African Refugees and the Making of a New Queer Identity

No Place Like Home: African Refugees and the Making of a New Queer Identity

Notisha M Massaquoi

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Social Justice Education Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto

Notisha M Massaquoi

Doctor of Philosophy

Graduate Department of Social Justice Education Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto

2020

Abstract

For reasons of necessity, urgency, and sometimes choice, queer Africans cross borders and find their lives unfolding in diasporic spaces. Refugee claims based on sexual orientation and gender identity persecution make up 12% of all refugee cases in Canada, with queer African refugees constituting the largest group within this category. With this in mind, we now have to ask, “what kind of history will be written about the collision between queer Africans dislocated from postcolonial nations and the Canadian settler nation?” In this study, qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted to explore the individual lived experiences of queer African refugees, with a focus on the intricate realignment of sexual orientation, sexual identity, sexual politics, and sexual desire that inevitably emerges through forced migration and the refugee process in

Canada. The deep meaning of life experiences is captured in the participants’ own words, providing detailed, in-depth insights into the complexities of their lives, their reflections, and their subsequent responses. These narratives call attention to the specific features of queer

African refugees, who test the limits of the current homonational refugee apparatus. Participants’ experiences of resisting social roles, structures, identities, and expectations that limit queer

African refugees and keep them “in their place,” both in their countries of origin and in Canada, are interrogated. The construction of boundaries that decide who belongs and deserves protection within Canada and who does not provides a foundation for engaging in research as a practice of

iii freedom, in order to counter the global narrative of refugee life that excludes queer Africans. The findings in this research require us to look at practices of exclusion and inclusion in the Canadian refugee system and the tensions that emerge for queer African claimants. In the end, we are left with strategies for how to engage with the politics of knowledge production and advocate for an agenda of social justice and transformation for queer Africans globally.

Acknowledgements

It’s not about when you cross the finish line but about the many people you meet along the way who help you complete the race. To my parents, Johannes and Sylvia Massaquoi, who instilled in me the determination to reach for the highest goal no matter what obstacles were in the way. Ase´. To my biggest cheerleaders—my partner, Alison Duke, and daughter, Miata—for countless hours of quiet and play time in libraries, thank you. Thank you to the IRN Africa academics and activists, with special mention to Drs. Sybille Nyeck and Marc Epprecht. Thank you to the staff, board, and management dream team, Lori-Ann Green Walker and Wangari

Tharao, of Women’s Health in Women’s Hands Community Health Centre, for allowing my leadership to include research. To the African activists, Victor Mukasa, Drs. Stella Nyanzi, and

Bev Ditsie, who taught me to be relentless in this fight, aluta continua. Thank you to the Ryerson

Black Women’s Teaching Collective for showing me the true meaning of excellence in pedagogy: Sharon McLeod, Renee Ferguson, Karen Arthurton, Charlotte Akuoko-Barfi and Dr.

Steven Solomon. Thank you to the many researchers who have helped me hone my research practice over the years—Drs. Purnima George, Ken Moffat, Anne O’Connell, Charmaine

Williams, Izumi Sakamoto, Carmen Logie, Peter Newman, Winston Husbands, Nazilla Khanlou,

Denise Gastaldo, George Dei, and Njoki Nathani Wane. Thank you to Drs. Rinaldo Walcott,

Alissa Trotz, and Jacqui Alexander for support on earlier versions of this dissertation. Thank you to my mentors, Drs. Akua Benjamin and Joan Lesmond, for showing me how to stand my ground. Much gratitude goes to my committee members, Drs. Lance McCready and David

Murray, and external examiners, Drs. Rupaleem Bhuyan and Eliana Barrios Suarez. I will be forever grateful to my supervisor, Dr. Laura Bisaillon, who carried me to the end. It was an honor. Finally, I thank my research participants, members of PRIDE Uganda, and the Sierra

Leone Lesbian and Gay Association for gifting me with their stories.

Ijo je o we yon i. (Eating together makes the exercise more enjoyable)

Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii Acknowledgements ...... iv Table of Contents ...... v List of Tables ...... viii List of Figures ...... ix List of Appendices ...... x Glossary of Terms ...... x Part One: General and Methodological Terms ...... x Part Two: Canadian Immigration-Related Terms ...... xiii Prologue ...... 1 Introduction: Dissertation Overview...... 6 Disjuncture ...... 11 First Comes Grief, Then Comes Action ...... 18 Caught Between a Home and a Queer Place ...... 23 Chapter Details...... 25 Chapter 1: Fieldwork and Methodology: A Transformative Research Process and Design ...... 33 My Responsibility as a Transformative Anti-Oppressive Researcher ...... 33 Mind the Research Gaps ...... 37 Negotiations and Engagement: Recruiting Participants ...... 39 Who Were the Study Participants? Responsible Representation ...... 42 Interview Process ...... 46 Transcription Conventions ...... 48 Data Analysis ...... 50 Politics of Accountability: Ethical Considerations ...... 51 Exceptions and Explanations ...... 53 Confidentiality and Ownership ...... 55 Truthfulness and Transformative Standards ...... 58 When Positionality Gives an Added Advantage ...... 59 Reflexivity as a Tool of Transformative Research ...... 60 Research as Resistance ...... 63 Chapter 2: The Death of FannyAnn Eddy and Future Imaginings of Queer African Subjects .... 66 Queering the Diaspora ...... 69 An Elaborate Project ...... 72 Queer Markers and Queer Meaning ...... 74 Let’s Hear It for Queer and the Necessity for Two Theories ...... 78 Queer Africans? ...... 86

The Un-African Homosexual ...... 89 Chapter 3: Africa Matters ...... 95 The North/South Divide ...... 100 They Who Cast the First Stone ...... 104 The Offense of Doing Queer...... 111 Public Fight for Private Relations ...... 113 Dark Myths and Same-Sex Desire ...... 117 Queer Resistance and Transnational Flows ...... 120 Chapter 4: Queer Flight ...... 123 Destination of Desire ...... 129 Heterosexual Borders, Queer Crossers ...... 134 Legitimacy, Security, and the Benevolent Nation ...... 138 Chapter 5: Pre-Migration ...... 146 Who are These Subjects We Call Queer African Refugees? ...... 147 Gender-Based Violence ...... 154 Compulsory Heterosexuality and Forced Marriage ...... 156 Persecuted, Persecutors and Protectors: Family Complexities ...... 160 Disruption of African Queer Zones ...... 163 Chapter 6: Flight and Becoming a Refugee ...... 169 Queer African Flight ...... 170 Why Canada? ...... 171 Disruption, Dislocation and Displacement ...... 174 When I Think of Place, I Think of Home ...... 176 Africans Matter ...... 177 Say It Loud: The Claiming of Refugee Identities ...... 179 Chapter 7: Post-Migration and Un/learning Queer ...... 190 The Re-formation and Integration of Identity ...... 191 But I’m Still an African ...... 194 Barriers and Facilitators ...... 198 Informal Citizenship ...... 200 Risks and Tensions ...... 201 A Shameful Process ...... 205 Astonishing Claims Require Outstanding Evidence ...... 210 When the Worst Fear is Realized...... 215 Joy, Hope, and Activism ...... 217 Chapter 8: Conclusion...... 222 Epilogue: The Final Word (In Memory of Kamau) ...... 233

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References ...... 235 Appendices ...... 264

List of Tables

Table 1: General Socio-Demographic Data (Participants 1 to 10) ...... 43 Table 2: General Socio-Demographic Data (Participants 11 to 20) ...... 44 Table 3: General Socio-Demographic Data (Participants 21 to 30) ...... 44 Table 4: General Socio-Demographic Data (Participants 31 to 40) ...... 45

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List of Figures

Figure 1: The Queer African Refugee Balancing Act or Disjuncture ...... 11 Figure 2: Visual Project Map ...... 13 Figure 3: Visual Representation of Transformative Anti-Oppression Research ...... 37 Figure 4: Types of Persecution Experienced Prior to Migration……………………………… 145 Figure 5: Queer African Refugee HIV Risk ...... 202 Figure 6: Chronic Illness Currently Being Addressed by Participants ...... 204 Figure 7: A Queer African Praxis Framework ...... 228

List of Appendices

Appendix A: Descriptive Summary of Service Providers ...... 264 Appendix B: Sample Letter for Service Provider Recruitment ...... 265 Appendix C: Sample Information Letter for Individual Refugee Key Informant ...... 268 Appendix D: Sample Recruitment Flyer...... 271 Appendix E: Interview Guide for Service Providers ...... 272 Interview Guide for Queer African Refugees ...... 273 Appendix F: Confidential Information Form ...... 275 Appendix G: Consent to Participate in Research ...... 278 Appendix H: Central Coding List ...... 280 Appendix I: Central Coding List...... 281

Glossary of Terms

There are no universally accepted definitions for many of the words and concepts used in this dissertation. By preparing this glossary, then, I intend to show the reader how I understand and use the terms outlined below. All definitions are written according to my own usage for the purposes of this project. The glossary is organized into two parts: general and methodological terms, and Canadian immigration-related terms.

Part One: General and Methodological Terms

African: Anything from or pertaining to the Continent of Africa, including but not limited to

people who are indigenous to the African Continent.

Anti-Oppressive Practice (AOP): A central social work theory that is sometimes presented as a

critical defining approach of social work practice. AOP is heavily rooted in approaches that

address how the larger oppressive system in which we function protects unearned privilege

and grants power to some groups while simultaneously creating inequitable and unlivable

conditions for others.

Continent: Refers to the African Continent and the 55 countries it represents.

Corrective/Curative Rape: Coined by South African activists, the term first appeared in an

academic context in the work of South African Black lesbian photographer Zanele Muholi in

2004. Corrective/curative rape has been defined as a sexual assault, enacted by a cis-gender

man against a woman who is perceived to be a lesbian, perpetrated as an ostensible cure for

deviant sexuality.

Diaspora: The creation of new communities due to the dispersal of people from their original

homeland. In the context of African Diaspora, this term refers to the creation of newly

reconstituted African communities that exist and grow outside of the African Continent.

