African Queer Women Tackling Erasure and Ostracization

Abstract

What does it mean to have humanity afforded to you? What does it mean to live a full life? These are some of the questions that human rights frameworks and international law seeks to address. However there is more to a person’s existence than theoretical frameworks and policy implementation, an extra dimension that can be housed in the artistic and cultural works that showcase the everyday experiences of people. Increasingly, this is becoming a means by which members of the LGBTIQ community in Africa are making themselves visible in greater society, taking their existence outside of the contentious global rights-based conversation. By using the online and offline spaces to show the ways in which they live, love, have sex, and exist, queer women and gender nonconforming persons are adding an extra human element to the idea of “human rights” by controlling the narrative around their existences and inserting their stories into the public realm. Platforms such as HOLAAfrica, podcasts such as The Wildness with Tiff &Manda, and campaigns such as #JustLikeUs and #PleaseHer: A safe sex and pleasure project all serve to build a greater picture of what it means to be a part of the LGBTIQ realm and more importantly what it means to be African.