Queer Pride and Protest: A Reading of the Bodies at Uganda’s First Gay Beach Pride

Abstract

Wearing army-style camouflage pants, I marched alongside male bodies wearing stylish stilettos, bikini bras, flashy facial makeup, and gomesi, or delicate miniskirts. Beside us, female bodies stomped majestically, wearing mustaches, cologne, and kanzu, or boxer shorts, flashing above low-cut pants. The sexy bodies of drag queens gyrated, twirled, and pulsated rhythmically to local beats. Queen Bad Black, in a lacy scarlet bra and green kaffiyeh over boxer shorts, danced barefoot on the dust path. Dancing seductively, Princess Nature Raymond, whose hairy chest was sprayed with thick paint, wore only boxer shorts and knee-high socks in rainbow colors. Sister Kelly Daniels’s breasts were covered only with rainbow squares worn above a rainbow sarong. Donning men’s pants under a black kanzu with a diagonal rainbow ribbon, Pepe, a trans man and longtime activist for LGBTIQ rights in Uganda, operated a camera.