Disjuncture: Used in institutional ethnography to refer to a disconnect and separation between

people’s everyday social experiences and official representations of these experiences. In

this study, I look at the lives of queer Africans on the Continent and their disjuncture from a

compulsory heterosexual norm, as well as their lives within the Canadian context, where

they face disjuncture from the homonational norm as defined by the Canadian refugee

apparatus.

Institutional Capture: A process within institutional ethnography where we, both researcher

and researched, are drawn into the ruling relations of the milieus where we work, live, teach,

and/or research. The settings with which we are familiar; the social organization that we can

take for granted. When this happens, we might fail to interrogate the words, concepts, or

ideas that we easily and commonly employ. In so doing, we can lose sight of informants’

(and our own) experientially based knowledges. Aware of the possibility of such capture, the

researcher explores the discursively organized contours of what can be said and written as

products of the social relations and organizations in which the research is seated.

Interpretive Phenomenology: An approach whose aim is to create understanding by

emphasizing the history and context of an individual’s experience, insisting that an

individual’s world is always impacted by social, cultural, and political forces.

Intersectionality: Introduced in 1989 by Kimberlé Crenshaw, intersectionality amplifies the

systematic ways in which differences in social location—including but not limited to race,

gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic status—were interrelated as distinct categories rather

than conflated into a single experience of oppression.

Oriki: The oral praising of an individual through lengthy poetry or prose, recounting the details

of their lives, their challenges, and what they have overcome in order to become the resilient

person they are today. Oriki, or the recounting of one’s life by another, is believed to

positively affect one’s conception of oneself and one’s role in society. I use this tradition as

a way of giving meaning to the lives of research subjects in the manner through which I

represent their stories.

xii

Praxis: The practical use of theoretical knowledge. For the purposes of this research, the

practical application of theory in order to affect social change.

Problematic: A problem arising in the relations between people and the world in which they

exist. The problematic is uncovered through fieldwork that interrogates the activities of

people’s lives.

Queer: A term used as an act of agency, in reference to same-sex desire or any alternative to

compulsory heterosexuality. I apply this term in particular to same-sex desire from an

African sensibility, in which labels such as “lesbian” and “gay” are not fixed identities, and

where there exists a multiplicity of sexualities not yet defined within an African context.

Queer Flight: Defined by escape from heteronormative violence and compulsory

heterosexuality, and by queer reconstitution in a new geographic locale.

Queer Phenomenology: A mode of inquiry that allows us to ask questions about how queer

bodies are oriented in time and place through social relations. This approach enables us to

investigate how queerness and queer bodies disrupt migration processes and what would it

mean for a sexuality or a sexual body to be able to live as oriented .

Queer Zones: Spaces of safety that are often created first as social and sexual territories but

which become, out of necessity, spaces to obtain basic necessities such as shelter, food,

healthcare, safety, and family.

Reflexivity: A significant tool for ensuring rigour in the research process. Reflexivity promotes

ethical exploration through constant self-monitoring and reflection. It asks me, the

researcher, to continually interrogate the cultural standards I use to interpret the research and

lives of participants, and to honestly assess the impact of this interrogative lens on the

research process. In so doing, it situates me in a non-exploitive position vis-à-vis the

research participants through the act of decolonizing the discourse of the “other.”

Transformative Research: An approach that requires the researcher to be committed to the

constant challenging of assumptions and analysis, and to be an advocate of change for the

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communities that are being studied. The goal is to disrupt, overturn, and reconstruct

oppressive values, definitions, policies, institutions, and relationships, including my on

relationships with the research participants.

Transnationalism: The amplification of the social processes that facilitate cultural

interconnectedness and mobility across space. I discuss this concept in terms of how

sexuality moves and shifts between nations and cultures.

Part Two: Canadian Immigration-Related Terms

Asylum-Seeker: A person who is seeking asylum in a country other than their place of origin.

Until a determination is made, it is impossible to say whether the asylum-seeker is a refugee

or not.

Convention Refugee: A person who meets the refugee definition in the 1951 Geneva

Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. This definition is used in Canadian law and is

widely accepted internationally. To meet the definition, a person must be outside of their

country of origin and have a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race,

religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.

Immigrant: A person who has settled permanently in another country. Immigrants choose to

move, whereas refugees are forced to flee.

Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB): An administrative tribunal of the federal

government comprised of four divisions that report to parliament through the Minister of

Citizenship and Immigration Canada. The IRB is independent of Citizenship and

Immigration Canada and the Canadian Border Services Agency, and IRB agents have the

authority to make decisions about a person’s refugee status through hearings, interviews, and

reviews.

Interim Federal Health Program (IFH): A program managed by Citizenship and Immigration

Canada that provides temporary health insurance to refugees, persons in need of protection,

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refugee applicants and their dependents, and persons who are in Canada but who are not yet

covered by a provincial or territorial health insurance plan.

Migrant: A person who is living outside of their country of origin. Occasionally, this term is

used to cover everyone who is outside of their country of birth (including people who have

been citizens for decades). More often, it is used for people currently on the move or people

with temporary status or no status at all in the country where they live.

Permanent Resident: A person who has been granted permanent resident status in Canada. The

person may have come to Canada as an immigrant or as a refugee. Permanent residents who

become Canadian citizens are no longer permanent residents.

Person Without Status/Undocumented: A person who has not been granted permission to stay

in the country or who has overstayed their visa. The term can cover a person who falls

between the cracks of the system—for example, a refugee claimant who is refused refugee

status but is not removed from Canada because of a recognition of generalized risk in their

country of origin.

Personal Information Form (PIF)/Basis of Claim Form (BOC): An official form issued by

the Refugee Protection Division of the IRB. Refugee applicants receive this form from

government agents employed by either Citizenship and Immigration Canada or Canadian

Border Service Agency. The text that a person writes into the form explains their need for

protection by the Canadian state. The person fills out the form in triplicate and submits it to

the IRB of Canada within twenty-eight days of receiving it. This form was renamed the

Basis of Claim Form (BOC) in 2012.

Protected Person: According to Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, a person

who has been determined by Canada to be either (a) a Convention Refugee or (b) a person in

need of protection (i.e., a person who may not meet the Convention definition but is in a

refugee-like situation that is defined in Canadian law as deserving protection).

Refugee: A person who is forced to flee from persecution.

Refugee Claimant: A person who has made a claim for protection as a refugee. This term is

more or less equivalent to “asylum-seeker” and is standard in Canada, while “asylum-

seeker” is the term more often used internationally.

Refugee Determination or Adjudication Hearing or Interview: Colloquially referred to in this

research as a “refugee hearing.” An event or series of events through which a member of the

Refugee Protection Division of the IRB of Canada decides on an applicant’s refugee claim

or application.

SOGI: An acronym for sexual orientation and gender identity. It's an inclusive term that applies

to everyone, whether they identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, two-spirit,

heterosexual or cisgender.

Visa: An official government document issued by an immigration or visa officer that is generally

affixed inside a person’s passport.

Prologue

“Any time one person honours their purpose for being, a thousand more will find their way.” — West African Proverb

In the discipline of physics, “resonance” is a phenomenon in which a system vibrates with such external force that it triggers another system to oscillate with greater amplitude or frequency (Wright, 2016). I would like to believe that we can experience this phenomenon at a very human level. It’s about how we are in tune with one another, or how we are interconnected beings whose oscillations can push others to a greater frequency or purpose. This is how I conceptualize my entry into the realm of queer1 African2 activism and the subsequent research I have been guided to undertake. My project is one of resonance, in which the incredible oscillations of queer African activists such as Bev Ditsie, Victor Mukasa, David Kato, and

FannyAnn Eddy—to name but a few—have been such a powerful external and internal force in my life that they have triggered me, and the thousands of others they have touched, to strive to oscillate with a greater amplitude in our activism.

In 1999, while working for a women’s health organization in Toronto, I received a phone call from Amnesty International asking if we could support a women’s rights speaking tour they were sponsoring. This was not an unusual request, as we often engaged in international UN work and partnered on many projects. What was heart-stopping for me, however, was the fact that they were organizing a tour with Tsitsi Tirapano, a Zimbabwean lesbian who was living with HIV.

She was speaking not just about African women’s rights but also about queer African’s rights, and, furthermore, about the rights of those living with HIV. At that point in my life, I had never

1 I use the term queer as an act of agency and in reference to same-sex desire or any alternative to compulsory heterosexuality. I use this term with particular reference to same-sex desire from an African sensibility, in which labels such as “lesbian” and “gay” are not fixed identities, and where there is a multiplicity of sexualities not yet defined within an African context. This concept will be discussed further in Chapter Two (p. 85). 2 I refer here to a person who identifies their place of origin as a country located on the African Continent.

met a member of the queer community living on the Continent3 who spoke openly and publicly about queer rights, nor an African woman speaking openly and publicly about the rights of those living with HIV. At the time, my experience led me to believe that the work in Canada of

African people living with HIV and as members of queer African communities was one of silence and non-confrontation couched in shame and stigma. This call was additionally remarkable because the caller had been given my name as an African lesbian who could host

Tsitsi during her visit; in fact, he had not been able to find anyone else who was African and publicly out about their sexual orientation, and he was hoping I could connect Tsitsi with a community while she was here. “I guess that makes me your one and only,” I said flippantly but with a tinge of sadness, since the so-called “queer African community” in Canada at that time was not a solidified unit and was very much underground. I, too, was longing for the connections and supports that a strong community could offer.

And so I met with Tsitsi, attended her brilliant presentations, and showed off our queer freedom in Canada, with parties and clubs on Church street,4 a community centre just for us, and even a bookstore in the “little village of gayness” we inhabited in the vast city of Toronto. One evening, Tsitsi looked at me over dinner and said, “What are you doing?” I looked at her quite perplexed and asked, “Doing about what?” She replied, “I am dying and very much about my life having meaning, so what are you doing as an African lesbian living in the West with all of your rights and freedoms and privileges? What are you doing to make life better for others?” I did not have an answer for her that night. I can’t even say that at that stage of my maturity I had truly been more than curious about what was happening for other queer Africans who existed within

Continental African space. I did not yet have a clear understanding that Africa mattered, and that what was happening to queer Africans throughout the entire Continent was central to my own

3 I am referring here to the African Continent and the 54 recognized states found within this land mass. 4 A queer enclave of businesses and clubs found in Toronto, Ontario.

