I am currently on a reporting expedition in West Africa with my annual win-a-trip journey, which is aimed at highlighting issues that require further attention. This year’s winner is Maddie Bender, a recent graduate of Yale University (our trip was postponed due to the pandemic), who will take over the remainder of this column.
By Maddie Bender
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone—As a teenager, Abdul was attacked by a group of men when he was coming to terms with his sexuality. He was mocked with anti-gay slurs and was injured with broken beer bottles, which sliced his thumb open.
He reported the attack to the police authorities, only to be told that they could arrest him instead for homosexuality. Sierra Leone is one of over 30 African countries where same-sex relationships are illegal. While most of the gay people we spoke to there did not seem to be afraid of being arrested, they said that discrimination against them was prevalent in housing, employment, and family life.
According to a 2020 report, conservative Christian groups in America that have a history of fighting for L.G.B.T.Q. rights have poured millions of dollars into African countries. In some countries, such as Uganda, some American evangelicals have been accused of promoting anti-L.G.B.T.Q. legislation, adding to the struggle faced by queer individuals and communities.
I’m bisexual, so queer issues are deeply personal to me. While queer people still face danger and discrimination in America, traveling with Nick in West Africa provided a glimpse into the tremendous adversity queer people face in the region—and their tenacity and bravery in the face of it.
Yet, not every country in Africa is uniformly homophobic, and some physical and virtual areas have emerged for L.G.B.T.Q. communities. São Tomé and Príncipe, an island nation off the west coast of Africa, has had legal homosexuality since 2012. “Sexuality is free,” says the prime minister Patrice Trovoada, adding, “You don’t have this hate attitude” toward gay people in his country.
It’s also complicated. Members of an association for gay men in São Tomé say that L.G.B.T.Q. people in the country have experienced violence and been ostracized by their families. “Nothing about life is easy,” says the group’s president Kelve Borros, who is 28.
In Sierra Leone, I met two dozen queer people at a community center run by the Dignity Association, a local advocacy group. The centre reminded me of a support group I joined in high school, where I had my first kiss with a girl.
However, people I asked said they had never met a gay person outside the center. Yet, in 2013, the Sierra Leonean government estimated that around 20,000 men who have sex with men live in the country. Figures for queer women are less precise.
Spending time online may expand people’s worldviews. A 2020 review of Africans’ attitudes toward homosexuality indicates that frequent internet users are more likely to be tolerant of gay people.
Two teenagers in the city of Makeni in northern Sierra Leone, Fatmata Binta Jalloh, 17, and Marie Kamara, 16, told me that although they believe homosexuality does not exist in their country, they have seen numerous gay people online. They recounted watching a viral TikTok celebratory video of a lesbian couple who had undergone in vitro fertilization to conceive a child. They stated that the video made them happy about the couple, whose sexuality they had been taught to fear.
For L.G.B.T.Q. youths like Abdul, online content can be a kind of lifeline. He follows queer icons on Instagram, including the musician Sam Smith and rapper Rashad Spain (also known as Saucy Santana), and aspires to a level of success that could partly protect him from violence and homophobia.
When asked about queer representation in Sierra Leone’s virtual world, President Julius Maada Bio compared external influences to the spread of gun violence. Because of technology, he claimed that “copycatting becomes so easy,” and he was anxious that external information “poses a serious threat to our own culture and way of life.”
I would like the United States to use its influence to promote more tolerance; certain types of support, for example, could require participating organizations not to discriminate against L.G.B.T.Q. people. However, after speaking with people like Fatmata and Marie, I believe that our greatest tool for change is soft power.
We should be disturbed by the extent to which the Christian right in America has supported the persecution of gay people in African countries. While we need to repeal these laws, I doubt that equal and opposing intervention is the answer.
Instead, we can urge our leaders to help fund safe spaces abroad and strengthen networks with local organizations in Africa, such as the Dignity Association, as well as speak out when their members are threatened.
As for us in the L.G.B.T.Q. community, let us embrace our power online. In the context of bigotry and restrictive legislation at home and abroad, proudly displaying our pride can be an act of radical resistance. And all of us can express our opinions by demonstrating that tourism in countries that penalize same-sex love will be jeopardized.
Atitudes aren’t changing swiftly enough for young people like Abdul, who was exposed in 2019 and chased from his home. He is now 20 and imagines a brighter future for himself due to the queer icons he follows online.
He claims that they have taught him that he must strive and adds: “I know it’s not going to be easy.”
