I've said stupid things on this app that when I look back I'm like what in the actual fuck was that baby girl?

Like that last year when I wrote one very stupid thread on lakiriboto and women marrying women.

Last year was fucking silly cause I realize I was busy reading

things about African history and Igbo women from hotep African academics and African American blogs in the diaspora.

After the dragging I (rightly) chopped for that thread,
I've since gone back to verify the sources of where I used to read and got that info.

Omo everywhere stew

ALL of them are not backed up by researchers on the continent.

All the sources where I was getting info on women, sexuality and spirituality as it relates to Africa,
were unverifiable.

Omo

Worst part for me ngl is the arrogant confidence I used to write about Yoruba culture

That's actually stupid af cause frankly even if I do think LGBT people should be granted dignity and respect,
retwisting the facts or rather retelling a misguided account from another culture is just pretty pretty disrespectful.

I'm really sorry

Then for Igbo people,
I had to ask most of the older Igbo people in my life about cultural practices like women marrying women.

The general consensus was actually that most times they did it for children.

That some women manipulate that system to have queer relationships,

does not mean we write a narrative that was left silent into a story.

It's also very important to ask why these pre colonial marriages betwen the same sex in Igboland,
hardly ever had men being culturally allowed to marry men.

For whatever reason.

This year really saw me shedding old skin especially when it concerned ideologies that I otherwise would have agreed to without flinching.

For one, I think that the idea that there was no homophobia in Africa prior to the coming of white people is pretty wrong.

There was homophobia in Africa because there has always been misogyny in Africa prior to white people coming.

Patriarchy as a system existed in Africa and it is one that centres the needs and voices of heterosexual men.
No system that prioritizes straight men's needs

through marriage would let queer men and women to flourish without creating obstacles for them.

I think instead, that while there has always been a degree of misogyny and homophobia in precolonial Africa,
the difference was that there were more traditional structures for women

and queer people to negotiate power and resources from heterosexual men.

But it has always been there.

I don't think the right approach to advocating LGBT rights in Africa,
is giving new meaning to sacred cultures without taking their historical context into meaning.

That said, don't be like me.
Don't take every information you read online seriously if you have not done great work to fact check.

Don't be like Angel and be disrespecting people's cultures unprovoked.

But if you realize your mistake, even if embarrassing come & apologize mkay?