FIGHTING FEAR.

Forced to marry a man 40 years her senoir, TsiTsi Tiripano has now become Zimbabwe's most visible lesbian

The first thing most people notice about TsiTsi Tiripano is her hands. Strong and smooth, they hop and jump like birds just learning to fly. The 33-year-old (who fears too much for her safety to use her real name for this story) uses these hands to emphasize the importance of her message about the plight of gay men and lesbians in her homeland, Zimbabwe.

Today Tiripano is using her hands during a stop on a tour of North America and Europe with Amnesty International--an effort to shed light on the virulent antigay sentiment infecting her country.

It's a sentiment Tiripano, likely the country's most visible lesbian, knows well. In 1996 the then-29-year-old was representing the group Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe at the International Book Fair in the capital city, Harare, when protesters began throwing apples and oranges at her and burning GALZ literature. "The police were no help, so I had to flee," she says.

The ensuing media coverage of the protest outed Tiripano to her family and to government officials, essentially making her the first out lesbian in the country. When she returned the next morning to her hometown of Maron Denna, she was greeted with more protesters, holding signs that read DOWN WITH HOMOSEXUALITY.

Tiripano had known about her sexual orientation since she was 14, when "a friend called me and my girlfriend `lesbians,'" she says. After asking the boy what the word meant, she says, "I smiled and told everyone, `I'm a lesbian!'" At the time she had no idea how many would frown on such an innocent revelation.

It's not difficult to pinpoint the source of many Zimbabweans' fear of gay men and lesbians. The country's president, Robert Mugabe, has said publicly that homosexuals are "perverts" and "worse than dogs and pigs." The president even ushered in the new millennium with a speech denouncing gay marriage, saying, "We cannot have a man marrying a man or a woman marrying a woman here. What an abomination, a rottenness of culture, real decadence of culture." Mugabe also has suggested that homosexuality is an illness, inflicted upon African nations by European culture. Mugabe's mind-set is not isolated--Zimbabweans have even accused gay men and lesbians of causing droughts.

"One of the biggest issues facing gay men in Zimbabwe is blackmail," Tiripano says. "When police see two men they suspect are gay, they threaten to arrest unless the men pay money. And if you don't give them money, they will arrest you on sodomy charges."

Understandably, "many people feel isolated and confused about their sexual feelings and get depressed, feel guilty," she says. To help combat this, Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe provides counseling and meeting spaces. "We want to raise awareness within the entire Zimbabwean society," she says.

Although she came out to herself at 14, Tiripano endured homophobia firsthand before becoming a champion for human rights. At 15 she was forced to marry a man 40 years her senior. After eight years of marriage and two children, she ran away from Maron Denna to live with friends in Harare.

Two years passed before she had the courage to return home to her sons, who by that time were living with Tiripano's father. She was allowed to see the boys only after promising her father that she would not talk to them about homosexuality. Now 16 and 18, her sons still live with their grandfather but are "very supportive" of her cause, she says.

As Tiripano travels around the world telling her stow, she can report some signs of progress--she is able to live comfortably with her partner of four years, Zandile, and her partner's two daughters. But, as she makes a broad gesture with her hands, she says there is a lot of work left to do. "There are still lesbians coming out," she says. "[They] need my support."

Find more information on Days and lesbians in Zimbabwe and Romania as well as links to reports from international human rights groups at www.advocate.com

Cohen is editorial assistant at the New York Daily News.