocate is a party to this suit.”
I have learned from my Ugandan friends that to achieve any lasting change, we must be willing to step forward — often, alone. Their course of action has changed me; I am no longer willing to wait for others to do my work for me. For my friends as well as other Ugandans, I will, if required by the courts or my attorney, return to Uganda to fight this case in spite of my own vulnerability under the new law’s provisions against homosexuality and its perceived promotion.
My friend Richard was in San Francisco last week to speak at a technology conference. We caught up afterward.
“Are you still glad you participated in our project?” I asked.
“Yes, absolutely,” he said. “So I could tell the world my story.”
Denver David Robinson works for an international development organization.