ABSTRACT
The recent and dramatic increase in homophobic rhetoric across the African continent has given rise to a variety of responses, both from within the continent and from further afield. On one side of this debate we have seen a range of arguments being marshalled to suggest that ‘homosexuality is unAfrican’ or that the promotion of sexuality-based rights is a neocolonial imposition on Africa. The recent inhumane treatment of individuals with same-sex desire in places such as Nigeria (Washington Post, 2014), Uganda (Tamale, 2007), Tanzania (Kiishweko, 2012), South Africa (Judge, 2008), Zambia (D. Smith, 2013) and Zimbabwe (Brydum, 2014) have all been ‘legitimated’ through variants of these arguments. Such homophobic arguments should be and are rightly confronted through a variety of means. One of the most powerful and long-standing ways in which such discrimination is challenged (both academically and in civil society) has been, and continues to be, through the argument that sexual minority rights should be protected as a human right (Cock, 2003; Hoad, 1999; Samar, 2000; Sanders, 1996).
