(Un)settled: Exploring Gender in History

Colonized Black Male Bodies: The Battleground for African Anti-LGBTQ+ Laws A longstanding battle on the African continent rages on; its battleground is located squarely on the bodies of Black gay men. When Britain colonized large areas of Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, thet set in place penal codes which outlawed “crimes against nature,” meant to signal homosexual acts.1 These penal codes remain in many postcolonial countries; a 2019 report by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association found that thirty-two of fifty-four African nations currently criminalize same-sex relations.2 Gay sex is punishable by death penalty in Mauritania, Sudan, Northern Nigeria, and Southern Somalia.3 These laws have remained almost immutable for over sixty years; occasionally an amendment might be disputed around election periods.4 Although these anti-LGBTQ+ laws never originally existed in Africa before colonization, the rhetoric around these nations’ laws often includes the defense of preserving “traditional African values.” This convenient yet historically untrue defense is then used to criminalize, bully, and discriminate against LGBTQ+ individuals and advocates as well as anyone who is suspected of sympathizing with their cause.5 So why are many African nations upholding colonially-imposed anti-LGBTQ+ laws at the same time their colonizers are turning away from those laws? As the West has gained increasing knowledge on the spectrum of human sexuality and moved on from categorizing LGBTQ+ individuals as diseased or criminal, countries like the United States, Canada, and Britain are moving to recognize the rights and freedoms of LGBTQ+ people. This includes embracing marriage equality, enshrining LGBTQ+ protections in law, and criminalizing conversion therapy. Many nations in Africa, on the other hand, do not seem willing to adopt similar laws or even acknowledge the existence of LGBTQ+ individuals in their own countries.

In April of 2018, British Prime Minister Theresa May publicly stated that she “deeply regrets” Britain’s legacy of anti-LGBTQ+ laws across the Commonwealth.6 She called for an overhaul of laws regarding the criminalization of “outdated” legislation and declared that Britain had a “special responsibility” in righting the wrongs of colonial-era anti-gay laws.7 May’s call to action ignited controversy over pre-colonial Africa’s position on sexual minorities. Was it exclusively heterosexual or as sexually-diverse as African LGBTQ+ activists claim it was?

“Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta responded to May that “[LGBTQ+ equality] is not an issue, as you would want to put it, of human rights. This is an issue of society, of our own base, as a culture as a people.”8 Most Africans today do not acknowledge homophobia as part of a colonial legacy.9 Some Africans maintain that there existed a pre-colonial, heterosexual continent10 where there were little to no sexual minorities native to the land. This impression of an African past free of LGBTQ+ people has resulted in legislators, religious leaders, and even presidents casually referring to homosexuality as “un-African.”11 Africans decolonizing their continent from its British colonial legacy have constructed an ideal “original culture.” According to those who trust this narrative, “making Africa great again” means strengthening and tightening antiLGBTQ+ laws to recover their bygone tradition.

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