More Recognition for Black Queer People

In Europe, we know little about the lives of queer people in Africa. Negative headlines dominate most of the coverage. For instance, in September Burkina Faso passed a law banning homosexuality. Gay people face prison sentences of two to five years in this West African country, along with hefty fines (TheColu.mn reported). As a result, same‑sex love is illegal in more than 30 African countries. The situation is especially drastic in Uganda, where since 2023 the death penalty has applied for “aggravated homosexuality” (TheColu.mn reported). The situation for transgender and nonbinary people is also dire in many African countries.

Given the negative news about queer life in Africa, it’s worth engaging more deeply with the topic and questioning our own assumptions. In Berlin’s Querverlag, this year in the series “in*sight/out*write” a small and readable book titled “Afrotopia” (Amazon Affiliate Link) was published. The book is particularly affordable. In exchange, readers receive valuable information about queerness and Africa. Jenaba Samura (she/her) wrote the book. She is a freelance author, podcaster, and moderator. She studied gender and postcolonial studies in Göttingen and London. Currently, she is researching in the project “Black Narratives of Transcultural Appropriation” on imaginations of a Black Europe.

Lesbian and Black: No Contradiction

According to Jenaba Samura, the assumption that queerness is not African is widespread both in the German-speaking majority society and in Black and African communities. African politicians often claim queer identities are an “import from the West.” The author had difficulty accepting her queerness herself. “Seeing myself as a queer person was a long process,” she writes in the foreword. For herself to check “I am queer” is one thing; living out that queerness is a completely different thing. The author previously thought of herself as lesbian and Black as seemingly contradictory categories. “On the one hand, I thought I was too feminine to be a lesbian, but above all I am Black.” Not a single Black person she knew was queer, and no queer person she knew was not Black. “So I could not be a lesbian,” she thought back then.

That Jenaba Samura once excluded herself as lesbian and feminine and Black was related to a lack of representation of Black queers. Yet the book makes clear that Black queers have always existed. However, Black queers are the most marginalized group. “Especially Black trans women and femmes. Every day one of our sisters is murdered. Be it by partners, family members, neighbors, or the police,” writes the author.

Her book demonstrates that the assumption “Queerness is for white people” is false. Jenaba Samura uses numerous examples to show that in African societies of the past, notions of gender were far more diverse. There were many more possibilities than simply cis women and cis men.

A Language Without Masculine and Feminine

Beyond concepts like nonbinary and agender, Africa has a long tradition of gender concepts that go beyond heteronormativity and binary gender. An example is the slogan “Yorubas don’t do gender,” coined by the Nigerian scholar Oyeronke Oyewumi. So in Yoruba—an African language spoken mainly in Nigeria—there is no masculine or feminine; a person is simply referred to as “the person,” not addressed with gendered pronouns like “he” or “she.” In the Ghanaian language Twi, too, gendering is not a feature. There are also own terms for queer gender identities. “Kojo Besia” describes a “feminine man,” for instance.

In many precolonial African societies, queer people held “prestigious roles in society,” such as healers or embodiments of deities. “Many of them can be read in depictions as intersex, such as the Nommo deities, consisting of twin pairs, in Mali,” writes the author. Moreover, among the Dogon who worship Nommo, the “perfect” human is androgynous. In ancient Egypt, the deities Mut and Sekhmet possessed both “female” and “male” attributes to the same extent.

As another prominent example of the debates about gender and sexuality in precolonial Africa, the author mentions the “female husbands.” These were often unmarried women who were named heirs after their fathers’ deaths. “If a woman was wealthy enough to pay the bride price, she could marry another woman,” writes Jenaba Samura. The book contains many more examples showing that Africa had much more than the concepts of heteronormativity and binary gender.

Colonialism Has Destroyed Much

But much of this was erased, displaced, or criminalized by colonialism. The colonizers imposed monogamy, marriage, and the nuclear family (composed of a father, mother, and children) by force. In addition, European notions about Black people and African sexuality often contain contradictory images. “Black people, regardless of gender, are hypersexualized, turning them into projection surfaces for common sexual fantasies like the big Black cock or the submissive sex slave,” the author writes. “Hypersexualization always carries a dehumanizing component that reduces Black bodies to mere objects.” This has terrible consequences for Black people. “Fetishizing looks on trains, sexual assaults that authorities don’t take seriously, and one of the most popular porn categories in search engines across all online erotica channels are just some of the consequences,” the author writes.

The title of her book is “Afrotopia.” In it, Jenaba Samura also sketches a Black future vision that reconnects with earlier lived and traditonal alternative notions of gender and sexuality. This could foster a new queer societal utopia. “Black queers have always existed and they will always exist. In Africa, in Europe, everywhere in the world,” the author writes. It is time to give them the recognition they deserve. It is to be hoped that many people will read this book.