A story like Being Different helps us to understand why the only type of love relationship in most traditional, small, rural places is between men and women. Everyone is ‘normal’.

So, no wonder those people defend their community and punish or shame anyone who experiments with other types of love: lesbian, homosexual, trans, bisexual, even asexual. Right?

The truth though, is that this ‘100% normality’ only seems to be the case. It is in fact what is abnormal. And the story tells us why it is so easy to believe and keep up this fiction. Non-heterosexuals in these places are simply too terrified to express who they really are.

Look what happened to Lizzy and Nizole when their love was discovered. They were terrorised, blackmailed, humiliated and mocked, then assaulted and ‘correctively raped’. (As if that evil crime will not make a female hate and fear men; certainly not ‘love’ them!)

The local pastor prayed, ‘for God to forgive me for my sinful ways and deliver me from the evil we’d brought upon ourselves and our families.’

Nizole’s aunt blamed her too, and even her beloved cousin, Linda, did not defend her.

Everyone assumed that the ‘experimenting’ girls would now stop their nonsense. They would be straight, ‘normal’ girls keen to get boyfriends. Linda even phones and asks, “How’s varsity? Met any cute guys yet?”

The traumatized girls themselves try to ignore or mentally shut down their true feelings. But as soon as Lizzy and Nizole meet again, the intense love they share flares up. They cannot stop it, because this is truly how they naturally are: gay.

In the Talking Points for In Search of Happiness and Bongani and Lizo we pointed out that ‘Scientists and rights activists know that worldwide people are biologically, naturally sexually diverse. They are born that way. For the religious: God made them that way. It’s human-imposed religion and culture that force many people to fearfully hide their true sexuality.’

Every group of people, worldwide, shows diverse sexual orientation. In the same Talking Points we gave you the SA facts: ‘The government’s Human Sciences Research Council survey in 2016 found that 530 000, or 1,4%, of our adult population is gay. In most countries it’s around 2%.’ Some countries, especially in Asia, have always accepted varied sexual orientations. Many more do today.

Here is another example of variation, from the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA). It says (read the full article here) that in 1 out of 1 500 or 2000 births, a baby is born with such unusual genitals, ‘that a specialist in sex differentiation is called in’. It goes on: ‘… a lot more people than that are born with subtler forms of sex anatomy variations, some of which won’t show up until later in life.’ In other words, midwives and medical people can often literally see that a newborn baby is not clearly male or female; it is intersex. In traditional societies way back (perhaps even now) such things were kept secret and the babies were often put to death.

As Being Different shows, today in some communities in cities and towns, and places like universities, people are better informed. So they attract LGBTI people, who are accepted and supported. There they can live openly with many other sexually diverse people. Noni recognises at once that Nizole and Lizzy are gay and in love and says, “Relax. It’s varsity. Nobody cares who you are or who you date. There’s like a thousand of us and we’re all different. In fact, you can join the LGBTI community. They have sessions every Wednesday at the law building.”

LGBTI people in our country are protected by our Constitution and laws. But as the story illustrates so well, it can take a long, long time for old ways of thinking to change. At the end of the story we admire Lizzy’s dream – to one day go back and try to educate and modernise the village people around sexual orientation.