Backlash and Beyond: Anti-LGBTQ Lawmaking and Existential Panic in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda

Sexual politics in Africa is at the tipping point of two global trends. In 2022, more countries than at any point in the previous 25 years removed laws that criminalised same-sex sexualities, reflecting an international trend towards the legal recognition of sexual and gender diversity. However, there is also a counter trend in the form of a global gender backlash, one manifestation of which is attempts to institute harsher forms of criminalisation in law against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people. This paper is based on a discourse analysis of select anti-LGBTQ laws, draft laws and related parliamentary proceedings in 2023 in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda. This paper provides an account of the mechanisms and logics that underpin these laws and political discourse in these countries and reveals how efforts at expanded criminalisation seek to further regulate, police and constrain sex, sexuality, gender, family, and African subjectivities and nationhood.