(1/15)Some people think that the West is the birthplace of LGBT acceptance. African politicians and clergy will very often say that queerness is un-African.Actually the OPPOSITE is more accurate and I'll show you why being black means originating from queer cultures:
#PrideMonth

(2/15) Ancient Africa has examples such as Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep's gay burial or the Book of Dreams' (1200BCE) writings on sex between women. And why would a woman on a Book of the Dead clarify “I never had sex with a woman in the temple.”?

(3/15) Ancient Bushman cave paintings (Zimbabwe) clearly depict men having sex with men. Interestingly, Zimbabwe's late president famously claimed there "are no gays" in the whole country.

(4/15)Most African languages have specific words for queer people, showing how ancient their presence in such societies was. For instance "Adufuro" is the Yoruba (Nigeria) word and "Mashoga" (gay/cross-dresser) a Swahili (Kenya/Tanzania) word.

(5/15) Gender fluidity and non-binaries have a lot of examples. One still existing, although fading, is that of the Yan Dudu of muslim northern Nigeria, men who dress like women and often practice some of the pre-muslim rituals of the Hausa (pic. Ameera, a Yan Dudu from Kano)

(6/15) Armand Marie Corre, a 1870 French general, complained about Senegalese attitudes towards gay sex (too relaxed) and still by 1960 17% of Dakar's men declared to have been with a gor-digen ("man-women"). The government eventually clamped down.

(7/15) Other examples of queer men are the Mugawe of the Meru (Kenya) which married other men at times, Dagara "spiritual gatekeeper" queer men (Burkina Faso) and the Omasenge oracles of the Ovambo (Angola) who all dressed and acted like women in their societies. (pic Ovambo men)

(8/15) Same-sex marriage, especially woman-woman marriage was a frequent occurrence across Africa, such as for Kikuyu (Kenya) women, Igbo women (Nigeria) and Fon women (Benin) (pic. Kikuyu women).

(9/15) South Africa's Balobedu still have a custom called "The Rain Queen" which is a title that has been passed on for centuries and such woman, among other things, cannot marry a man but is allowed to marry several women (pic. Rain Queen Makobo Modjadji VI)

(10/15) Some historical mentions of sex among African women are very specific, such as Wilfred's Hambley's 1937 writing on Zanzibar's artificial penises used between women.

(11/15) The concept of gender was very fluid among many cultures such as the Dogon (Mali) belief that boys and girls are bi-gendered until they are circumcised. Researching around the continent I even stumbled on an ancient ritual to "spiritually" switch gender!

(12/15) Gender was often spiritually fluid and many ancestor statues, such as this ancient Malian one, are depicted with both male and female traits (e.g. penis, breast and pregnant belly) as a sign of otherworldly perfection.

(13/15) Gods too are often either bi-gendered like Ataa Naa Nyongmo "Father Grandmother God", of the Ga, Fon's theological merger of moon 'Mawu' and sun 'Lisa' into one entity or Shona's supreme god "Mwari" who sometimes 'splits' into male and female.

(14/15) Uganda story exemplifies a lot: European christian missionaries tried to ban 1880's King Mwaga II of Uganda from keeping his many male lovers. This escalated to him being defeated & exiled, Uganda being colonised and now having some of harshest anti-gay laws in the world.

(15/15)The continent was never entirely free of patriarchal conceptions,but homophobia is not African and queerness is not white.We black queers struggle a lot in our communities but with true acknowledgment of our roots,progress will come and this will be no more. Love you