“It’s not biblical.”

Yes, I think now I need to talk about my younger brother. I'm five years older than him. He always looked up to me - things I learned from my older brother I passed on to him, such as music, fashion, art and things like that. The first time he had an inkling of my sexuality must have been when he was in university. After graduating, I started working in Lagos. I came home for the holidays and there was this same friend I talked about, a gay friend of mine living in the neighbourhood. He had made a pass at one of my younger brother's friends, and it had erupted into a huge scandal within the neighbourhood and beyond. So my brother was complaining about his friend, and why he felt the need to even broadcast what had happened. “You know how people talk. Very soon, because you’re friends, people might think that you and him are lovers”. Of course, we weren't lovers, we were just gay friends.  

My brother came to visit me in Lagos, and even met my boyfriend at the time. So he must had an idea of my sexual orientation, but didn’t openly speak about it with me. Funny enough, he used to get on quite well with my gay friends. I remember one time I came home for the holidays, and they said they had met one of my friends at the airport. And this friend insisted they go for drinks - they had a nice time, a nice conversation and all that.

I never told him directly that I'm gay. When he got married and had his first kid, we had a discussion about marriage, family, the African traditional thing. “So bros, this is the time you should consider getting married too, just give it a shot. I know you've always been a private person, introverted and all that. But, you might not really want to live with anybody, but just give it a shot. If you don't like it, you can always get a divorce. Make mom happy, make society happy”. We never talked about it again for years. When I was settled in South Africa, I told him over the phone that I had to leave Nigeria because I'm gay.

“It’s not biblical”. Due to my mom's influence, he had become more involved in the church. “Do you know what the Bible says about this? We were brought up as Christians. In fact, you should just forget about it, pray about it and stop it. Maybe that's why things are not going well for you. That's why you have all these problems. Have you ever heard of a gay person being successful in life?”. Well, he clearly hadn’t heard of Elton John or Dolce and Gabbana.

When my mom died, I couldn't attend the funeral. My brother and I had the conversation again. He said, “Look, this gay thing, it’s the cause of all your problems, and your reason for leaving Nigeria. You couldn't even come back for mom's funeral. It's causing a barrier in your progress. You should find a way out. You need a strong spiritual person to pray for you”. I said, “Look, I can't I can't continue hearing this from you”. Later on, I posted something on Facebook, a true story in the US about two guys who met each other. They started dating, only to discover that they were actually blood brothers, with the same father but different moms. On the Facebook page, one of his friends wrote, “Oh gays, crazy useless people”. My brother liked the comment – it felt like such an affront to me. I decided to unfriend him on Facebook.  Weeks after, he noticed that I had unfriended him on Facebook. “What's going on?”. I said, “I saw the comment your friend made. What would make you post something like that in the first place? Out of all the things to post on Facebook. You know you have a gay brother. You know we are friends on Facebook. You know that I’ll likely see it. Not only that, your friend made a comment that was incredibly homophobic”.

And I thought what binds us together is not even obligatory. After all, both our parents are dead, and it's up to us to choose whether we want to continue being brothers or not. I told my older brother in the US about what had transpired. My older brother called him, hoping to convince our younger brother otherwise, but he repeated the same sentiments to him. “I can’t abide with his life decisions. What would I tell my kids? What if my son turned out to be gay in future, we wouldn’t have any moral ground to object.” My brother of course countered his statements. “Your arguments are not valid. If your child is going to be gay, he’s going to be gay. It's not his gay uncle that's going to teach him how to be gay”. So now, it’s as if there are two camps in the family: my senior brother and sister that support me, and my younger brother and sister that do not. The gay thing, maybe it's my it's my cross to bear, but it cost me a lot: my mom, my junior brother and sister too. And someone like him, an engineer, who has travelled to the US, has travelled widely. You’d expect him to be more open minded. In fact, we've even watched gay-themed movies in his house. I put it down to what the churches are doing, especially in places like Nigeria. There's no reference to love your neighbour as yourself, or true Christian love. That's supposed to be the foremost thing. Instead, they break up families and destroy relationships. It has cost me my relationship with my brother – how can that ever be healed.

I do regret the situation because I love him very much. I've always been protective of him. I’ve tried to always be there for him. Out of all the children, he is the one that looks most like my dad, he has my dad's face and voice. It’s as if his condemnation of me is my father’s voice reverberating from his grave. And it worries me sometimes, to think of my father as being displeased with me as well. I know my mom, wherever she is, she would never, never reject me. But when I hear my brother talk like that it’s as if my dad is speaking through him and it leaves me with an uncomfortable inner anger, conflict and remorse. But then again, I'm proud of who I am. I didn't choose to be gay. I found myself gay, and I've learned to live this way. I’ve sometimes thought of killing myself. I don't think I want to die, I don't think there's anything more you can do than to just take it for what it is, even if it has to cost you some relationships with family members. I miss my brother. I wish I could have him back, but that's the way it is. He's stubborn and he thinks I'm being stubborn, I don't know how the situation is going to pan out, but I really feel the loss, because, again, I know how fleeting time is. Any one of us can pass away at any time, and it would be so sad if I passed away and we never made up, or if something happened to him and we never made up. It would be another huge source of sadness…