* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The country’s queer-friendly capital provides a glimpse into what freedom could look like for LGBTQ+ AfricansOisakhose Aghomo is a pansexual Nigerian American writer and researcher at the Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, Mozambique.
At a Pride party at a club in Mozambique’s capital Maputo, I took a moment to appreciate the crowd—beautiful, queer African folks dancing in circles, making out in dim corners and screaming Zulu lyrics. It felt like something out of my wildest dreams.
In the six months since I moved to Mozambique, I have found a sense of home that I had been searching for since I left my hometown, Benin City, Nigeria. My family moved to Atlanta when I was eight, old enough to long for everyday comforts like getting akara from the street vendor across the street and devouring the greasy bean fritters before carpooling with friends to school. I felt a persistent sense of disconnection in the U.S., where even my name became something to explain. I felt untethered from my family and friends, who were time zones ahead, and to my culture, which rapidly developing while I was away. I decided I would return to Nigeria to build my career and create a new connection to the country outside of my memories.
But after I came out in 2020, the possibility of permanently remaking my life in my homeland became soured by the realization that I would have to contort myself into the confines of heteronormality to keep myself safe. Like other Anglophone African countries, including Tanzania, Ghana, and Kenya, Nigeria has seen an escalation of homophobic violence and enforcement of homophobic policies, particularly in recent years after the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act became law in 2014.
The law cemented colonial-era penal code, prohibiting LGBTQ+ people from public displays of affection, cohabitation, and participation in gay rights advocacy. It has bred a culture of harassment of the Nigerian queer community and allies, particularly by law enforcement. In August, the Delta State police department arrested 67 people at an alleged gay wedding in Warri. Even in its most cosmopolitan city, Lagos, where there are whispers of an underground LGBTQ+ scene, there remains an omnipresent threat of discovery. While the community has resisted this state-sanctioned oppression, particularly during the #EndSars movement in 2021, some of my fellow queer Nigerians are simply leaving for countries that can offer them legal protection.
Mozambique has been what I had hoped Nigeria could be for me. As a Fulbright researcher, I chose to live in a country that decriminalized homosexuality in 2015 as a pilot for my return to Africa. After spending more than a decade in the U.S., with the classic struggles of being neither here nor there, I was ready to feel whole. I wanted to live and work in an African country but did not want to return to a closet I had just gotten out of.
Mozambique does not have a history of excessive violence against the LGBTQIA+ community, and even when an colonial-era anti-homosexuality law was on the books, not a single person was prosecuted after the country gained independence. Although LGBTQ+ Mozambicans still experience homophobia and are not completely legally protected against discrimination, there’s a significantly lower chance of arrest or harassment from the police. As a foreigner, I experience Mozambique differently than queer Mozambicans—I know my passport protects me. However, in Maputo, queer couples live together, and queer folks host public events and organize without the looming threat of 14 years in prison.
Living in Mozambique I find myself affirmed by mundane things like open markets with fresh cassava leaves and the chatter of aunties in Changana as they haggle with customers. My African identity is no longer relegated to my memory, nor is my queer identity relegated to the shadows. I am grateful for the experiences I can have without fear, like going on dates with beautiful and intelligent women, openly discussing LGBTQ+ rights at public events hosted by activists, and dancing to amapiano alongside other African queer folks. The joy I have experienced in Maputo has renewed my hope that I will someday feel the same freedom in Nigeria.
This story is part of a series supported by HIVOS's Free To Be Me programme