3 existence, wherever I was living. My defensive response to her question came from the selfish belief that as an intersectional Black African immigrant lesbian living in Canada, my fight was as great as hers. “What rights and privileges is she really talking about?,” I thought, “Queer

Africans in Canada have struggles as well; we are marginalized, ostracized, and abused just as much as anyone else. My context may be different, but we are all struggling.” I did not truly understand what she was talking about until 2004, and by that time, Tsitsi had already passed on and the force of her oscillation had triggered the inspirational activism of FannyAnn Eddy.5

My friend FannyAnn had returned home to our country of birth, Sierra Leone, in 2002, after the end of a 10-year civil war. She courageously founded the Sierra Leone Lesbian and Gay

Association (SLLGA). She became publicly known as the only lesbian in the country. She challenged African governments at the United Nations, making statements about the LGBTQ situation in Africa:

Silence creates vulnerability. You, members of the Commission on Human Rights, can break the silence. You can acknowledge that we exist, throughout Africa and on every Continent, and that human rights violations based on sexual orientation or gender identity are committed every day. You can help us combat those violations and achieve our full rights and freedoms, in every society, including my beloved Sierra Leone. (Testimony by FannyAnn Eddy at the UN Commission on Human Rights, 60th Session, Item 14)

I figured out quite clearly what I was doing on September 31, 2004, when I received a call telling me that someone had broken into the office of the SLLGA late on September 29 and murdered

FannyAnn. I understood what I was doing when I had to deliver this devastating news to her family in Canada. My life and understanding of the fight for queer African rights began to have meaning as another life ended. The vibration of FannyAnn’s life triggered my oscillation, and

5 FannyAnn Eddy, age 30, was an African leader in the queer rights movement. She founded the Sierra Leone Lesbian and Gay Association and was comfortable being known as the only openly queer person living in her country. FannyAnn’s murder took place on the night of September 29, 2004. Assailants broke into the SLLGA office in Freetown while she was working alone late at night. She was repeatedly stabbed and raped before her neck was broken. A 9-year-old son survives her. Just prior to her death, she made an in-person submission to the United Nations in Geneva addressing the persecution of queers in Africa, urging African political leaders to address homophobia in their countries.

4 my frequency or purpose became aligned with hers that day. The theory of resonance posits that the force of the initial frequency makes it easier for the next system to oscillate. Simply put, it’s not as hard for that system to reach a greater frequency. It’s almost as if any time anyone accomplishes something it becomes easier for someone else to accomplish that same goal. In my case, the work of advocating for queer African rights under the protection of Canadian citizenship and human rights laws became a much easier oscillation than the one FannyAnn had to generate in Sierra Leone in order to trigger my work in Canada.

When you belong to a group, particularly one that is marginalized by society, activism requires you to draw on a collective memory of resistance, learn from it, and, in turn, contribute to it in order to advance the original intention forward. As queer African activists, we too are turning towards and looking for our collective memory of resistance, so little of which is spoken, documented, and recorded. We have the added task of amplifying our oscillation through the painstaking work of piecing together histories and stories of resistance in order to contribute to the elimination of a struggle that has resulted in so much violence and loss of life. Tsitsi’s question and FannyAnn’s death, for me, brought forward an intense interrogation of collective responsibility for those of us living in the queer African diaspora. How are we contributing to the collective memory of queer African resistance, and how are we able to do so in order to advance the liberatory intention of queer freedom on the Continent? What if flight from her oppression had been an option for FannyAnn? Would she have chosen to escape? I have asked that question continuously for many years.

While the motivation for my work comes from a place of profound sadness, loss, and grief, I am most interested in how such emotions can move me towards the pragmatics of what I want to accomplish with my current project of working with queer African refugees in Canada. I want to focus on the actual “doing” or usefulness of my work rather than centring epistemology as a tool for my own coping. As a queer African, I am interested in reflexively placing my actions, interactions, and emotional responses to events impacting queer Africans at centre stage,

5 and in locating our lives within the larger historical, social, economic, and political contexts in which these events occur. It is my intention to not only engage in a research process that illuminates the lives of a group of queer Africans refugees who are part of culturally diverse communities but also to also challenge the status quo and further social justice efforts for queer

Africans.

The word “resonance” comes from Latin and means to “resound”—to sound out together with a loud sound. It is my hope that my project creates a loud disruptive noise that is useful for those who are contributing to the survival of queer Africans everywhere.

Introduction Dissertation Overview

The chapters that follow aim to increase the reader’s understanding and develop a common grounding in discussions relevant to queer African refugee experiences. In order to understand how queer Africans navigate multiple spaces for survival, we must understand the impact of social, political, sexual, economic, cultural, and historical factors as they strive to reconstitute their lives in new Western locales.

My research supports and expands on the foundational work of the International

Resource Network for Africa, founded in 2007 in Saly, Senegal. I was privileged to be a member of a core group of academics and activists from the African Continent, North America, and

Europe who were interested in potentially transforming research on African sexuality, sexual discourse, and images. The group convened with the support of the Centre for LGBTQ Studies

(CLAGS).6 Our focus at that time was to investigate and theorize non-normative sexualities and gender variance in the African context, and begin to unravel the silences and stereotypes about

Africa’s highly restrictive and oppressive ideologies of heterosexuality that were often held up as state policy or immutable culture. The priorities were to foster a new generation of African activist/researchers, link both academic and community-based people researching this area, promote international communication and exchange through scholarship, foster comparative and collaborative projects, advance curricular and course development, and widen the availability of shared scholarly resources within Africa (Nyeck & Epprecht, 2013). The group convened again in

2009, in Syracuse, New York, with a focus on exploring questions and partnerships arising from new African scholarship on gender and sexualities, highlighting the diverse experiences of the

6 The Center for LGBTQ Studies provides a platform for intellectual leadership in addressing issues that affect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals and other sexual and gender minorities. As the first university-based LGBTQ research center in the United States, CLAGS nurtures cutting-edge scholarship, organizes events for examining and affirming LGBTQ lives, and fosters network-building among academics, artists, activists, policy makers, and community members.

African Diaspora. Three collections of scholarly essays (IRN-Africa, 2008; Nyeck, 2020; Nyeck

& Epprecht, 2013) have been published from this network, each critically engaging with debates on sexuality and gender identity in Africa as well as with contentious issues of methodology, epistemology, ethics, and pedagogy.

My dissertation emerges from my work within the network and attempts to resolve some of the tensions that we collectively engage concerning queer embodiment and African subjectivity. For the non-African reader, it will take patience to engage with my work. The pacing is slow, it is interjected with personal narratives, valuable space and time is used to pay respect to queer ancestors, and, at times, the work is repetitive for emphasis and is respectively circular instead of harshly direct. The effort is to make my work meaningful for, intelligible to, and prioritizing of the African reader. It was my intention for the work to be accessible and persuasive to the broadest audience possible. However, it has become clear that my target audience, first and foremost, is students and scholars of African Studies in society and culture generally and of Queer African Studies specifically.

The second group I aim to address is practitioners focused on social care and policy reformation that supports queer African refugees. I aim to provide tools or a framework of praxis for engaging this work through a queer African lens. I believe practice knowledge must be influenced by theory. At the same time, the work of practitioners acts as the testing ground for the relevance and usefulness of my theorizing. As a social worker, I understand that my practice also initiates its theorization and critical questions. In the study of queer African refugees, theory and praxis are at once interlocked, as we need both to open up possibilities for new effective and more transformative ways of understating oppression and resistance. The development of alternate ways of understanding queer African refugees and their acts of resistance can empower social workers to develop practices that enable this group to overcome their marginalized status in the larger oppressive society. The expansion of existing practice wisdom has an end goal of building better knowledge, theory, and praxis to reach its potential as a strategy for liberation.

My dissertation has an end goal of developing a participant-driven praxis framework that will allow practitioners to understand best practices, knowledge production, methods, and competency when working with queer Africans generally and queer African refugees specifically. This dissertation can be seen as a mapping process that leads to the definitions and theoretical understandings of queer African subjects and their experience with the Canadian refugee apparatus. The resulting Queer African Praxis Framework (See Figure 7, p. 226) will not only guide the work of practitioners but also point to areas for future study and shape how this future research should be conducted.

The third group I am speaking to are queer Africans themselves, who rarely have the opportunity to read about their lives and experiences in any significant way. The research findings detailed in my dissertation are written specifically with this audience in mind. I do not emphasize how you should read or interpret the participants’ quotes and stories. I am trying to facilitate a conversation between the reader and the participants with limited interference from myself as the researcher. I admit the quotes are often long and plentiful, but we often do not have the privilege or opportunity to immerse ourselves in the lives of queer Africans. I encourage the prolonged engagement with these stories in order to foster a more in-depth understanding or, at least, to indulge us as queer Africans who fight to be seen and heard.

I call on the West African tradition of Oriki when depicting the life stories of the participants in the study findings. Oriki is the oral praising of an individual through lengthy poetry or prose, which recounts the details of their lives, their challenges, and what they have overcome to become the resilient person that they are today. Oriki, or the recounting of one’s life by another, is believed to positively affect one’s conception of self and one’s role in society.

Oriki is a point of honor and pride, and the effect of Oriki on the subject is enormous, for it infuses the recipient with a sense of self, a reflection on their ability to endure the past, and the ability to dream about a bright future (Adeniji-Neill, 2014). My intention in detailing research

9 findings lies here as opposed to in the idea that participant quotes should be used to support or give weight to my analysis or should be overpowered by my analysis.

Zingaro (2009) uses the strategy of the deliberate act of “speaking out,” where the practitioner strategically decides to reference and activate their experiential expertise as a tool in the process of supporting, assisting, and communicating with others. I deploy this strategy in my research process, which allows for the ethics, intentions, and collaborative spirit of my research process to be clearly articulated. In the defined concept of “speaking out,” I, as the researcher, not only hold a position of credential, authority, and responsibility that is recognized by dominant culture, but I also hold authority based on my lived experience with similar kinds of difficulties than those my research participants live with. Through the research process, I am not only giving my formal testimony but am also allowing space for the public testimony of my research participants.

