East African Queer and Trans Displacements
East African Queer and Trans Displacements
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Description
The last decade has seen a sharp rise in state-sponsored homophobia and transphobia in East Africa.
This includes discriminatory legislation, such as the widely condemned Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda, and government-initiated crackdowns, such as the 'anti-gay taskforce' launched in Tanzania in 2018. The politicisation of sexual and gender rights in the region is often presented as a moral crusade (i.e. a return to traditional/family values) and is enacted with the support of many religious and cultural leaders. It is within this context that an ever-increasing number of LGBTQI+ people are leaving their homes and seeking protection elsewhere.
But East Africa cannot be reduced to a site from which LGBTQI+ displacement emanates. Several countries in the region act as either host countries or transit points, even as they produce LGBTQI+ refugees of their own. These complex social, political and legal dynamics make East Africa a productive site for theorising queer and trans displacement. The region offers insights into how, when and why LGBTQI+ Africans move, the social obstacles they face, and the different survival strategies they deploy. Despite this, research on East African queer and trans displacements remains sparse.
Bringing together diverse cases studies and interdisciplinary perspectives, this collection serves as the first in-depth examination of queer and trans displacement in East Africa, featuring original creative works by queer and trans diasporic writers and artists with first-hand experiences of displacement.
Table of Contents
LGBTQ+ displacement as lived experience
1. Hope and futurity of queer migrants in Kampala, Uganda (Austin Bryan, Northwestern University, USA)
2. Homemaking, belonging and domestic aspirations in the lives of LGBTQ refugees (John Marnell, African Centre for Migration and Society, South Africa)
3. Embodied religion: Faith and religious experience in the everyday life of LGBTQ+ displaced people in Nairobi (Barbara Bompani, University of Edinburgh, UK, and Wits University, South Africa)
4. Climate change, Covid-19 and LGBTQ+ refugees and asylum seekers in Uganda: Experiences, impacts and knowledges (Neil J. W. Wilson, University of Leeds, UK, Nath Niyitegeka, Rainbow Heritage Initiative Uganda, and Katie McQuaid, University of Leeds, UK)
Different ways of thinking, doing and reading LGBTQ+ displacement (e.g. theoretical, conceptual and methodological innovations)
5. Deception and evidence for Queer exodus from Uganda: Reflexive biographicalethnography (Stella Nyanzi, Makerere University, Uganda)
6. When homonationalism and homophobia meet: Transgender refugees, the discretion principle and Kenya's parallel legal regimes (B Camminga, Wits University, South Africa)
7. Relocating the subject in queer theory: A defence of identity through the stories of LGBTQ+ forced migrants in Nairobi (Brian Oosthuizen, University of Oxford, UK)
8. Gathering an LGBTI+ refugee legal archive (Miriam Gleckman-Krut, University of Michigan, USA)
Political and legal perspectives on LGBTQ+ displacement
9. The externalisation of borders and barbarism: Rwanda and the return of the LGBTQI+ question (B Camminga, John Marnell and Emmanuel Munyarukumbuzi, African Leadership University, Rwanda)
10. Embodiment, persecution, resistance and displacement: Legal and ethical dilemmas for LGBTQI+ queer migrants in and from East Africa (Noah Mirembe Gabigogo, Uganda Law Society and East Africa Law Society)
11. State policing of queer and trans refugees in Kenya (Kamau Wairuri, Edinburgh Napier University, UK)
12. Queering protection of East Africans during transit and forced migration: Do existent laws holistically protect LGBTQ people from torture? (Edward Mutebi, Alice-Salomon University Berlin, Germany, and Stella Nyanzi)
Product details
| Published | Nov 13 2025 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Extent | 256 |
| ISBN | 9781350422049 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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