Trans Away The Gay Act II - Uganda Edition
The Most Repressive Country For Homosexuals Now Recognizes Gender Identity
Ugandan LGBTQ activist Brian Wasswa died on Oct. 5 2019, one day after the 28-year-old was attacked at home amid rising tensions in the east African nation over its beleaguered lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community. Sexual Minorities Uganda, a local advocacy group, said Wasswa’s death was the fourth LGBTQ-related murder there in three months.
The death of Wasswa, who was gay and gender-nonconforming, comes as human rights advocates have been sounding the alarm that the Ugandan government is ramping up pressure on the country’s LGBTQ community by threatening to reconsider the infamous 2014 “Kill the Gays” bill that increased the penalty for homosexuality from life in prison to death.
Uganda is highly conservative and a dangerous place to be openly gay. In 2010, the local tabloid The Rolling Stone published a list of “top homos,” and soon after, activist David Kato was killed. Many LGBTQ Ugandans have fled the country to seek asylum and refuge elsewhere.
Shortly after Wasswa’s death, Ugandan Minister of Ethics and Integrity Simon Lokodo joined in on the calls to revive Uganda’s so-called Kill the Gays bill, which was struck down by the country’s high court in 2014. In an interview with Thompson Reuters Foundation published last week, Lokodo said homosexuality “is not natural to Ugandans,” and blamed gay people’s existence on a “massive recruitment” in schools and among youth.
Recently this year Uganda has somewhat revived the “Kill The Gays” bill and passed into law a bill that would make homosexuality a crime punishable by ten years has now recognized a transgendered person’s new identity.
Cleopatra Kambugu, a Ugandan activist who advocates for sexual and gender minorities, has made history as the first transgender person in Uganda to have their new gender recognized by the government.
I’m of the opinion that Uganda will join the ranks of “progressive” governments like Iran that “trans away the gay” and offer gays and lesbians the choice to either trans or die.
Homosexuality in Uganda as well as many other African nations remain a crime which could see culprits serving between seven to fifteen years in prison if caught in the act and, for many, that’s seven to fifteen years in an African prison - effectively a death sentence.