Documenting the Untold Stories of Global Queer Communities

A few years ago, Paul Ngangula was sitting in church in Livingstone, Zambia, where he grew up, when the pastor launched into a tirade about homosexuality, describing gay people as being “of the devil.”

Ngangula’s thoughts raced with concern for the friends he knew who were gay, people who in many cases had survived extreme stigma and violence. “I couldn’t swallow, and I didn’t move an inch,” he says. “Imagine living in a place like that and knowing you’re queer. It was hard.” 

Zambia is one of more than 60 countries with laws that criminalize same-sex relations, carrying penalties of up to 14 years in prison. But beyond potential legal punishment, people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer in those countries often face extreme prejudice and threats of physical violence that lead them to hide their identities, rendering them invisible. 

Ngangula, who graduated in May from DGHI’s Master of Science in Global Health program, wants to change that. He and fellow master’s graduate Lucy Weyer Johnson have launched a project to produce a documentary film titled “Existence: The Untold Story of Queer Lives.” The film will document the lives of sexual and gender minorities in four countries – Brazil, China, Guatemala and Kenya. Ngangula and Weyer Johnson began planning the film before graduating in May, and they’re now working to secure funding to complete production. (See the end of this article for details).

Weyer Johnson, who is a lesbian, says the project seeks to affirm the lives of queer people living in places that often deny their existence. “Queer people are everywhere, and they’ve always been here,” she says. “And they will always be here.” 

While the film will feature interviews from four different parts of the world, the narrative will be tethered by themes such as resistance, family rejection, survival and love. it will also explore unique aspects of the queer experience, such as “lavender marriage,” a common practice among lesbians in China to enter marriages with heterosexual men to stay safe in a culture that does not widely accept them.

Another part of the documentary will focus on Jacqueline Gomes de Jesus, a trans activist in Brazil whom Ngangula and Weyer Johnson met through a DGHI research project aiming to protect transgender people from violence. More transgender people have been murdered in Brazil than in any other country, accounting for nearly one third of all global cases in 2024, according to a report.

“We’ll be able to center [transgender people] around the tension of how [Brazil] can have such liberal policies while there’s so much hatred and violence towards transgender people,” Weyer Johnson says. 

Weyer Johnson will also draw on stories she heard while completing her thesis research in rural Guatemala, which focused on stigma and violence faced by indigenous gay and bisexual men. Many bisexual and gay men in the region hide their sexuality because they fear losing their jobs, being ousted by families or becoming victims of violence, she says.

Ngangula envisions the film as speaking out against a rising tide of rhetoric and legal action that discriminates against sexual and gender minorities. In recent years, countries such as Russia, Uganda and Malaysia have adopted or strengthened anti-LGBTQ laws, while in the U.S., nearly 600 bills have been introduced in state legislatures restricting access to gender affirming care, the ACLU reported 

“These laws are inhumane, and we want to show how it affects queer people,” Ngangula says. “We hope this film can change policies and laws.”

At the same time, the film will show queer people engaging in “everyday moments – someone cooking at home or making tea, laughing with friends or commuting to work,” Ngangula says. “These scenes matter [because] they push back against the idea that queerness is unnatural or foreign.”

“This film is an invitation to everyone to see how queer people live under the radar and how they acknowledge their own existence,” he says. “We hope to push that acknowledgment and acceptance of queer people so others can see who we are.” 

“Existence: The Untold Story of Queer Lives” is currently seeking funding and production resources to complete the documentary. Anyone with questions, interests or suggestions for the project can email Weyer Johnson and Ngangula at existence.film.2024@gmail.com.”