Can you introduce yourself for me?
My name is Neo Baepi. I am 28 years old - I don’t look it [smiles warmly]. I have quite a long geographical history in South Africa. I was born in a small town called Klerksdorp in the North West and I grew up in a town about the same size 45 minutes away called Potchefstroom until I was about 6, and then I moved to Johannesburg with my dad and we lived in Yeoville which is in the CBD and you don’t want to live there now. And I lived in places like Soweto, PE, Cape Town, Texas and grew up with most of my formative life in Johannesburg. I identify myself probably 6 different times a day or an hour, but I would say that I’m a gender non conforming boy, and I like girls... who also bend genders. I’m a photographer, I really like taking photographs, and I feel a lot more human when I have a camera in my hand ‘cause things are so bleak, things are so sad, but when I get to take photos of people who want me to take photos of them, I feel like we can work on this mess of a world we’ve got.
What does becoming mean to you?
So, up until very recently, I identified as a lesbian but even when I did, I didn’t feel like one and I couldn’t relate to other lesbians and I really didn’t know why but I just went with it because labels right? It's a way to move through society. And then I met my partner and what she made me realize was that I was given space by her and her thinking and our relationship to explore my gender and my sexuality and my sexual orientation. The things that have stayed consistent are my sexuality and my sexual orientation, but my gender is always transforming. So, becoming to me is that transformation. It's about accepting and embracing that I’m never going to be one thing, or a set of things, and I shouldn’t fixate on those things. So, the reason I like talking about my queerness is because I sometimes forget I’m queer - it’s not something I fixate on, its not a thing that makes me who I am. And I realize it’s getting trendier and it’s getting cuter to be gay, and I appreciate that, but I also interrogate that. I’m very conscious of gay for play ass niggas, because I’ve always been this way. And growing up, I was never forced to accept it as my entire destiny; I am so many things before and after I’m gay. So, becoming means constantly making the world adaptable to you as opposed to the other way around. I am tired of bending and crouching for this ugly planet. I’m going to expand it so I can walk tall. So yeah, that’s what becoming looks like to me, it’s making the world bigger so I can breathe and be. I’m tired of being small, and becoming is the process, it’s a very active process of not being small.
Why is it important to choose yourself?
It’s important to pick yourself, not in the cheesy way, like “choose yourself” as a sticker on a wall in white woman’s home, but picking yourself is important particularly as a queer person, because nobody else is going to do it for you. Most recycling has to happen more rigorously; when you throw away cardboard, you have to clean it, you have to separate it from colours, you know what I mean? When you throw away your milk carton you have to make sure it’s clean or you might as well not recycle - bad recycling is just as bad as pollution. So if I pick myself at the expense of others, then you’re not really choosing yourself, but if you pick yourself empathetically, then it’s community based and you do it for everybody else, including yourself. It's very rewarding to do it that way. There’s no point in picking yourself selfishly. No, there's nothing wrong with being selfish, but there's no point in picking yourself at the expense of other people which is what racism is, which is what whiteness is. But choosing yourself mindfully and empathetically is different.
What were pivotal moments of becoming?
When I was younger, I convinced myself that I had a rare disease where I grew female, femme parts. That's not a mistake, that’s very intelligent for like a 10 year old to imagine. So that was really pivotal, that’s when I realized I’m beyond just gay, there’s something and it’s not a dysphoric thing - I’ve never been dysphoric - I just accepted it as just a difference which is why it’s probably easy for me to empathetically pick myself. I didn’t say I was in the wrong body, I was like “I’m in this body and we have to deal with it”.
Another pivotal moment was the death of my uncle. I was 12 when he died and he committed suicide and he was really depressed. I was 12 so I didn’t know, and you know the family barely talks about it, but I lost my best friend, he was 23 years old. And that's when I discovered mental illness as something that's not really explored for Black people, and I might have to say we are the most depressed people out here and we don’t really confront that.
And I think the third pivotal moment was when I slept with a woman for the first time… [laughs]. Yeah, I don’t think I need to say more about that [laughs once more].
All of those things I suppose in some way consciously, unconsciously, subconsciously, have made me who I am, and who I’m trying to be. If someone had to ask me if I’m a good person, I could say absolutely, without a fucking doubt. I am a very good person. But that's not the same as asking, “Do you like Neo?” You don’t have to like me, but you can’t challenge my character. I know I’m a good person. And it's very gratifying to know that.
Read Neo’s full interview here