Africa Is a Country

Gay in Africa

Gay in Africa

By
Sean Jacobs

Two photographers - unrelated - highlight the precarious existence of gay lives on the continent.

By Tadej Žnidarčič.

The Slovenian photographer, Tadej Žnidarčič‘s series of portraits of gay men and women in Uganda is called “Being Gay in Uganda,” They all have their backs turned to the camera. Žnidarčič’s subjects are coy for a reason. Attracting attention can be fatal: “The problem is the way I dress. Everyone is asking, ‘is that a boy or a girl?’ In clubs, when ladies can get in for free, they push us, tell us we are not ladies and that we have to pay. They scream: ‘Is she boy or a girl? Is that man or a woman?’ As tom-boy, everyone looks at you.”

Žnidarčič is one of seven photographers in the “Moving Walls” photographic exhibition opening in mid-March at the Open Society Documentary Project in New York City (and that will travel elsewhere, including hopefully to Uganda).  It could not have come at a better moment for those concerned about and campaigning against the growing homophobia on the continent (see, for example, the statement by bloggers posted on this blog and elsewhere yesterday).

Sam, 2010.

Žnidarčič is one of seven photographers in the “Moving Walls” photographic exhibition opening in mid-March at the Open Society Documentary Project in New York City (and that will travel elsewhere, including hopefully to Uganda).  It could not have come at a better moment for those concerned about and campaigning against the growing homophobia on the continent (see, for example, the statement by bloggers posted on this blog and elsewhere yesterday).  He is also one of two photographers in Moving Walls who focus on gay identity and homophobia on the continent in their work.

The other is Bénédicte Desrus. Her “Persecution of Homosexuality in Uganda” covers events around the Anti-Homosexuality Bill introduced in the Ugandan parliament in October 2009. (The Bill proposes life imprisonment for anyone engaged in homosexual activities and the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality”).

Anti-gay pastors in Uganda. Bénédicte Desrus.

Closer to home in New York City, a third photographer, Jamaican-born, Samantha Box, covered homeless minority LGBT youth in New York City.

Samantha Fox.

Here are the details for the exhibition.

Further Reading

L’impérialisme ne localise pas

En 1973, Josie Fanon a interviewé Oliver Tambo, alors président de l’ANC, à propos d’Israël et de l’apartheid en Afrique du Sud. Il est désormais disponible pour la première fois depuis sa publication originale.

On Safari

On our annual publishing break, we ask: if the opposite of “weird” is normal, what if normal is equally problematic?

Zau is a mirror

Inspired by a tapestry of Bantu folk stories, the video game ‘Tales of Kenzera: Zau’ is rich with mythology that many Africans know as our heritage.

Food wars

The theft dispute between Onezwa Mbola and Nara Smith reveals the consumerist undertones behind content for women in the online creative economy.

Not an obvious hero

In a new film, former UN-Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld is portrayed as a defender of a fledgling postcolonial state. But his role in the Congo Crisis is more complicated.

Not only kafala

Domestic workers in the Gulf typically face a double bind: as a foreign worker, you are governed by kafala laws, while as a female, you are governed by the male guardianship system.