Nakafeero Swabulah and her lesbian activists in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya teach us that pro-LGBTQA rights activists face similar challenges all over the world, as their opponents are using similar arguments and tactics.
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Nakafeero (left) and one of her fellow lesbian activists in Kenya. (Private photo) |
Transgender World has published an interview with Nakafeero called “A lesbian refugee from Uganda is doing her best to assist LGBT people living in a refugee camp in Kenya.”
In this interview Nakafeero talks about her escape from Uganda — where her mother and sister were killed by homophobes coming for Nakafeero — and about what she and her lesbian crew do for LGBTQA people in the refugee camp.
They are trying to get funds for medication, shelters, food, baby formula, sanitary pads, detergents, clothes, clean water and more, anything that can increase the quality of life of the LGBTQA refugees and their kids. This is not easy, though, as there are homophobic and transphobic thugs in this camp, as well.
Related anti-LGBTQA narratives all over the world
I am not saying that the challenges faced by a Black lesbian woman in a refugee camp in Kenya are the same as those of a white lesbian woman in Germany. They are not. Most queer people in the US and Europe have resources and privileges Nakafeero and her friends can only dream of.
But what I do see is that the homophobia and transphobia found in countries as diverse as Uganda, Kenya, the United States, Russia and Sweden have commonalities. They draw energy from similar psychological, cultural and political forces.
The similarities between Ugandan and American anti-LGBTQA propaganda are, for instance, many:
- Being queer or trans is either seen as a sexual perversion or a sin (or both).
- They claim you can be “cured” of homosexuality and being of trans (leading to a promotion of conversion therapies, “repentance” and detransitioning)
- Gay and trans people are “groomers” who, with the help of their “ideologies”, seduce and harm children. The “pedophilia” narrative represents the logical endpoint of this moral panic.
- A tolerance of LGBTQA people is seen as part of a sinister “liberal” or “socialist” campaign in the USA and as an effect of “Western colonialism” in Uganda. This amounts to more or less the same thing, though: Pro-LGBTQA policies reflect “foreign” thinking in violation of “local traditions”.
- Anti-LGBTQA activists in both the US and Uganda are using legislative campaigns to harm and exclude gay and trans people. This is reflected in the new anti-gay law of Uganda, which strengthens previous anti-LGBTQA legislation. Gay sex is banned, as are gender identities outside what they see as “the binary categories of male and female”. The over 500 bills proposed by Republicans in the USA are mainly targeting trans people, but the rhetoric and logic underpinning them are the same as in Uganda. Indeed, the anti-groomer campaign of the party is targeting all LGBTQA people.