East African Queer and Trans Displacements

Bringing together diverse case studies and interdisciplinary perspectives, this open access collection serves as the first in-depth examination of queer and trans displacement in East Africa. The collection features original creative works by queer and trans diasporic writers and artists with first-hand experiences of displacement.

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.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Bloomsbury Open Collections Library Collective.

Barbara Bompani is a Reader in Africa and International Development at the Centre of African Studies, the University of Edinburgh, UK. She is the co-editor of two collections including Christian Citizens and the Moral Regeneration of the African State (2017).

B Camminga (they/she) is a Lecturer in the Sociology of Gender at the University of Bristol, UK and a Research Associate at the African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand, SA.

John Marnell (he/him) is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the African Center for Migration and Society, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. He is co-editor of Queer and Trans African Mobilities: Migration, Asylum and Diaspora (ZED, 2021).

Kamau Wairuri is a Lecturer in Criminology at Edinburgh Napier University, UK. He is interested in the ways that
social order is imagined, produced, and maintained in Africa, with a focus on the politics of criminal justice on
the continent.