In the research findings, I am more interested in facilitating and prioritizing the testimonial nature or space of “speaking out” for the participants as opposed to the analysis and my interpretation of what they have to say. This examination of “speaking out” as a meaningful research practice may help other practitioners, activists, and researchers in their efforts to seek the interests of a more equitable society.

As an activist/practitioner and researcher, I believe we should depict knowledge that is reflexively generated through people’s interactions with the social world they inhabit, including discourses in which they participate and bring into being through their work. For me, the inclusion of personal narratives of marginalization and resulting navigations has become a tool for advocacy, for telling a larger collective truth. My self-disclosure is a personal choice intended to assist those who may be isolated in their own experiences of developing trust and connection.

Given that oppression shapes everyone’s reality, we can use our own lives as evidence that dominant oppressive views are flawed. By using our own lives, experiences, and self-definitions,

10 we can validate our existences and experiences while simultaneously claiming the right to interpret our own realities (Miehls & Moffat, 2000).

The process of self-definition through “speaking out” is a useful tool for social change.

How I engage with research participants and highlight their lives is an act of replacing the images of the dominant culture with our narratives, which is an essential component in the struggle to resist knowledge systems that create race, gender, sexuality, and class oppression. We must concern ourselves with the creation of alternative strategies to challenge the status quo.

Self-exploration is one of the critical strategies for me. Activist/practitioners and applied activist/researchers working in immigration, education, health, human services, and social work fields, as well as persons interested in using anti-oppressive qualitative research methods, will benefit from the work that follows.

In terms of original contribution, my research is the first extensive qualitative study of queer African refugees in Canada. Through this exercise of “speaking out,” I hope to contribute to the growing field of Queer Migration scholarship and enhance well-established Canadian

Immigrant and Refugee scholarship. By placing these two areas of study in dialogue with the key findings of my research, I aim to push forward critical thinking about the ways in which

Canadian refugee policies, social institutions, and dominant discourses contribute to the sociopolitical construction of queer African refugees. Moreover, centering the experiences of queer African refugees will facilitate an understanding of how they respond to and resist constraining sociocultural forces that are inherent in forced migration. This centering further highlights the necessity of strategies for increasing resources, protection, and advocacy for this group in Canada and on the Continent. The act of “speaking out” also shines a light on areas of study which have not addressed the lack of necessary engagement with queer Africans. My research causes us to pause and reflect on the influence research findings will have in the reshaping of African Studies, Black Studies, and Queer scholarship as a whole if queer Africans become the central figures of study. Queer Africans continue to remain peripheral to the histories

11 embedded in each of these disciplines of study, and my work questions the legitimacy of histories told without their inclusion. My research speaks to the need for the inclusion of queer

Africans in disciplines which aim to dissect histories of colonialism, nationalism, racism, and migration.

Disjuncture

The search for identity, intimacy, community, and security in Canada by queer African refugees is shaped by resistance to oppression within the host country and the country of origin.

It is also shaped through the act of navigating two cultures, effecting change in two cultures, and supporting systems and structures in two, often divergent, cultural contexts. I am looking at the contrasting elements of these two divergent geographic spaces, and I invoke the concept of

“disjuncture” in the vein of Appadurai (1996). The disjuncture, or sharp cleavage, is the space within which I can interrogate one’s distance from a perceived norm and the resulting outcomes for those furthest away. Queer Africans on the Continent face a disjuncture from the compulsory heterosexual norm, and those within the Canadian context face a disjuncture from the homonational norm defined by the refugee apparatus; in each case, we must look at how they manage to balance life living in both of these cleavages.

Figure 1: The Queer African Refugee Balancing Act or Disjuncture

Identity Intimacy

The queer African refugee navigating a Canadian context is left to balance identity, intimacy, security, oppression and citizenship in two very different cultural context as depicted in Figure 1.

There is a limited pool of documentation concerning African sexuality, cultural production, and migration; we therefore cannot easily theorize the production and reception of these diverse sexualities globally (Bhagat, 2018; Kenix & Abikanlu, 2019). Belonging to a nation-state and the desire to belong to a home are complicated for queer African subjects, who must continually think about how same-sex desire and identity intersect with citizenship and survival (Bryant, 2015; Murray, 2014). We have to then question the realities of African bodies who are proclaiming a queer identity in a refugee process that is fraught with homophobia and heterosexism, and in the constant shadow of detentions, deportation, and even possible loss of life if refugee claims fail. My research articulates the experiences of queer Africans who have claimed refugee status in Canada on the grounds of sexual orientation and/or gender identity persecution in their country of origin. The study occurred within a theoretical framework that allowed for in-depth exploration and articulation of issues concerning sexual orientation, sexual identity, gender, race, choice, migration, and citizenship. My research has a larger liberatory goal of initiating dialogue and creating a foundation to theorize, and understand in greater depth, queer African identity, while exploring the following specific objectives:

1. To identify how the identities of queer African refugees are shaped in multiple

geographic spaces;

2. To illuminate how queer African refugees use these spaces to subvert their oppression in

their host countries and countries of origin; and

3. To investigate the Canadian refugee system as a process that re-shapes refugees’ queer

identities to fit homonormative Canadian norms.

The question anchoring my research is: How do queer African refugees come to know themselves and negotiate their identities and security between nations? The following sub- questions support this exploration further:

1. Who are we as queer Africans?

2. How do these identities develop, shift, and transform as we cross geographic borders?

3. Who do we become when sexual orientation and gender identity can be freely expressed

after a life of necessary suppression?

4. How are queer identities realigned and reimagined in relation to geographic positioning

and the Canadian immigration apparatus?

A full detailed mapping of my research is outlined below to assist the reader with a linear understanding of the process.

Figure 2: Visual Project Map

• The search for identity, intimacy, community, and security in Canada by queer African refugees is shaped by resistance to oppression within the host country and country of origin. It is also shaped through the act of navigating between two cultures, effecting change in two cultures, and supporting systems and structures in two, often divergent, cultural contexts. • There is a limited pool of documentation concerning African sexuality, cultural production, and Disjuncture migration. We therefore cannot easily theorize the production and reception of these diverse sexualities globally.

• Belonging to a nation state and the desire to belong to a home are complicated for queer African subjects, who must continually think about how same-sex desire and identity intersect with citizenship. We need to interogate the realities of African bodies proclaiming a queer identity in a refugee process that is fraught with homophobia/transphobia and heterosexism, and in the constant Problematic shadow of detentions, deportations, and even possible loss of life if refugee claims fail.

• This study aims to articulate the experiences of queer Africans who have claimed refugee status in Canada on the grounds of sexual orientation and/or sexual identity persecution in their country of origin. The study occured within a theoretical framework that allowed for in-depth exploration and articulation of issues concerning sexual orientation, sexual identity, gender, race, choice, migration, Goal and citizenship.

• To initiate a dialogue and create a foundation to theorize and understand in greater depth queer African identity • To identify how the identities of queer African refugees are shaped in multiple geographic spaces • To illuminate how queer African refugees use these spaces to subvert their oppression in their host countries and countries of origin. Objectives • To investigate the Canadian refugee system as a process which re-shapes refugee queer identity to fit homonormative Canadian norms.

• How do queer African refugees come to know themselves and negotiate their identities and security between nations? Research Question

• Who are we as queer Africans? • How do these identities develop, shift, and transform as we cross geographic borders? • Who do we become when sexual orientation and gender identity can be freely expressed after a life of Sub- necessary suppression? • How are queer identities realigned and reimagined in relation to geographic positioning and the Questions immigration apparatus?

To be frank with the reader, in my research I am searching for myself as much as for answers to these challenging questions. This process of self-definition is one of the most effective tools for social transformation (Kondrat, 1999). Replacing the dominant cultural view of us as queer Africans is an essential component in the struggle to resist knowledge systems that create oppression based on race, gender identity, and sexual orientation. We must concern ourselves with understanding not only how power is held over oppressed groups but also how to support queer Africans seeking alternative strategies that challenge their disjuncture from the status quo (Reimer et al., 2017).

Personally, understanding, reflecting on, and sharing my experiences with others is at times emotionally difficult, but it is also empowering. It highlights for me the fact that the most effective means of resistance to our oppression can come from understanding our own queer

African identities, from sharing stories of struggles collectively encountered as a result of this queer African identity and opportunities to collectively understand and strategize how to remove the barriers society puts in front of us because of it. The gathering and documenting of the

15 following personal accounts from research participants was an exploration of the concept of eliciting individual experiences and conducting the often painstaking exploration and analysis of those experiences as a source of new knowledge and insight.

The goal of my work is to move beyond promoting survival and resilience in oppressive environments and move towards transforming existing experiences into strategies that empower us to dismantle systems that promote marginalized status. I ultimately want my work to recognize the history and dignity of our resistance to our experiences of oppression as queer

Africans (Benjamin, 2017). The goal is to ensure that we are not just documented as passive subjects but are active participants in our liberation. As researchers, this requires us to speak to, engage directly with, and disrupt the environments that oppress us, and to work and collaborate equitably with the actual people with the lived experience from which these ideas and acts of resistance emerge. Research from this perspective provides us with the tools to shed light on structures that threaten our potential for optimal living and the barriers that keep us from seeing the possibility of a life free from oppression.

In a world where forced migration is on the rise, with more and more people pushed into diasporic communities due to economic decline, political conflicts, increased religious fundamentalism, and unreformed colonial laws, we now see significant movements of queer

Africans beyond the Continent. Although they now can lay claim to the African diaspora, their relationship to Africa, to each other, to mainstream queer communities, and to heteronormative

African communities in Canada is mediated by both shared and competing interests. Research that aims to create new knowledge and theory that can accommodate the lives of queer African refugees is therefore truly a construction of embodied knowledge—knowledge that is grounded in the bodily experience of specific materiality (Wane, 2011).

The realities faced by queer African refugees and their intersection with the Canadian state requires a discussion of the formation of identity, sense of belonging, and search for home that leads down a path to new citizenship. This includes equating belonging in the nation to the

16 possession of immigration papers and a formation of Canadian identity constructed by civic activities such as voting and paying taxes (Dück, 2019). I look at how these activities are complicated for queer African refugees who are trying to establish a queer Canadian identity that will guarantee them the safety and security of a home nation-state. For me, the discussion is not only about citizenship and belonging but also involves the larger narratives of forced queer migration and border crossing, both figurative and literal. These are vital concepts that must be part of our knowledge base of what it means to be a queer African refugee and part of the

Canadian nation, where there is a clear privileging of particular experiences of migration over others and clear distinctions based on the means by which one came to this nation, from where one came, and how one self-identified upon arrival (Adeyanju, 2017; Hari & Liew, 2018).

