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I’m touring in West Africa on my annual win-a-trip journey, a worldwide reporting expedition on which I take a college scholar to spotlight points that deserve extra consideration. My winner this yr is Maddie Bender, a latest Yale graduate (the pandemic delayed our journey) — and with that, I’m handing the remainder of the column over to her.
By Maddie Bender
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — When Abdul was a young person and coming to phrases with being homosexual, he was attacked by a bunch of males. They mocked him with homophobic slurs and assaulted him with damaged beer bottles, slicing his thumb open.
He reported the incident to the police and was informed that an arrest could possibly be made — of him, for homosexuality.
Sierra Leone is one among greater than 30 African nations (over half the continent) that criminalize same-sex relations. Whereas a lot of the homosexual folks I spoke with there didn’t appear to concern being arrested, they mentioned discrimination towards them was widespread in housing, employment and household life.
In the meantime, American Christian teams with information of preventing L.G.B.T.Q. rights have poured thousands and thousands of {dollars} into African international locations, based on a 2020 report. Some American evangelicals have been identified to encourage anti-L.G.B.T.Q. laws in international locations corresponding to Uganda.
Queer points are deeply private to me, since I’m bisexual. Whereas L.G.B.T.Q. folks nonetheless undergo hazard and discrimination in America, touring with Nick in West Africa provided a window into the immense adversity queer folks expertise right here — and their resilience and braveness within the face of it.
However Africa will not be uniformly homophobic, and I discovered some bodily and digital area rising for L.G.B.T.Q. communities. In São Tomé and Príncipe, an island nation off the west coast of Africa, homosexuality has been authorized since 2012. “Sexuality is free,” the nation’s prime minister, Patrice Trovoada, informed me, including that in his nation, “you don’t have this hate perspective” towards homosexual folks.
Nonetheless, it’s sophisticated. Members of an affiliation for homosexual males in São Tomé say L.G.B.T.Q. folks within the nation have skilled violence and been ostracized from their households. The group’s president, Kelve Borros, 28, informed me, “Nothing about life is straightforward.”
In Sierra Leone, I met two dozen queer folks inside a neighborhood middle run by the Dignity Affiliation, a neighborhood advocacy group. The middle’s heat jogged my memory of a assist group I belonged to in highschool, the place I had my first kiss with a lady.
Outdoors, the ambiance is chillier. Though folks have been blissful to speak about homosexuality after I requested, most mentioned they’d by no means encountered a homosexual particular person. However in 2013, the Sierra Leonean authorities estimated that round 20,000 (and presumably extra) males who’ve intercourse with males stay within the nation. Statistics for queer girls are fuzzier.
Spending time on-line could also be broadening some folks’s worldviews. A 2020 assessment of Africans’ attitudes towards homosexuality means that frequent web customers usually tend to be tolerant of homosexual folks.
Two youngsters within the metropolis of Makeni in northern Sierra Leone, Fatmata Binta Jalloh, 17, and Marie Kamara, 16, informed me that whereas they consider homosexuality doesn’t exist of their nation, they’ve seen loads of homosexual folks on-line. They recalled watching a viral TikTok video of a lesbian couple celebrating after conceiving a baby via in vitro fertilization. The video, they mentioned, made them blissful for this couple, whose sexuality that they had been taught to concern.
For L.G.B.T.Q. youth like Abdul, on-line content material is usually a form of lifeline. He follows queer celebrities on Instagram, together with the musician Sam Smith and the rapper Rashad Spain (referred to as Saucy Santana), and aspires to a stage of success that may additionally partially insulate him from violence and homophobia.
When requested in regards to the queer illustration that Sierra Leone’s younger folks may even see on-line, the nation’s president, Julius Maada Bio, in contrast exterior influences to the contagion of gun violence. Due to know-how, he mentioned, “‘copycatting’ turns into very simple,” and he anxious that outdoors info “poses a severe menace to our personal tradition and lifestyle.”
I’d wish to see the US use its affect to press for extra tolerance — sure types of help, for instance, might require taking part organizations to not discriminate towards L.G.B.T.Q. folks — however after speaking to folks like Fatmata and Marie, I think that our best software for making change is smooth energy.
We must be outraged at how far the Christian proper has gone to assist the persecution of homosexual folks in African international locations. These legal guidelines want to vary, however I doubt that equal and reverse meddling is the answer.
As an alternative, we will name upon our personal leaders to assist fund secure areas overseas and strengthen strains of communication with native organizations in Africa just like the Dignity Affiliation, and communicate out when their members are threatened.
As for these of us within the L.G.B.T.Q. neighborhood, let’s embrace our energy on-line. Within the face of bigotry and restrictive laws at residence and overseas, flaunting our satisfaction may be an act of radical resistance. And all of us can communicate with our wallets, making clear that tourism can be jeopardized in international locations that punish same-sex love.
Attitudes aren’t shifting quick sufficient for younger folks like Abdul, who was outed in 2019 and pushed from his residence. Now 20, he imagines a unique life for himself due to the queer celebrities he follows on-line.
They’ve taught him that he has to attempt, he mentioned: “I do know it’s not going to be simple.”
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