Opinions
Flood of anti-homosexuality bills in Africa threatens us all
Ugandan lawmakers on Tuesday approved revised Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Castration. Banishment. Execution.
This is the fate that a slew of new bills and their proponents in Africa seek for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people: Not only to criminalize adult same-sex sexual intimacy, but to eradicate sexual and gender diversity–including by executing queer people. 32 countries in Africa already criminalize consensual same-sex conduct. The new wave of laws goes much further, enforcing public silence around LGBTQ people’s existence, enlisting citizens as spies, and making every human rights proponent a potential criminal.
LGBTQ Africans are a fact of life. No law will make them disappear. But by promoting laws that posit queer people’s very existence as a problem to be eliminated, and constructing an unseen enemy that could be hiding around any corner, politicians convince the public to accept shockingly repressive legislation.
The ideology underpinning such laws is nothing short of genocidal. Under international law, genocide is the attempt to destroy a group of people, in whole or in part, including by “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.” The strict legal definition of genocide only applies to “national, ethnical, racial or religious” groups, but no other term as clearly captures the depravity of legislation that seeks to eliminate people because of their sexuality or gender.
Genocidal ideology underlies Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2023, passed by Parliament on March 21. It attracted international condemnation as possibly the worst anti-LGBTQ law anywhere in the world, imposing the death penalty for some forms of consensual same-sex conduct. That bears repeating: 387 members of Parliament in Uganda voted to subject gay people to the firing squad for consensual sex. They voted for the death penalty yet again after President Yoweri Museveni returned the bill to Parliament on April 20, requesting amendments including the removal of the death penalty. The revised bill, passed on May 2, contains only minor changes. Families and landlords will still be forced to turn out queer people living into the streets. Speaking up for the “normalization” of sexual and gender diversity, or funding work that advances human rights or economic inclusion for LGBTQ people, still leads to a 20-year prison sentence. Prison officials and social welfare agents would be tasked with “rehabilitating” people convicted under the bill in a form of state-sponsored “conversion therapy” practices. The law maintains a “duty to report” anyone suspected of homosexuality, calling on everyone in Uganda to support the police state by spying on their neighbors, family members and coworkers.
Uganda is only the tip of the iceberg. Its brand of virulent homophobia appears to be contagious: In Kenya, MP George Peter Kaluma submitted the Family Protection Bill of 2023 to the National Assembly on April 7. The bill was a harsh response to a Supreme Court victory affirming that the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission had the constitutional right to register and operate as a non-governmental organization. Kenya’s proposed law follows Uganda’s example in providing the death penalty for some consensual same-sex acts, prohibiting organizations from “normalizing” homosexuality, and penalizing landlords who rent living quarters to persons in same-sex relationships. It copies and pastes language from Uganda’s bill that forces citizens to become thought police: If you “suspect” that someone “intends” to commit an act prohibited by the proposed law and do not report them, you can be fined or jailed. It also prohibits “cross-dressing,” an attempt to specifically legislate trans people out of existence.
Ghana’s Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Act of 2021, currently before Parliament, seems to have provoked less global outrage: It prescribes 3-year prison sentences for offenders rather than life imprisonment or the death penalty. Yet some of its provisions are even more draconian. They criminalize the very existence of diverse identities and orientations: a person can be shut behind bars for “holding out” as “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, ally, pansexual and any other diverse sexual or gender identity.” Again, an attempt to legislate queer people out of existence.
Other proposed anti-homosexuality legislation looms in Francophone countries that were spared the British colonial heritage of criminializing so-called unnatural offenses. In Mali, Justice Minister and Keeper of the Seals Mahamadou Kassogue described homosexuality as “an unnatural relationship,” stating that it would soon be banned and that the Malian “justice does not accept this practice of homosexuality.” In Niger, President Mohamed Bazoum made remarks on the intention to introduce a new Penal Code that would criminalize homosexuality.
