Kuchu Counterpublic on Facebook: Gay Men’s Challenge to Heterosexist Policies in Uganda

Abstract

How do queer counterpublics online function as spaces where stigmatized individuals can gather to advocate for their interests and share their needs? Based on an online ethnography of gay cisgender men in Uganda, I offer three main conclusions. First, the popular and widely accessible social medium Facebook allows space for a visible queer opposition to the anti-LGBTQ movement and for the realities of the Ugandan LGBTQ community-locally known as kuchu-to emerge through individuals' sexual self-expression and self-knowledge. Second, to avoid identification, arrests, and punishments through state surveillance, kuchus use Facebook to create a list of safe virtual friends. Finally, the rise of a virtual queer counterpublic and its global discourse has deepened transnational stereotypes and encouraged vigorous attacks by the Ugandan government, including indiscriminate arrests. Despite these risks and challenges, kuchus' use of Facebook demonstrates its value for creating a counterpublic.[Uganda, LGBTQ, Counterpublic, Digital Activism, Facebook] On October 22, 2019, the Ugandan police took into custody a man I refer to as Daniel and another fifteen kuchu activists at the office of the sexual health charity where they all worked, on suspicion of gay sex. Kuchu is the local slang word for LGBTQ Ugandans and is used emically with pride (Tamale 2003). The kuchus had called the police to receive protection from a heterosexist mob gathered in front of the charity. 1 Rather than offering Daniel and his coworkers protection, the police forced them to undergo anal examinations.The idea of writing Daniel's story was a driving factor in my research as I began to think about how he and others were creating a virtual kuchu counterpublic. When I first started conducting digital ethnography, digital activism had already become a critical factor in resistance efforts. The notion of kuchu counterpublic that undergirds my work is rooted in Fraser's (1990) conception of the "subaltern counterpublic," that is, "parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counterdiscourses, which in turn permit them to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs" (67).Although I initially set out to study how Ugandan society condemned kuchu under anti-gay laws, my interactions with Daniel inspired my change of focus to resistance and activism in online spaces. At first, he seemed like a victim of heterosexism. As our conversations unfolded, however, I realized I