How Did We Get Here?

Hi, Community! How’s it going? Actually, maybe you’re like me and you’d rather not talk about it. Don’t be like me, though, but just in case you are… Let’s think about other things.

In this post, I’ll be reflecting on my earliest memories of homophobia. It’s a response to some reactions I’ve seen by allies after learning about the anti-LGBTQ+ bill. I was shocked by their shock. Stay with me, read till the end and you’ll see why.

During the Second Quarter Meeting for the Digital Archive Project this year, the research team led a presentation on homophobia in higher institutions of learning. I wondered why bigotry was so prevalent among young adults, then it hit me: Senior High School. Before the introduction of the anti-LGBTQ+ bill, the strongest anti-queer campaigns I encountered were before and during my senior high school years. In JHS, I wouldn’t hear the girls talk about their dream schools without expressing fear of one day being recruited into “lesbobo things”, and we’ve all heard the rumours about Botwe Boys. It doesn’t help at all that most schools in Ghana, though their handbooks might state otherwise, operate as Christian schools. 

Homophobes think same-gender senior high schools are “breeding grounds” for homosexuality and I’m not sure why. I think if boys start kissing other boys just because there are no girls around, they don’t like boys - They simply lack access to their preferred gender. And if they’ve always been queer then what’s the problem? 

I think senior high schools are breeding grounds for homophobia. Sometimes I can’t believe that in my mixed senior high school, students were suspended from the boarding house because of “lesbianism”. I remember seeing “lesbianism” as someone’s offence and reason for being suspended from her boarding house and while I didn’t even know I was queer at the time, it made no sense to me. Not only were these students suspended, they were also called out in front of the whole school and shamed by the headmistress and teachers present at the assembly. 

In 2013, more than 30 students were dismissed from Kumasi Wesley Girls High School for “engaging in lesbianism” and more than 15 boys were dismissed from Opoku Ware Secondary School for “practicing homosexuality”. Nothing sets the tone for homophobia as effectively as suspending students from boarding houses, ostracising them and taking away their right to education. We’re telling the country that it’s alright to treat people as disposable and take away their access to resources because we don’t agree with the way they are. Can we really be surprised when gay men and women are dragged out of their houses and thrown out of their communities because of their sexual orientation?

What’s the great difference between coercing students to be publicly shamed and then suspending them from school for being gay, and dragging a gay man from his house onto the street to publicly shame and shun him? We can’t act like homophobia, mob violence and carcerality appeared out of thin air when the foundations were laid all the way in senior high school. 

These days, when some people are asked by the media what their views on the anti-LGBTQ+ bill are, they say something safe like “Ghana has always been tolerant of all kinds of people”. Not only is that offensive, it’s questionable as well. These are usually people who don’t accept that Ghana’s laws aren’t even Ghana’s laws in the first place (our laws are from England, during the colonial era) and these are people who went to Ghanaian Senior High Schools where students were suspended and shamed for being gay.

Peter Turkson, a cardinal of the Catholic Church of Ghana, recently expressed disappointment in the anti-LGBTQ bill asking “You criminalize them for what? For just being what they are?”. Queer SHS and JHS students are attacked and shamed by their peers, disowned by their parents and thrown out of their schools and communities. Is this not criminalization of some sort? Is it not because of who they are? 

I want to go the extra mile and say that even tolerance is not enough. Feeling in any way that homosexuals or homosexual activities are wrong, and expressing those feelings, is homophobia and will lead to even greater acts of violence by others, if not you. 

This month, some religious leaders finally took the time to go through the anti-LGBTQ+ bill for themselves. They were outraged. I can’t help but wonder what they thought was contained in the bill and why they felt comfortable expressing public support for it when they weren’t sure what it stood for. It really goes to show how strong anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda in this country is. Bishop Daniel Bright Karikari shared that through the social dialogue event orgamised by the Ghana Center for Democratic Development, he and other leaders read through the provisions of the bill and learnt a great deal about human rights. 

(Don’t you agree this country would be a better place if we learned about human rights and freedoms as early as we learn, from school and the media, about religion?)

According to the article, an anonymous religious leader from Takoradi was shocked that parliament would pass such a bill. This shock amuses me. We’ve been leading up to this bill for years. 

One of my favourite things about prison abolition is that it requires us to look at the sources of the problems we’re facing and start solving them from there, as opposed to waiting for something terrible to happen and then trying to mitigate the damage. Everything starts from something. We can’t feed homophobia to children from basic to junior high school, punish homosexuality in senior high schools, allow homophobia to thrive in universities and then express shock when parliament passes an anti-LGBTQ+ bill. 

Yes, homosexuality is African. Yes, the anti-LGBTQ+ bill was sponsored by right-wing evangelical groups in foreign countries. But we’ve allowed homophobia to thrive and for that reason politicians are able to use our bigotry to divide us and make themselves rich. 

If senior high school marks a significant point in a young adult’s life, we should teach students how to respect and care for one another. They should have respect for other human beings, not just their elders. These values are more important as a human being and even as a religious person, than homophobia will ever be. 

Let’s act right from the start. Waiting till we end up in a dark place and then asking ourselves how we got there doesn’t make a lot of sense. The queer people I know are disappointed, but not surprised by this bill, because we saw it coming. Cishet people are surprised because they don’t see the connection between their “harmless” sentiments and what eventually becomes law. Again, everything starts from something.