There are clear differences between the experiences of the Sierra Leonean refugee fleeing war in the last twenty years, the Ethiopian and Somali refugee in the 1980s and 1990s, and the current growing population of queer African refugees in Canada from across the Continent. This discussion requires theorizing based on displacement, movement, and geographical re- placement, a theory that understands and accounts for the regulating and defining of queer

Africans depending on our location (Ong, 2006). What we fail to interrogate, particularly those of us who migrated with acceptable heterosexual identities, credentials, language skills, finances, and employment in place, is the state’s role in creating histories of Black people in Canada. This history draws on particular geographies at different times, creates hierarchies within the state, and privileges some migrants and their experiences while completely disregarding others

(Bannerji, 2000; Gabriel, 1996; Henry & Tator, 2005; Hess, 2000; Smith, 2000). Within this discussion we cannot ignore the Canadian states deliberate erasure of the historical origins of

African presence in Canada through slavery (Cooper,2006).We are enmeshed in the battle of defining ourselves as African diasporic people and giving meaning to our place in Canada, despite the fact that our place is predefined and predetermined within a heteronormative framework (Creese, 2019).

I am proposing in my work that a queer theory that incorporates the lives of queer

Africans must investigate the reality that the broader queer Black diaspora has increased dramatically due to flight as a rational response to economic hardship, political turmoil, persecution, and conflict. To problematize this analysis, human agency must also be a factor in this shifting reality; the players in this analysis are not solely victims of the mechanisms of broader structures. Both politically and economically, the diaspora has an important part to play in contemporary social processes operating at an increasingly global scale, and any theory that reflects the realities of queer Africans must account for complex, dynamic, and overlapping geographies. A theory that reflects the realities of queer African refugees in Canada must do the same while being grounded in the specific materiality of queer African lives that also carry the label of “Black.” It must acknowledge displacement and movement and re-placement while interrogating the racialized and sexualized discourses of the Canadian nation. As an organizing, transforming, and bridging discourse, it must create space for the articulated experiences of queer Africans living in Canada and highlight the inequities faced by queer communities globally. Finally, in the end, it must allow for personal space for the theorist to grapple with their own identity and their own activism.

Contrary to Gilroy’s (2000) traditional notion of Black journeys to freedom or notions of flight to an imagined home, which are less often geographic than psychological and introspective, the queer African refugee viewpoint of migration is literal and based on physical geographic movement and locality shifting of sexuality. The experiences of queer African refugees challenge us to think beyond a narrow definition of freedom, looking to one that is inclusive of the many diversities and complexities of queerness and to the commonality in our diverse sexualities, since we all have individual and personal relations to home and safety. For some, home is an idealized womb of nurturance and safety; for others, the home of origin is a dynamic, persistently changing entity; for others still, home is a site of violent oppression that is impossible return to in any authentic sense (Gilroy, 2000; Ong, 2006; Murray, 2016; Said, 2000);

18 and finally, for some, home is the Canadian context in which we currently exist despite the inhospitable climate we must often navigate as African people (Barrett, 2015; Creese, 2019) .

What we have are multiple imaginings of home that influence and are influenced by identity, perceived sexual freedom, and the political strength to effect change.

First Comes Grief, Then Comes Action

In the aftermath of FannyAnn Eddy’s death, diasporic queer Africans began to organize in Canada quite publicly, with the first event in Toronto being a memorial in honour of her life.

In 2005, I began speaking at events about the situation for queer Africans both here in Canada and internationally, and I was invited by Gays and Lesbians of African Decent (GLAD)7 to participate in a panel discussion to celebrate the International Day Against Homophobia

(IDAHO) on May 17 of that year. The panel consisted of queer Africans living in Toronto, with each of us sharing our experiences of fighting homophobia in our respective communities. It was during this event that I was introduced to Paulos,8 who recounted his story of founding the first

LGBTQ organization in his African country of origin out of frustration at the rise of HIV infection rates among gay men in the country. He shared that a reporter had decided to put his picture and name on the front page of the national newspaper without his permission.

Subsequently, his home had been raided by police, and he was forced to flee for his life. After struggling to make his way to Toronto, he had applied for refugee status and was still awaiting his refugee hearing date.

The eye-opening moment for me was the realization that Paulos was the first queer

African refugee claimant I had personally encountered. This was despite my being quite active in the Black/African diasporic LGBTQ community in Toronto and working professionally with

7 Gays and Lesbians of African Descent (GLAD) was a social group founded by Patricia Koine in Toronto in 1999. The GLAD mission was to provide a supportive community for Toronto- based Continental Africans who self-identified as LGBTQ and to actively document their existence, challenge homophobia, and inform their communities through education, outreach, and advocacy. 8 The name Paulos is a pseudonym, to protect the anonymity of the research participant.

19 immigrant and refugee communities for over 20 years. I became acutely aware that queer

African refugees as a group were very much hidden, both from the African immigrant/refugee community and from the queer community.

There was a certain level of stigma associated with being a refugee in the queer community, and queer identity was heavily regulated by homophobia and transphobia within the immigrant community, often at the same level as within the home countries being fled. As was discussed that evening, there is a lack of willingness to disclose either identity—as a queer person or as a refugee—even to those who may be seen as allies, and my own openly queer status was seen by many in attendance as a threat to those who did not want to be associated with the stigma I personally carried in many African communities. This caution around associating with openly queer individuals has evolved from the reality of the physical danger such casual relationships could bring in countries where queer association has been criminalized. Despite the fact that we were all participating in an event within Canadian borders, which guaranteed our protection through legislation, the risk of loss of status within African families and African communities was one not many were willing to take, particularly when the alternative was banishment to an inhospitable Canadian landscape that is fraught with anti-Black racism and struggles to support any deviation from white heteronormativity.

For me, a strong cultural, racial, gender, and sexual identity has been a necessary component of agency, resistance, and survival in the Canadian context I have found myself in as an African immigrant since the 1970s. If we look at the queer African refugee within today’s political climate, how do these identities develop, shift, and transform as they cross geographic borders? Who do Africans become when sexual orientation and gender identity can be freely expressed after a life of necessary suppression? How are queer identities realigned and reimagined in relation to geographic positioning and the immigration apparatus? These are crucial questions within my dissertation. In order to address these questions, I have chosen to look at one segment of the African population, namely, queer African refugees.

This is the ideal time to begin a dialogue on African migration, sexual orientation, and gender identity, in light of the fact that (1) African migration globally is escalating due to political unrest, economic instability, and globalization; (2) human rights violations in many countries on the African Continent are at an all-time high for gays, lesbians, and transgender persons as they actively fight for constitutional change and protection—this is happening at the same time Canada is projecting itself as a world leader legislatively in the protection of rights for these same groups, making it an ideal destination for those individuals fleeing persecution based on sexual orientation and gender identity (Rehaag, 2017); and (3) discussions surrounding refugees and the Canadian crisis of complacency has reached a critical point after the Syrian crisis of 2015, with our former Conservative government’s failure to live up to the expectations of a benevolent nation, and our current government’s challenges with anti-Black racism in the last election (Smith, MacCharles, Boutilier, & Ballingall, 2019; Taylor, 2019).

Additionally, an independent review of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, initiated in 2017 (Yeates, 2018), was motivated by a surge in refugee claims of upwards of

50,000, along with the low productivity of the Board’s Refugee Protection Division and the resulting backlog in hearings. It should be noted that the surge in claims was facilitated by an increase in unauthorized border crossings by claimants to avoid the provisions of the Safe Third

Country Agreement with the United States, which would likely make many ineligible to file a refugee claim in Canada (MacDonald & Kapelos, 2019). Perhaps the most notable of these crossings was made by Seidu Mohammed, a Ghanaian Muslim who identified as bisexual and crossed the Canadian border into Manitoba from North Dakota. He almost froze to death after becoming disoriented in a snowstorm. Seidu lost all of his fingers and toes as a result of seeking freedom from persecution because of his sexual orientation (Murphy, 2018).

Despite the obvious importance of this topic, very little research and literature exists on the articulation of queer African refugee experiences, and there is a dearth of literature that can shed light on the historical existence of these groups in any context, no less in Canada, which has

21 been a leader in LGBTQ refugee claims. The current discussion about diasporic queer Africans often overlooks specific modes and effects of displacement and geographic movement. Through this project, I seek to develop an archive for the investigation of queer identity and its place in present-day Africa and the African diaspora.

Current immigration and refugee research examples often include a wide variety of diverse ethnic and cultural groups but make limited specific mention of issues concerning queer

Africans solely. The conflating of queer refugee experiences leads to challenges when trying to analyze sexuality trends from a specific socio-geopolitical perspective. For this reason, my research focuses on queer refugees indigenous to a single Continent. In so doing, I am not trying to theorize a collective subjectivity as a universal approach to understanding queer African refugees, and I do acknowledge the heterogeneity of the group. I am, however, supporting the notion of a common queer African history of oppression on the Continent as well as in Canada. I support my choice with the notion that communities that interact with diasporas are best discussed through the politics of culture, identity, and subjectivity (Grewal & Kaplan, 2001).

The queer African diaspora has become an environment that fosters the invention of tradition, ethnicity, kinship, and other identity markers. It is becoming a place where multiple

African communities become a monolithic entity as part of a Black community for survival, and one where it is more advantageous to identify with and become a part of the homogenous group

“queer Africans,” as opposed to being separated based on ethnic or national identities with regional differences emphasized (Massaquoi, 2004). These differences become less important than our shared experiences of homophobia, transphobia, migration, racism, and search for belonging in Canadian society. I would emphasize that the collapsing of the identity of “queer

African” is not a natural or static category; rather, in Spivak’s (2012) sense, it is strategically advantageous for queer Africans to temporarily “essentialize” ourselves and to bring forward a group identity in a simplified way to achieve goals of equality and security. It is the strategic use of positive essentialism for a situationally specific political purpose.