The tabling of legislation has been accompanied by a barrage of comments from politicians calling for atrocities to be perpetrated against LGBTQ people. On March 21 during Uganda’s Parliamentary Caucus on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, MP Sarah Opendi made statements to the effect that life imprisonment upon conviction for homosexuality is inadequate, adding that the most appropriate sentence would be castration. In Tanzania, a senior ruling party member Mary Chatanda also called for castration of people in same-sex relationships in March. Like Uganda, Tanzania already has a life sentence on the books for “unnatural offenses” and while no new law is pending, Chatanda’s comments were followed by a spike in anti-LGBTQ violence and raised fears that new laws might be tabled. Still within the same month, Burundi President Evariste Ndayishimiye urged citizens to “curse those who indulge in homosexuality, because God cannot bear it.” He added that “they must be banished, treated as pariahs in our country.” Queer people are already denied other fundamental rights in Burundi, where the law lists homosexuality as a basis of expelling students from secondary schools, thus interfering with the right to access education.
From the death penalty to elimination of safe access to housing, health care and education to calls for castration, banishment and mandatory “conversion therapy” practices, these laws and statements share one characteristic: They seek to destroy LGBTQ lives and livelihoods. Outright has documented how even before such bills are passed, they contribute to increased violence by members of the public as well as by law enforcement officials. These bills are deadly, and while legislating the elimination of queer people from public existence may not legally constitute genocide, it is genocidal thinking. Politicians who call for the execution, castration or banishment of queer people should also be aware that they are advocating crimes against humanity. The implementation of such laws could be tantamount to gender persecution — persecution on the basis of gender as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population — which is prohibited under the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court.
Meanwhile, not only queer people but also the general public in countries passing such bills will see their rights eviscerated through provisions that regulate what opinions they can express, what human rights causes they can support and to whom they can provide goods and services. Internet users, medical providers, artists, well-wishers, allies and creatives will find themselves in conflict with these laws.
Human rights are universal, inherent, inalienable and indivisible. Outright not only recommends that these bills are not affected into law, but also urges all civil society to condemn such moves to curb the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the name of eliminating LGBTQ existence.
Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday commemorating the ratification of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, establishing the United States of America. The delegates of the Second Continental Congress declared the 13 colonies are no longer subject (and subordinate) to the monarch of Britain, King George III and were now united, free, and independent states. The Congress voted to approve independence by passing the Lee resolution on July 2, and adopted the Declaration of Independence two days later, on July 4.
Today we have a felon in the White House, who wants to be a king, and doesn’t know what the Declaration of Independence means. Each day we see more erosion of what our country has fought to stand for over the years. We began with a country run by white men, where slavery was accepted, and where women weren’t included in our constitution, or allowed to vote. We have come far, and next year will celebrate 250 years. Slowly, but surely, we have moved forward. That is until Nov. 5, 2024, when the nation elected the felon who now sits in the Oval Office.
There are some who say they didn’t know what he would do when they voted for him. They are the ones who were either fooled, believing his lies, or just weren’t smart enough to read the blueprint which laid out what he would do, Project 2025. It is there for everyone to see. There should be no surprise at what he is doing to the country, and the world. Last Friday his Supreme Court, and yes, it is his, the three people he had confirmed in his first term, gave him permission to be the king he wants to be. The kind of king our Declaration of Independence said we were renouncing. A man who with the stroke of a pen can ruin thousands of lives, and change the course of America’s future. A man who has set back our country by decades, in just a few months.
So, I understand why many are suggesting there is nothing to celebrate this Fourth of July. How do we have parties, and fireworks, celebrating the 249th year of our independence when so many are being sidelined and harmed by the felon and his MAGA sycophants in the Congress, and on the Supreme Court. Yes, there are those celebrating all he is doing. Those who want to pretend transgender people don’t exist, and put their lives in danger; those who think it’s alright to take away a women’s right to control her body, and her healthcare; those who think parents should be able to interfere on a daily basis with their children’s schooling and wipe out the existence of gay people for them. Those who pretend there was a mandate in the last election, when it was only won by about 1 percent. Those who think disparaging veterans, firing them, and taking away their healthcare, is ok. Those in the LGBTQ community like Log Cabin Republicans, who think supporting a racist, sexist, homophobe is the right thing to do.
