My parents made me come out to them after I got diagnosed with severe depression.
Well, maybe “made me” is an over exaggeration but they cried and begged me to tell
them anything else I was holding back from them. So, I came out. I was immediately hit
with the “This isn’t God’s plan” and “It is a Western import” rhetoric.

I was raised Christian, I was raised homophobic, and because my parents are critical of
the whole damn world, I was raised to have a critical view on everything. And after
reading a lot, I came to realise that if anything was imported, it had to be homophobia. If
anything was not God’s plan, it had to be the unprecedented levels of queerphobia
across the African continent.

Stories about queerness in Africa are often fraught with pain. We share stories of kito, of
queerphobic attacks, of parents who disown and friends who betray, and of pastors who
preach hellfire. That is very unfortunate, as we have a much richer queer history and
present than what dominates the news. Rarely do we share stories of homebuilding and
community finding. Of retracing our steps and finding our roots.

So, where is this queerness in our history? Well, I will start with my favourite:
alternative gender identities among the Swahili. The third gender in Kenya is known as
mashoga. They wear women’s clothing, perform at wedding ceremonies, play
instruments typically associated with women, and are as a result sometimes likened to
Euro-American drag queens.

Woman-woman marriages were also documented among the Igbo and Yoruba of
Nigeria, the Lovedu of South Africa, and the Nandi of Kenya, among others. These were
usually done for economic benefit where a richer, older woman would marry a younger,
less wealthier one. This union is legally, socially, and symbolically recognized as a
marriage, with the expectation that the woman who pays the bride price will provide for
her wife and that the wife will bear children. The best part is that despite it being
ignored or condemned by foreign anthropologists, officials, and the religious
institutions they brought with them, it is still practiced in parts of Africa today.

Then there are also the mine marriages in South Africa, the yan daudu among the
Hausa, the chibados in Ndongo kingdom of Angola, and the ashtime of Maale culture in
southern Ethiopia, among many others in various cultures.

In reading and digging deeper, I discovered that across the continent, many
communities held space for diverse gender identities and sexual orientations. Not
necessarily in the way we think of queerness today, but in the form of real experiences
that definitely defy the rhetoric of it being “un-African”.

That said, if you had told me years ago that I would find healing and calm through
research papers and academic books of all things, I would have scoffed at you. But
knowledge, regardless of the form it comes in, can be balm. I did not find hundreds of
academic texts. I only found a few, but those few carried me and made me feel less
alone. They reminded me that though rejection from the world might spell loneliness, it
doesn’t have to spell disconnection. Disconnection from knowledge, from history, or
from the fact I am not a mistake.

This essay is a part of my way of reconnecting.

This is for queer people like me who are still being told they are too Western, too
strange, too different. It is for those of us who have had to leave home to find home, be
it literally, emotionally, or spiritually. It is a love letter to the ancestors who lived boldly
in bodies that colonisation later tried to erase. And it is a reminder that queerness and
Africanness are not at odds.

So now when I hear people cry that queerness is a Western import, I have to stop and
ask: Whose history are you reading? Because the real history, my history, was not
imported. It was erased.

The thing about history though is that it can always be rewritten. We get to edit it and
add our own experiences. After all, our “is” gradually becomes our “was”. People now
may be able to feign ignorance and say we have no queer history in Africa, but that
excuse will not hold up for much longer. Our existence will not be glossed over or
omitted.

We exist fully in the here and now, partying at raves, chanting slogans in the streets, or
participating in queer discourse online. Holding hands with our partners in public orcuddling with them in front of a movie at night. Volunteering at queer organisations or quietly liking their posts on social media.

History has proved our presence, the present witnesses our experiences, and the future
will tell our stories.

About the Writer

Maverique Z. (they/them) is a queer and maverique writer from Nigeria whose work explores queerness and identity, often through a Nigerian lens—as shown in their work published in Minority Africa. When not writing, they’re crocheting, studying, or spending time with their bunny. They hope their work feels like home for others, the way their favourite works have been for them. Keep up with them at https://maverique.carrd.co//