I re-emphasize my use of the term “queer Africans” throughout this dissertation. We remain Africans regardless of our location either on the Continent or in diasporic spaces. I also reiterate my early explanation of my use of the term “queer.” I use the term as an act of agency and in reference to same-sex desire or any alternative to compulsory heterosexuality. I use this term with particular reference to same-sex desire from an African sensibility, in which labels such as “lesbian” and “gay” are not fixed identities and where there is a multiplicity of sexualities not yet defined within an African context.

In order to study the intricate realignment of sexual orientation, sexual identity, sexual politics, and sexual desire that inevitably emerge through forced migration and the refugee process in Canada, I chose to rely on a qualitative in-depth interview strategy in order to focus on individual lived experiences of queer African refugees. The in-depth interviews I conducted captured the deep meaning of life experiences in the participants’ own words and offered detailed and in-depth insights into the complexities of their lives, their reflections, and their responses to these experiences. This approach enabled me to gain a nuanced understanding of the complex issues raised throughout the research process, insights that I believe would not have been captured through the use of broader, sweeping strategies. My goal was to focus narrowly on a diverse group of African refugees while attempting to understand the bigger picture of this experience in its myriad forms and contexts. It was my belief that willing participants who could freely share their life stories without fear of persecution would provide rich, deeply meaningful information that would both be transformational for myself as a researcher and add to the narratives required for a successful social justice movement to challenge the continued persecution of this group.

This project, surprisingly for me, has become a meditation on my years of social work practice, combined with personal tragedy, resulting guilt, and a pressing desire for systemic transformation. When aiming to engage in transformative research that will address the experiences of queer African refugees in Canada, we must interrogate the meaning of exclusion,

23 forced migration, and disconnection from the former home while trying to secure a new one.

Such transformative investigation involves acts of resistance at multiple levels, on the part of both the researcher and the research participants. Resistance requires us to act in opposition to, or live contrary to, oppressive forces—the same forces that tell us we don’t belong, we are deviant, we are not expected to survive. Resistance sometimes means that we will have to challenge ourselves and others in ways that make us uncomfortable and require us to redistribute the power and privileges many of us enjoy at the expense of marginalized groups (Massaquoi, 2017).

Resistance also means that we have to strive to use our lives, our experiences, and our struggles to develop strategies to withstand and eliminate oppression.

One can be seen to be “doing” transformative research when one not only is able to engage methodologically in a way that includes resistance but also interrogates dominant forms of knowledge and the ways they impact research participants. At the individual transformative level, this means making connections between the self and the ability of the self to endure, reflect, and be a catalyst for change; the ability of the experience of transformation to empower others; and the capacity to question existing knowledge with the end goal of building better theory and practice. In short, we want to create research that is able to reach its potential as a strategy for liberation. Throughout this project, I explore and explain aspects of the experience of resisting social roles, structures, identities, and expectations that limit queer African refugees and keep them “in their place,” both in their countries of origin and in Canada. Moving beyond these restrictive spaces involves breaking boundaries and crossing both real and symbolic borders, causing us to focus on the emotional, systemic, and political impacts of specifically sexualized border crossings.

Caught Between a Home and a Queer Place

As one’s geographic context shifts, so too must notions of oppression adjust accordingly.

A queer refugee analysis must account for shifting notions of identity, oscillating identities that fluctuate between what it means to be queer in Canada and what it means to be queer in one’s

24 country of origin. How long can one legitimately oscillate between multiple locations and queer identities, or is one expected to eventually choose between a home and a corresponding queer practice? From a theoretical standpoint, we must encompass new definitions, paradigms, and understandings of sexual, political, cultural, and ethical issues in diasporic spaces (Gilroy, 2000;

Mohan & Zack-Williams, 2002), but we must also interrogate the experiences of refugees living in Canada in a meaningful way that involves existing in opposition to the roles we are assigned within white queer movements as acceptable third-world models, as cultural interpreters, or as poster children for the benevolence of the Canadian state.

It is very common for us as African people to dismiss notions of queerness as a Western, imported ideology that will divide and ruin African culture, families, and good African citizens; therefore, we feel we do not need to engage with debates that address contemporary and global forms of queer struggles or engage with the increasing queer flight from all regions of the

Continent. I engage in this discussion because, despite being raised in a Canadian context, I was unwilling to label myself queer for many years for fear of being co-opted by Western academic notions of extreme individualism and militancy. What I have come to realize is that, through time and across culture, queer Africans have acted upon perceived injustices in whatever manners, and with whatever resources, were available to them. We have not been passive bystanders in our oppression, despite Western depictions to the contrary. Instead, we have fought for basic survival needs, to stop violence against ourselves, and to gain the right to have a voice in the political arena.

Even if one does not want to call this struggle “queer” in nature, one cannot deny the necessity of non-heteronormative demands for such rights and name it whatever suits their cultural purposes. Protest politics are an expression of everyday experiences in the lives of many queer Africans, whether reflected in open confrontation or in silent protest. Thus, capturing this cultural experience is essential to a grounded analysis of the political action of these individuals.

This means analysis must be predicated on everyday lives—the challenge, then, being how to explicate the interplay between agency and social structure in social action.

What I am looking for is an amalgamated theory that will decentre my oppressor, deconstruct my experience, and look at difference or heterogeneity within my imagined community. Interrogating the relations between transnational subjects, states, and the understanding of particular cultural dynamics is essential to the queer African refugee analysis that I am proposing. Cultural dynamics give meaning to action and transform the nation-state; conversely, culture itself also becomes transformed by capital and the modern nation-state (Ong,

2006). The processes of displacement, movement, and re-placement to a new locality produce a unique form of political consciousness, which is central to any analysis or framework that respects the lives of queer African refugees.

Chapter Details

The opening chapter of this dissertation provides a detailed description of the research design by outlining the research methodology and techniques of data analysis. This chapter gives a close look at what is termed “transformational research,” in which the researcher builds trust through a power-driven relationship with research participants and incorporates critical self- reflection as a vital component of the methodological process. Chapters Two through Four provide the conceptual framework within which the entire dissertation is situated and is a synthesis of the literature and review of theoretical frameworks that are relevant to the project’s subject matter. This makes way for the final section, Chapters Five through Eight, which analyzes and discusses the qualitative data collected in an extensive set of personal interviews.

In Chapter One, I detail the methodological insights gained from fieldwork conducted with 40 queer African refugees in Canada, as well as my engagement with interpretive phenomenological research design and methodology housed within an anti-oppressive framework. This includes my participant recruitment strategy and my anti-oppressive strategy for data collection and analysis. I focus on how an anti-oppressive epistemology can elucidate how

26 social justice research looks and acts. I suggest that genuine engagement with communities through research requires an emphasis on the social responsibility of the researcher to the communities being studied, especially when addressing oppressive social conditions. I explain the importance of reflexivity and discuss its relevance to my social location concerning the participants in this study.

This chapter asks the reader to consider reflexivity as a vital tool for ensuring rigour in the research process. It is a tool that promotes ethical exploration and situated me in a non- exploitive position vis-à-vis the research participants due to the act of decolonizing the discourse of the “other.” I strongly advocate for the definition of a transformative anti-oppressive researcher to be exercised throughout the research process in real and tangible ways. By this, I am referring to one who intentionally engages in acts of resistance throughout the research process. Such a transformative research process can only see success if trust is achieved in the power-driven relationship between researcher and study participants, and if critical self- reflection is a vital component of the researcher’s methodological process. I also consider key ethical considerations that were specific to my experience of working with queer African refugees and argue that research is a powerful tool of resistance. One can be seen to be “doing” transformative research when one is able not only to engage research methods in a way that includes resistance but also to interrogate the production of dominant forms of knowledge and the way this impacts research participants.

Chapter One highlights that the politics of accountability, as defined by Razack (1998), is not merely a neutral exercise aimed at removing barriers to facilitate the safety of research participants. It is heavily dependent on the researcher and their goals and desired outcomes. By accountability, I am referring to the act of contextualizing, identifying, and reflexively positioning my insider/outsider status. This is the process by which researchers hold themselves to the higher standard of consciously not reproducing oppressive practices in the research process, while at the same time acknowledging that oppressive social relations sometimes cannot

27 be avoided. My goal, then, becomes minimizing the impact of unavoidable dominance in the research relationship.

In Chapter Two, I explore and interrogate the academic study of sexual orientation and its connection to the emergence of queer politics of identity and new queer formations, which have historically focused on Western examples. I question the primary emphasis being placed on white, middle-class gay life and the growing fields that are responding to the marginalization of racialized voices. There is a need to redirect a line of analysis that looks at relational maps of knowledge, which highlight the negotiation of sexuality as is it is presented and understood in diverse situations and contexts. I encourage the linking of historical experiences and discursive networks across borders as they relate to sexuality globally.

I argue from the onset that in order to fully understand and support an inquiry that explores queer African lives, we must develop a praxis framework that is able to accommodate queer African lives and enable us to move beyond viewing this group as the history of a marginalized minority population, instead looking at the organization of social hierarchies and its impact on queer African subjects in the broadest possible sense. We need to look at this group as being both part of and central to historical analysis and the production of sexualities both in an

African context and in a diasporic context when these subjects are forced to migrate to Western spaces as refugees. This chapter aims to firmly locate queerness in an African historical, political, and intellectual context and to identify the culturally based problematic that a praxis framework that centralizes queer African intends to remedy. I aim to explore the theoretical idea that a central point of departure needs to be defined in order to create the basis for engagement with Western queer theory from an African location focused on African identity. The current practice of centering queer theory within a historical Eurocentric framework cannot determine subjects who have been forced to peripheral locations.

In Chapter Three, I continue to explore the main components and arguments that must be attended to when developing a queer African praxis framework. I believe that without this

28 interrogation, we will not have a common grounding to discuss the lives of the queer African refugees I examine. I reflect on my experience of participating in the 2009 Toronto Pride Parade with queer African refugees. I argue that the presence of these refugees at Toronto Pride represented the transformation of Western queer communities. I explore the meaning of the emergence of queer African presence in Canada. The queer African refugee operates as a reminder of not only the African state’s inability and failure to achieve security for its citizens from horrific abuse, but also the failure on the part of the Canadian state to support queer refugees, who are under stringent demands to “prove” their homosexuality and are routinely deported, denied, and repatriated to the oppressive situations they fled. The public and visible appearance of these refugees highlights the agenda of new social queer movements in the Global

South and the use of Western spaces for compelling public catharsis and protest in the globalized fight for a “good” and “just” life.

