Seventeen years later I awoke early to the distant but clear and harsh sounds of the new military recruits jogging in formation on a paved road down in the valley below. I listened at the window as they sang their gruff military chant in unison, although since all of the valleys were still shrouded in the deep morning fog the recruits themselves weren’t visible. I didn’t need to see them; such groups of young men were a common sight in 1986. Their bass voices grew softer as they moved away, the sounds of their roughly shod feet hitting the potholed asphalt getting less distinct.
I was nearing the middle of what would become fourteen years living in Africa, and was staying in the guest room of the official home of US Ambassador Bob Houdek and his wife Mary. Both were consistently gracious and warmly hospitable every time I came to Kampala from my home in Nairobi, Kenya, and I came quite often. Given the plight of war-torn Uganda at that time, there were few hotels safe enough to stay in. My frequent travels from Kenya to neighboring Uganda were due to my profession; I was the architect for the comprehensive rehabilitation of an older house not far from the Houdek’s, and my client was the US State Department. Even though their beautifully appointed temporary home wasn’t far from the center of the Ugandan capital, Kampala barely functioned as a city. Few vehicles dared to venture out other than some military trucks or rugged four-wheel drive cars with diplomatic license plates. There were no aircraft overhead; I remember that the fading cadence-calls gave way to just the raucous sound of African crows and the background buzzing of insects. There was no rumble or buzz of a city. Hearing gunshots was common, though I heard none that particular morning. I’d come to hear the sound of gunfire as normal.
That morning at the Houdek’s home, a tree in the yard below was drooping under the weight of an enormous congregation of large and ungainly marabou storks; in their dowdy feathered formal wear they seemed much more of a “congregation” than a flock. In the early morning light, the beautiful frangipani flowers of bold colors mixed in with a riotous mix of other tropical plants and vibrant green grasses, all melting into the fog below. Even the dirt paths were brightly mottled in the patterning of the black cotton (very fertile, expansive clay) soil and the red clay. Hard bright edges were everywhere; only the fog was soft.
I lingered at that window, knowing by then that there wasn’t any need to rush. “No hurry in Africa” was a common refrain; Africa only seemed to move quickly when danger approached. In the ambassadorial compound I knew I was in one of the safest places in the entire country, yet I was still too young and inexperienced to know how fragile even that relative security was. Uganda remained in turmoil, although the bloody, five-year Bush War between the National Resistance Army of Yoweri Musevini and the Uganda National Liberation Army of Apollo Milton Obote was finally drawing to a close. Innumerable atrocities had taken place on all sides, especially against the most vulnerable persons, but no one seemed to be counting. So many women had been raped and infected with STDs or HIV/AIDS, so many young boys had been forced to become child soldiers, and so many older civilians who could not run fast enough had been slaughtered. I dread to think what became of LGBTQI Ugandans in those days. The prevailing mindset still dominates: life in Africa is cheap. The normalization of that obscenity is among the worst outrages Africa has ever had to endure.
That distant morning remains a very strong memory of a time that now feels remarkably surreal. The atmospherics of the fog in the valleys of the very hilly terrain, the color of the plants, the cacophony of the birds and insects, the vantage point of the ambassador’s guest room window—Who was I to be in such a place at such a time? The sense of being in a bubble, playing an elaborate masculine role in an exotic locale in the middle of a war and doing my script with convincing dexterity; it all comes back to me as a pivotal moment of bizarre abnormality posing as an odd sort of normal. The beautiful home, filled with American furniture and a charming Ambassadorial host and hostess, beguiled me. My “character”—the British-trained American architect with a Florida-registered architectural firm based in Kenya—in all its oddity somehow attracted credibility and trust. Embodied as Stephen, I was cofounder and managing director of Landplan Group Africa, and as Stephen I was living the adventure of a lifetime. An astounding adventure indeed, but always perceived through a personal fog, from the remoteness of being in the wrong body. I didn’t know that then; that awareness had been pushed down into a very deep place of denial in my life.
Uganda has barely experienced Chloe, even though that country has been a touchstone in my life since my first visit in 1982, and my very dear friend Byaruhanga Rukooko still teaches there at Makerere University, and my equally dear friend Sarah Kihika still works on transitional justice issues in Kampala. I also now have a number of intrepid, resilient, and very endearing Ugandan LGBTQI activists and community members, such as Beyoncé Karungi or Richard Lusimbo, whom I feel drawn to and care deeply about. I “see” them regularly on Facebook, and a few are now among the Ugandan diaspora here in Washington, DC.
Since those long-ago days of my architect’s life in East Africa, I’ve returned many times to Kampala and even lived that Fulbright year there with my then wife and two young children—but only once have I been there as Chloe. That short visit in 2012 was twenty-six years after my stay with the Houdeks, but this time American Ambassador Scott DeLisi and his wife Leija marked my return in the best possible way. I was the guest of honor at a lovely and elegant dinner held at their official residence, the very same building that Bharat and I had designed and been working on all those years ago. It was a magical evening, and while there were many similarities across the years, the differences were astounding. It would be easier to assert the reality of a parallel universe than to make sense of the utterly changed environment of a bustling and noisy city, the relaxed sophistication of those who joined me at that dinner, and the bemused serenity that came with knowing that, had I chosen to do so, I could’ve walked the mile back to my downtown hotel in safety. The memory of the Bush War of the early 1980s seemed remote, and recollecting the thoughts of that young person in a male body looking out a window in a nearby building seemed almost irretrievable. Almost, but not quite. This time I wasn’t there as an architect; instead, I was the senior advisor on democracy, human rights and governance for the Africa Bureau of the US Agency for International Development. It was still a role, but who could have imagined that I would be there as the very first transgender political appointee in American history in any of the federal foreign affairs agencies? Still, as important as that distinction was, the feeling of just being Chloe was what mattered most. This was the self-ish and real thing; there was no comparison.