Mike, age 17

“Many youth are closed-minded about homosexuality because they don’t understand exactly what it is.”

I realized I was gay at 14 years – I often thought about boys. I didn’t really know what homosexuality was. I had heard people talk about it, but had not really paid attention. I talked about this with friends, and at first they said these are just ideas, they are fantasies. But now they are cool, they are understanding. They accept me as I am.

Right now, I’m in secondary school at one of the best schools in Bujumbura. I love going to school to see my friends – I love the social life. After the end of my general humanities studies, I want to do a degree in business management. I would also love to do courses in English, to be able to work throughout the East African community, in Kenya, maybe, or Rwanda. I would like to represent a large business, or even start my own.

I would also love to be a deputy or senator. Politics interests me a lot. What I like most in politics is the possibility of innovation. Right now, they do things that have been done for 20 years, or for an eternity. I think there are many things to reform. In society there should always be reforms, because nothing is complete.

I don’t understand how a group of people can restrict the rights of another category, as small a minority as it may be. Many youth are closed-minded about homosexuality because they don’t know exactly what it is. They think it’s an evil incarnated within people that must be destroyed, and they form false ideas about it, and the ideas they have, they transmit. There is a sort of group pressure, a group-think – and some people feel that if they see certain things differently, they won’t be part of the group. But there are others who are understanding.

In class one day we had a debate about homosexuality. Some argued in favor, and some against. Some talked about morals, and others, we talked about how morals change as time passes and that you have to accept the other as he is, if you want to be accepted as you are. The majority of the class was against it. Those who said they were in favor of homosexuality raised their hands timidly, but I looked around and thought, if there are even a few people who are in favor, that’s already something. As the debate went on, their spirits lifted and even those who had started out timidly were making strong arguments.