I continue to explore throughout Chapter Three the notion that developing a queer

African praxis framework requires us to look at both the West’s depiction of the treatment of queer citizens in Africa, and the lack of acknowledgment of autonomous resistance to their oppression before arrival in Canada. I argue that such a framework requires us to challenge the assumption that queer migration is a smooth road in which the queer African is oppressed, decides to leave the oppressive country, and travels to a queer-affirming destination. There continues to be a flawed meta-message that successful activism and change can only happen for queer Africans when there is a collision with Western intervention. Chapter Three asks us to directly question Western anti-homophobia projects, which continually fail to consider their imperialistic dynamics and ignore the intersections of race, class, and colonialism as they perpetuate the narrative of the truncated life of the tradition-bound, inferior, victimized queer

African. Chapter Three also asks us to reflect on the sexualization of colonialism as we realize that African colonization by Europeans was not only shaped by the same sodomy laws upheld in

Canada but was also in keeping with the imperial and colonial agenda, which aimed to wipe out

29 and exterminate any sexual practices and subjects who violated heterosexual normativity. I challenge the narrative that the form of othering experienced across the Continent by queer

Africans is an indication that we are culturally more heterosexist or homophobic, which, by extension, translates into more primitive.

The work of Chapter Four is to develop the argument that detailed, historicized, geopolitical mappings of the circuits of power concerning sexual orientation are needed in order to understand the queer refugee experience. The globalization of sexuality is discussed with three key markers: (1) the critical growth of gay international civil society; (2) the current eagerness of economically powerful nation-states to address, critique, and police gender and sexuality issues within less powerful nations; and (3) the push for these economically powerful nations to finance and control relevant human rights institutions in order to establish universal (read: Western) standards for the rights of queer citizens at the national and local levels. Queer human rights have now become the barometer with which to measure the level of mainstream queer fight as not an epistemological struggle but rather a simple geopolitical one in which the world has become polarized between the supporters and opponents of queer rights. I question the role of transnationalism in the specific construction of a queerness that places African subjects at the centre of its analysis. Our analysis must engage in a discussion of cultural difference concerning sexuality, power relations, and history, and the analysis of movement, resistance, and transformation.

In Chapter Four, I also explore discussions of queer displacement that focus on a shared, ongoing history of displacement, adaptation, and resistance before and following migration.

These become important as we interrogate the practice of how we project the queer subject onto specific nations of origin. I am looking at how to illuminate the manner in which queer African subjects negotiate their elision from national memory, as well as how they function as a threat to nation-states. I interrogate how the struggles of queer African refugees make discussions of the heterogeneity of the African diaspora unavoidable, and how diasporic experiences may not be

30 obviously so but are always sexualized. Chapter Four highlights the need to create a queer

African praxis framework that is praxis-driven and both speaks to the refugee experience and the need for a project that affirms and celebrates diverse representations of Africanness.

Social science research lacks a comprehensive examination of the refugee experience, instead tending to focus on the precarious nature of the experience, oppressive conditions, refugee health, and social exclusion—most notably, poverty (Gatrell, 2017; Kahn et al., 2018;

McGrath & Young, 2019). While socio-economic exclusion cannot be ignored, this narrow focus does not offer us an accurate understanding of queer African refugees and how they navigate the

Canadian refugee process.

Chapters Five, Six, and Seven each provide a comprehensive overview and analysis of the final collected themes from the qualitative interviews I conducted with the 40 research participants. These chapters summarize what I have learned directly from the study participants I engaged throughout the research process. Chapter Five grounds us in the participants’ lives before their forced migrations and sets the stage for the necessity of this flight. The findings show a common understanding of violence in the lives of the participants as institutionalized and systemic. There was a tacit day-to-day knowledge that you must be vigilant and fear unprovoked physical, sexual, psychological attacks on your person or property for no reason other than you being perceived as queer. Gender-based violence was specifically highlighted in the findings, with trans and non-trans women experiencing unique forms of discipline through sexual violence. The complexities of compulsory heterosexuality and forced marriage within an African context are explored, as are the complex familial relationships that are mitigated by government sanctions against queer citizens. For the queer African, the key to survival is the ability to orient oneself within disorientation in order to create spaces of safety and security. When this is no longer possible, flight becomes the only option for some.

Chapter Six walks us through the process of how one becomes a refugee in both practical and psychological terms. Participants discuss, with frankness, the myriad ways in which they

31 fled the oppressive conditions they were experiencing and offer reflections on how and why

Canada became their destination of choice. These findings highlight the notion that securing refugee status and the resulting subjectivity disrupt the rigidness of “the refugee” definition, understanding that a person can feel exiled both from the country of home and the new home they are trying to secure. This chapter details how queer Africans define the concept of the refugee, and when they chose to take on this identity. With queer African refugees making up a large percentage of SOGI claimants, this chapter offers a vital understanding of their unique experiences with the Canadian refugee process.

Chapter Seven explores how one “becomes queer,” in order to fit the narrow definitions required for protection within the Canadian nation. Decision-makers are drawing on their universal assumptions about queer sexualities and genders, which create expectations for an individual to claim a stable identity and produce a coherent identity narrative from the position of an autonomous, self-actualized individual. The refugee hearing is asking queer African refugees to be publicly known as queer without the guarantee of security. Being publicly known as heterosexual troubles nothing, while queer publicity troubles everything for the participants and carries visibility that is still cloaked in shame, fear, and humiliation. Participants explained that it was only after they received a positive ruling in their refugee hearing that they felt a sense of confidence to explore their true queer subjectivity, one that was not mitigated and distorted by the refugee apparatus, interventions by lawyers, organizational support workers, and the external pressure to belong to the broader queer community in Canada.

The final chapter—Chapter Eight, “Conclusion”—examines the possible impact of these research findings on future research and theorizing about queer African refugees, in addition to its implications for social policy and the reshaping of several fields of study. The queer African analysis, which is required for us to understand queer African lives, is finalized based on the findings gathered from the transformative research process I discuss and enact throughout the dissertation.

At the very least, I hope this dissertation offers a significant understanding of refugees that goes beyond the usual desexualized, passive stereotypes and tropes commonly associated with individuals who have endured forced migration. The refugees I interviewed shared with me countless stories of their experiences of forced migration and navigating the Canadian refugee system, and I know there are countless more yet to be shared. This is far from a comprehensive or exhaustive account of the experiences of queer African refugees in Canada. However, I hope to provide (1) the foundation for further inquiry into the world that queer African refugees must create for daily survival, and (2) an opening for discussion of alternative narratives in the sexualizing of migration and citizenship. This final chapter also explores the transformative possibilities of engaging in research as a practice of freedom in order to counter the global narrative of refugee life. The research requires us to look at the exclusion and inclusion of queer

African refugee claimants throughout the Canadian system and the tensions that emerge throughout the process. In the end, we are left with the question of how researchers can engage with the politics of knowledge production and advocate for an agenda of social justice and transformation (Grundy & Smith, 2007).

Chapter 1 Fieldwork and Methodology: A Transformative Research Process and Design

“Broad brushstrokes throughout are good. Avoid having the African characters laugh, or struggle to educate their kids, or just make do in mundane circumstances. Have them illuminate something about Europe or America in Africa. African characters should be colourful, exotic, larger than life—but empty inside, with no dialogue, no conflicts or resolutions in their stories, no depth or quirks to confuse the cause.” — Binyavanga Wainaina, “How to Write About Africa”

My Responsibility as a Transformative Anti-Oppressive Researcher

In his most acclaimed essay, “How to Write About Africa,” the late queer Kenyan activist

Binyavanga Wainaina (2005) satirically mocks the traditional Western gaze with its imperialistic descriptors of Africa and its people. While he dismantles the clichés and preconceptions of

Africa often held by Western writers and readers, his words serve as a warning to all, including those of us who claim African identity. Our mission is to avoid written engagement and analysis of African issues and African people in a manner that lacks depth or conveys a shallow interrogation of complex lives without reflection on how those lives have often been misread by a colonial gaze.

This chapter details my journey through fieldwork and the anti-oppressive practice utilized to ensure respectful representation of the lives and experiences of queer African refugees in Canada. This chapter has two aims: first, to provide sufficient information to assess the credibility of my research, and second, to engage critically with anti-oppressive research as a method of inquiry for social change. While anti-oppression is not viewed as a fixed or specific methodology (Parada & Wehbi, 2017), it does guide the theoretical and epistemological manner in which the research process should unfold. Anti-oppressive approaches that guide how knowledge is created and what knowledge is produced provide the epistemological base for anti- oppressive research. The first section of this chapter lays out the fundamental aspects of my work

34 in the field, mapping out who the research participants are, my relationship to them, and how this influenced how data was collected and analyzed. Section two explores my use of reflexivity as a tool for conducting research from the social margins, including what it looks like, what it involves, and its impacts on the study. This section also imagines the liberating possibilities of research for resisting, transgressing, and transforming the social world we inhabit. The last section of this chapter reflects on the ethical concerns, contradictions, and conundrums generated throughout the research process. I unpack through self-reflection how best to address these issues from an anti-oppressive standpoint, where the goals of the research participants remain front and centre at all times throughout the research process.

It was my intention to engage in an interpretive phenomenological research process that not only illuminates the lives of a group of individuals who are part of culturally diverse communities but also challenges the heteronormative status quo, disrupts queer Canadian spaces, and furthers social justice efforts towards queer liberation for African people. Interpretive phenomenology aims to create understanding by emphasizing the history and context of an individual’s experience and understands that an individual’s world is always impacted by social, cultural and political forces (Lopez & Willis, 2004; Wojanar & Swanson, 2007). An interpretive phenomenological inquiry from an anti-oppressive perspective positions the researcher’s role as co-constituent with research participants, with the researcher seen as a highly visible insider

(Preston & Redgrift, 2017). The lived experiences of the researcher should not be discarded and are often the motivation for engaging in the research topic to begin with, as was my case.