So, what do we, as decent caring people, do this Fourth of July. What do we say to those who are being harmed as we celebrate. What do we say to those trans people, those women, those immigrants who came here to escape their own dictators, and are now finding they have come to a country with its own would-be dictator. I say to them, please don’t give up on America. Don’t give up on the possibility decent loving people in our country will finally wake up and say, “enough.” That the majority of Americans will remember we fought a revolution to escape a king, and we fought a civil war to end slavery. That we moved forward and gave women the right to vote, and gave the LGBTQ community the right to marry. Don’t give up on the people that did all that, and think they won’t rise up again, and tell the felon, racist, homophobe, misogynist, found liable for sexual assault, now in the White House, and his sycophants in congress, and his cult, that we will take back our country in the 2026 midterm elections. That we will vote in large numbers, and demand our freedom from the tyranny that he is foisting on our country.
So yes, I will celebrate this Fourth of July not for what is happening in our country today, but rather for what our country actually stands for. Not for birthday parades, and abandonment of the heroes in Ukraine in support of dictators like Putin. But for the belief the decent people in our country will rise up and vote. That is what I will celebrate and pray for this Fourth of July. That is what I think the fireworks will mean this July Fourth. I refuse to accept defeat the same way our revolutionary soldiers wouldn’t, and the way our troops in the civil war wouldn’t till the confederacy was defeated.
I will celebrate this Fourth of July because I refuse to accept we will not defeat those who would destroy our beautiful country, and what it really stands for.
Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.
Opinions
Is it time for DC to have new congressional representation?
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton will turn 89 in June
With WorldPride, Supreme Court decisions, military parades in our streets, mayor and City Council discussions about a new football stadium, it is entirely understandable if we missed the real local political story for our future in the halls of Congress. Starting this past May, the whispered longtime discussions about the city’s representation in Congress broke out. Stories in Mother Jones, Reddit, Politico, Axios, NBC News, the New York Times, and even the Washington Post have raised the question of time for a change after so many years. A little background for those who may not be longtime residents is definitely necessary.
Since the passage of the 1973 District of Columbia Home Rule Act, we District residents have had only two people represent us in Congress, Walter Fauntroy and Eleanor Holmes Norton, who was first elected in 1990 after Mr. Fauntroy decided to run for mayor of our nation’s capital city.
No one can deny Mrs. Norton’s love and devotion for the District. Without the right to vote for legislation except in committee, she has labored hard and often times very loud to protect us from congressional interference and has successfully passed District of Columbia statehood twice in the House of Representatives, only to see the efforts fail in the U.S. Senate where our representation is nonexistent.
However, the question must be asked: Is it time for a new person to accept the challenges of working with fellow Democrats and even with Republicans who look for any opportunity to harm our city? Let us remember that the GOP House stripped away millions of OUR dollars from the D.C. budget, trashed needle exchange programs, attacked reproductive freedoms, interfered with our gun laws at a moment’s notice, and recently have even proposed returning the District to Maryland, which does not want us, or simply abolishing the mayor and City Council and returning to the old days of three commissioners or the very silly proposal to change the name of our Metro system to honor you know you.
Mrs. Norton will be 89 years old next year around the time of the June 2026 primary and advising us she is running for another two-year term. Besides her position there will be other major elected city positions to vote for, namely mayor, several City Council members and Board of Education, the district attorney and the ANC. Voting for a change must not be taken as an insult to her. It should be raised and praised as an immense thank you from our LGBTQ+ community to Mrs. Norton for her many years of service not only as our voice in Congress but must include her chairing the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, her time at the ACLU, teaching constitutional law at Georgetown University Law School, and her role in the 1963 March on Washington.
Personally, I am hoping she will accept all the accolades which will come her way. Her service can continue by becoming the mentor/tutor to her replacement. It is time!
