Everyone's talking about gay rights

Everyone's talking about gay rights. What does that mean for us, the Ghanaian queer community? Double-edged sword? It’s giving that. I thought, why not talk about that with you guys in the next Community Chat? So we did. These are the thoughts that led to that conversation.

So the year is 2018, I’ve just started watching Sense8, and POSE has just come out. Coincidentally, it’s also the year I realise I’m a lesbian. I mentally review all my relationships and “things” with men, and I realize none of that was real. I never actually wanted anything from them. I can’t think of anyone to talk to, because I don’t know anyone who uses the word ‘lesbian’ or ‘gay’ around me. To the best of my knowledge, the people close to me are not homophobic (I was right), but I’m looking for more than acceptance; I want to talk to and be with people who know what I’m talking about. I do almost 15 of those  “Am I a lesbian?” tests, read and watch multiple coming-out stories, and months later I find myself at least three Ghanaian mutuals on Twitter who are also queer. 

It’s 2021; the newly opened LGBTRights office is raided and locked up by national security forces. Everyone is talking about gay people like we never existed until that exact moment; like we were shipped from foreign lands and delivered to Ghana that year. The Ghanaian queer community receives support from the queer community in other countries, and this further enforces the belief that queerness is a foreign import. 

2023. Drama Queens and LGBTRightsGhana collaborate for the second edition of Leave Prints, a wellness retreat for the community. Dates are set, art supplies are ready and waiting, the bus is booked, and the RSVP list has been sent out. Before the team knows it, the sign-ups increase exponentially and worry kicks in. They never expected it. They spend the day brainstorming solutions, and finally it hits them: ✨ crowdfunding ✨ so they put up a GoFundMe link. Each organisation’s community comes through, and Leave Prints 2.0 is a huge success.

It’s election year, 2024, and the NDC is desperate. I’m sure they want to believe Ghanaians when we say we’re sick and tired of Akufo-Addo, but they know one can never be too sure - so they reheat their stale homophobia from the previous years. They give it all they've got, and it works; gay people are a trending topic the whole year, and of course, for no good reason. Here’s the challenge with trending topics, good or bad: popularity is a drug. Everyone wants a piece, so they’ll say anything to trend too. Connected to this, of course, is the issue of people not verifying information anymore. People seem to think multiple retweets and reposts are a sign of credibility. So a person who tweets that the B in LGBT stands for bestiality, just because ‘LGBT’ is trending and they want some popularity, and everyone runs with it. 

Now we’re in 2025. Everyone’s been talking about gay rights for years, and the effects that has had on the Ghanaian queer community vary. Many queer Ghanaians, like myself, came to terms with their queerness thanks to this globalisation. We found jobs in other countries where we don’t have to hide the fact that we’re queer; some of us have been able to seek asylum as a result of our queerness; and in Ghana, pro-queer organisations have gained monetary and other forms of support from other countries because of the work that's been done to make queer people a priority or at least a part of the conversation. A major issue, though, is that this same globalisation, in Ghana, has affirmed the belief that queerness is un-African. The way Ghanaians see it, the white people are talking about it, so it’s a white people thing.

I know I’m not the only Ghanaian queer person who has been inspired by the work queer communities and activists are doing around the world, especially in Africa. It’s one of my favourite pros of LGBTQ+ rights becoming a popular global topic, but looking at the cons in Ghana, I realised we need a lot more than globalisation. We need to proactively work on the ground in our country to change people’s view of queer Ghanaians. The other countries are putting in the work, and so should we.