By Bobo. Photo by John McAllister

I have this fear and it keeps my legs shaking. My heart beats faster when I think about it. If you were in the same shoes with me, would you feel different? Could you hope to make it in an environment like this one, so unaccommodating and hostile?

If you are wondering what I am talking about, read on for all the gory details. And while you do, keep one question in mind – How long is it going to take for us feminine guys to be accepted in “normal” gay culture?

Example: I meet this guy on Facebook. He goes through all my pictures and tells me how good-looking I am, etc., etc. He promises me heaven and earth. I’m not surprised. I know myself, and though I don’t want to brag, it’s true I am cute. At least that’s what my mum always told me when I was growing up!

We make an appointment to meet in person at a local park around 5 in the afternoon. He arrives first and texts me where he is. Of course, he is a straight-acting guy, dress shirt and black pants. I’m in a very tight bootleg and a muscle top, and I’m a little shy and embarrassed since this is our first meeting.

As I approach, he is seated on a tree stump, pretending to be busy with his cheap phone. When he finally looks up at me, his expression is priceless, although it is meant to hurt me. He gives me that look that says “I have to rush, I forgot I had another engagement!”

Well, I never talked to him again. I even went home and blocked him on FB. I told myself I didn’t give a damn. He was nothing to write home about anyway. Too dark and skinny for me. Anyway, it happens all the time. Straight-acting guys are fascinated by femme guys like me, but when it comes to acknowledging their feelings, they make excuses and run away.

Believe me, I’m used to the fact that the society I live in has a set of stereotypes, expectations, and standards of what it means to “qualify” as a man. Men are rough and crude. They watch sports and action movies, obsess about their muscles, get off on porn.

I grew up soft and fragile. I’m interested in pretty clothes and nice accessories. I watch rom-coms, and porn turns me off. I like the company of girls. You can imagine the crap I got growing up.

My dad tried as hard as he could to give me the skills and attitudes a boy child is expected to have, but it never worked. I got all sorts of manly abuse, physically as well as verbally, from him, but nothing could change me. There was nothing I could do. I knew I’d been born this way.

In school I got more abuse, but I was determined to get the education I not only deserve but that I am entitled to according to the UN Declaration of Human Rights. I did not let the insults and humiliations bring me down. I had been through all that since childhood, so by the time I got to high school — where gender expectations were even stronger and the penalties for not conforming even harsher – I still looked soft and girlish on the outside, but on the inside I had become as tough as nails.

Here is the strategy I came up with. It works perfectly. Whenever people try make fun of me, I just laugh my lungs out. Then I ignore them.

What I did not expect was to find the same attitudes among so many straight-acting gay guys. I never knew any other gay boys when I was growing up. I only realized there was such a thing as a gay community when I entered the university and started dating for the first time.

That’s when, to my amazement, I started experiencing discrimination not just from the straight world but from other gay men. At first I could not believe that guys who would have been shunned themselves if only people knew they were gay would have the nerve to shun me just because my sexuality, unlike theirs, is obvious.

The guy in the park is typical of what I experienced. I have met a lot of different straight-acting guys, with different personalities in all kinds of ways, except they all agreed on one thing – looking down on me because I’m femme.

Those that don’t just shun me or run away try to lecture me on what to wear and not to wear, how to walk “properly” and talk with a deep voice. They tell me they were born gay, but they can’t accept that I was born gay and femme.

Strangely enough though, being femme doesn’t stop the same straight-acting guys from coming on to me! They are okay with fucking me, just not being seen with me. In private I’m their “sweetheart” and “doll,” but in public names like “sissy” and “queen” are my daily bread.

I don’t blame them for being attracted, of course. I have a figure identical to that of a girl, and I am tall and slim with a beautiful long back and … well, you get the picture.

But I won’t let myself be used and then let go. And after a lot of disappointments, I finally met a guy who loves me for who I am. We’ve been together almost two years now, but that does not change the fact that we femme guys in Botswana remain a marginalised minority within a minority.

When will this ignorant world understand we are born this way and different by nature?