John Klenert is a longtime D.C. resident and member of the DC Vote and LGBTQ+ Victory Fund Campaign boards of directors.
Opinions
Supreme Court decision on opt outs for LGBTQ books in classrooms will likely accelerate censorship
Mahmoud v. Taylor ruling sets dangerous precedent
With its ruling Friday requiring public schools to allow parents to opt their children out of lessons with content they object to — in this case, picture books featuring LGBTQ+ characters or themes — the Supreme Court has opened up a new frontier for accelerating book-banning and censorship.
The legal case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, was brought by a group of elementary school parents in Montgomery County, Md., who objected to nine books with LGBTQ+ characters and themes. The books included stories about a girl whose uncle marries his partner, a child bullied because of his pink shoes, and a puppy that gets lost at a Pride parade. The parents, citing religious objections, sued the school district, arguing that they must be given the right to opt their children out of classroom lessons including such books. Though the district had originally offered this option, it reversed course when the policy proved unworkable.
In its opinion the court overruled the decisions of the lower courts and sided with the parents, ruling that books depicting a same-sex wedding as a happy occasion or treating a gay or transgender child as any other child were “designed to present … certain contrary values and beliefs as things to be rejected.” The court held that exposing children to lessons including these books was coercive, and undermined the parents’ religious beliefs in violation of the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.
This decision is the latest case in recent years to use religious freedom arguments to justify decisions that infringe on other fundamental rights. The court has used the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to permit companies to deny their employees insurance coverage for birth control, allow state-contracted Catholic adoption agencies to refuse to work with same-sex couples, and permit other businesses to discriminate against customers on the basis of their sexual orientation.
Here, the court used the Free Exercise Clause to erode bedrock principles of the Free Speech Clause at a moment when free expression is in peril. Since 2021, PEN America has documented 16,000 instances of book bans nationwide. In addition, its tracking shows 62 state laws restricting teaching and learning on subjects from race and racism to LGBTQ+ rights and gender — censorship not seen since the Red Scare of the 1950s.
Forcing school districts to provide “opt outs” will likely accelerate book challenges and provide book banners with another tool to chill speech. School districts looking to avoid logistical burdens and controversy will simply remove these books, enacting de facto book bans that deny children the right to read. The court’s ruling, carefully couched in the language of religious freedom, did not even consider countervailing and fundamental free speech rights. And it will make even more vulnerable one of the main targets of those who have campaigned for book bans: LGBTQ+ stories.
When understood in this wider context, it is clear that this case is about more than religious liberty — it is also about ideological orthodoxy. Many of the opt-out requests in Montgomery County were not religious in nature. When the reversal of the opt-out policy was first announced, many parents voiced concerns that any references to sexual orientation and gender identity were age-inappropriate.
The decision could allow parents to suppress all kinds of ideas they might find objectionable. In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor cites examples of objections parents could have to books depicting patriotism, interfaith marriage, immodest dress, or women’s rights generally, including the achievements of women working outside the home. If parents can demand a right to opt their children out of any topic to which they hold religious objections, what is to stop them from challenging books featuring gender equality, single mothers, or even a cheeseburger, which someone could theoretically oppose for not being kosher? This case throws the door open to such possibilities.
But the decision will have an immediate and negative impact on the millions of LGBTQ+ students and teachers, and students being raised in families with same-sex parents. This decision stigmatizes LGBTQ+ stories, children, and families, undermines free expression and the right to read, and impairs the mission of our schools to prepare children to live in a diverse and pluralistic society.
Literature is a powerful tool for building empathy and understanding for everyone, and for ensuring that the rising generation is adequately prepared to thrive in a pluralistic society. When children don’t see themselves in books they are left to feel ostracized. When other children see only people like them they lose out on the opportunity to understand the world we live in and the people around them.
Advocates should not give up but instead take a page from the authors who have written books they wished they could have read when they were young — by uplifting their stories. Despite this devastating decision, we cannot allow their voices to be silenced. Rather, we should commit to upholding the right to read diverse literature.
Elly Brinkley is a staff attorney with PEN America.
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