The anti-oppressive epistemology and principles that guide my fieldwork and interpretive phenomenological methodological process allowed for the introduction and discussion of power in the research process. According to Ahmed (2006), phenomenology allows us to ask questions about how queer bodies are oriented in time and place through social relations. It allows us to investigate how queerness and queer bodies disrupt migration processes and what it would mean for sexuality or a sexual body to be able to live as oriented. Ahmed’s exploration of queer

35 phenomenology is a guiding methodological framework for this study. This method departs from the traditional manner of conducting research on research participants who have little to no engagement in the research process and how it unfolds (Parada & Wehbi, 2017). I believe a commitment to transformation as a researcher means committing to the constant challenging of our assumptions and analysis and being advocates of change for the communities that we study.

Our goal is to disrupt, overturn, and reconstruct oppressive values, definitions, polices, institutions, and relationships, including my own personal work with research participants. It would be remiss of me to ignore the fact that issues of power run through every aspect of my research and my relationship with the research participants.

While this may not be overtly transparent to the reader, my analysis of the findings and the conclusions I draw are heavily shaped by my profession, race, gender, sexual orientation, class, political orientation, and immigration status, among many other intersecting social locations. Throughout this chapter, I have added vignettes or moments of reflection from my field notes to allow for transparency as to my thought process as I conducted the research. While

I feel my identities and social locations are crucial to my deep understanding of the queer

African refugee experience, it remains a challenging exercise to not allow these identities to interfere with my ability to accurately, rather than on their own terms, represent the research participants, the presumed “other” in my work. This would be impossible without heavy scrutiny of the complex intersection of my own personal story, my interaction with the research participants, my negotiation of power dynamics, and the final written word, which both constructs and reconstructs identity through qualitative narratives (Marshall & Rossman, 2006).

African scholarly research methods are not objective practices to be applied to static objects

(Macharia, 2015), but rather the methodology itself can be seen as a struggle of provisional labour. Such struggles are particularly loaded, as African scholar Tamale (2011) has asserted, as methodologies are frequently created within histories of imperialism and violence against Black communities (Matebeni, 2013; Oyewumi, 2005).

A transformative research process can only see success if trust is achieved in the power- driven relationship between researcher and study participants, and if critical self-reflection is a key component of the researcher’s methodological process (Potts & Brown, 2005). It then stands to reason that critical self-reflection would enable me, the researcher, to enter into a relationship of meaningful quality and awareness, one in which I understand myself to be in relationship with the community I am studying and am highly aware of their relationship to me. This is necessary in order to achieve critical subjectivity (Boland, 2007). By this I mean that we should not suppress or bracket our subjective experience but instead embrace that our knowledge comes from a perspective we need to attend to as well as the biases that are at play. It is through a reciprocal understanding that trust is built, which is necessary for an interactive and empowering interpretive phenomenological research process.

I strongly feel that a transformative anti-oppressive researcher is one who intentionally engages in acts of resistance throughout the research process. Resistance in this context is the manner in which we have to challenge ourselves and others in ways that may make us uncomfortable as researchers. It requires us to redistribute the power and privileges many of us will acquire on the backs of the marginalized research participants we study, in terms of the degrees, awards, publications, funding dollars, titles, promotions, and expert statuses that we aim to accumulate. Resistance also means that we must be transparent about our lives and use our own personal experiences and struggles to develop strategies to withstand and eliminate oppression throughout our research (Massaquoi, 2017). Research as resistance takes up the complex lives of subjects as the key source of research knowledge, which allows us to grapple with the politically personal worlds of everyday life and the blurry boundaries of identity that exist outside of belonging (Freidman, 2017). Importantly, it allows us to transgress academic and disciplinary explanations of how research should be conducted. A transformative research practice is one that understands that social, cultural, and political forces are spinning the research funnel which contains the researcher’s experience, particularly as it intersects with the social

37 group being studied while employing liberatory practices (See Figure 3). The result is a reflexive, critical epistemology for transformative research.

Figure 3: Visual Representation of Transformative Anti-Oppression Research

Social, Cultural, and Political Forces Researcher's Lived Experience Social Critical Self- Group/Social Reflection Identification Power

Liberatory Practices Advocacy Resistance Defiance

A reflexive, critical epistemology for transformative research

Mind the Research Gaps

It is generally accepted that we conduct research to identify, explore, or investigate new information in order to fill existing knowledge gaps. Identifying research or knowledge gaps and setting out to address them is generally what makes a specific research study worthwhile. As a transformative researcher, I see such gaps as opportunities to understand more about myself rather than about external forces that have created a dearth of research knowledge on the experiences of queer African refugees. The personal investigation, for me, was about why I had little knowledge of the subject I was about to embark on. This was not as simple as looking outside of myself to discuss systemic oppression and other reasons why there was so little information about queer African refugees. The bigger or more important question was why I did not have sufficient knowledge to ground myself before going into the research.

As researchers, we use knowledge or research gaps as justification for embarking on particular research projects. Understanding and evaluating the conditions that have created our own personal research gaps sheds more light and direction on how to collect, document, and analyze knowledge to fill those gaps. For me, it required reflection on my Western privilege, which was blocking my ability to prioritize an understanding of challenges for African people on the Continent. I had to interrogate my belief that because I had limited contact with queer

African refugees prior to my research journey, there must not be an issue large enough for concern or important enough to study. This involved developing an understanding of my beliefs, which produced an inaccurate analysis of the limited information I did have access to. It required admitting that I did not have sufficient knowledge to begin looking in the right places or speaking to the correct people. I had to accept that I had been studying African queerness through a Western queer lens, which had led to a lack of awareness of queer social movements in the African context that exist outside of Western aid and saviour narratives. Finally, it forced me to grapple with my lack of willingness to lose the privilege I had in diasporic African communities, which hindered my exploration of this topic openly and in depth, for fear of criticism from friends, family, and community elders.

With this frank acknowledgment, I could also make sense of the fact that I was an insider who was starting her research with the absence of a readily accessible pool of participants and no real understanding of where to find them. With this significant knowledge gap in the realities of lived experiences of queer African refugees in Canada, I decided to conduct an initial set of interviews with a convenience sample of service providers who I felt would have worked most closely with this population. I was hoping to gather information about the general refugee application process, what their clients’ experiences had been, what specific issues they felt

African refugees may experience, and how they would suggest I recruit participants for the project. I felt that if the service providers met with me in person and understood my intentions

39 and the goals of the project, they would be more motivated to refer clients to the study and vouch for my credibility.

For this first phase of the project, I interviewed 13 individuals whom I canvassed directly from my own professional contacts. They worked in social service, healthcare, and immigration and settlement organizations. I met with three immigration lawyers, two AIDS-service organization staff, two mainstream settlement agency staff, two LGBTQ settlement program staff, three community health centre staff, and one volunteer staff with an LGBTQ African peer support group (see Appendix A). Each potential service provider was sent a recruitment letter outlining the details of the study as well as their expected involvement (see Appendix B). After each interview, I asked service providers if they would consider assisting me with the recruitment of potential refugees for interviews. Each participant was left with recruitment letters

(see Appendix C) to share with clients who met my criteria as well as recruitment posters (see

Appendix D), which they could post in their agencies. Electronic copies of these documents were also provided so they could email them to potential participants. Service providers also posted recruitment posters on electronic listservs such as the Rainbow Health Network, Rainbow Health

Ontario, and the Ontario Coalition of Agencies Serving Immigrant’s (OCASI) website.9

Negotiations and Engagement: Recruiting Participants

The emphasis in transformative research must be on the social responsibility of the researcher to the group that is the focus of the inquiry. The process of community engagement

9 The Rainbow Health Network (RHN) is a network of volunteers committed to equity-based, community-based, and anti-oppression values in promoting health and wellness for persons and communities of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.

Rainbow Health Ontario (RHO) is a province-wide program of Sherbourne Health designed to improve access to services and to promote the health of Ontario’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ) communities.

Ontario Coalition of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI) was formed in 1978 to act as a collective voice for immigrant-serving agencies and to coordinate responses to shared needs and concerns.

40 must be heavily attuned to representation in an effort to portray communities well and fairly.

How communities are represented is how communities are treated, and, in the case of marginalized populations, the care in representation is even more crucial. For Black communities in Canada, representation has been riddled with anti-Black racism and social exclusion, leading to poor outcomes in the systems that govern healthcare, employment, education, child welfare, criminal justice, and media, to name but a few (Clarke, 2012; Etowa, 2007; Mullings, Morgan, &

Quelleng, 2016; Mykhalovskiy et al., 2016). The representation of queer refugees is heavily influenced by political will and public opinion. It is therefore important that any representation by researchers be mindful of the fact that they are participating in the creation of public and political discourse that will determine the fate of those requesting refuge in Canada.

In my consideration of the process of knowledge production and the desire to bring to the forefront voices of marginalization, I have had to question my epistemic authority and privilege to speak for the communities I study. The role of researcher as expert has also had to be questioned, especially as I was entering into the process with little lived expertise in the refugee experience. How could I guide the research in ways that prioritize community control, representation, and knowledge production, with research outcomes that contribute to social change and justice? While there is a tendency to emphasize the vulnerability of the population being studied, I knew I must identify strategies that allow me to rise above the lens of vulnerability and embrace the tools and strategies of resistance that are often invisible to the outsider but are ever-present for insiders who understand the activities needed to survive.

With these thoughts in mind, I felt the most strategic place to start recruitment for the research study was with the one refugee claimant that I met at the International Day Against

Homophobia event I described in the Introduction. Paulos was the sole queer African refugee with whom I had made contact prior to beginning my research. I had hoped that, through snowball sampling, he would connect me with other queer African refugees. This hope produced only two participants. However, after approximately three months of interviews with the thirteen

41 service providers and postings within community, three participants came through listservs and were located in Ottawa, Montreal, and Windsor, and five participants located in Toronto came from direct referrals from service providers, for a total of ten research participants.

After approximately six months of recruitment, I received an email from a man who stated that he was the facilitator for a peer-led support group for queer African refugees. The group met biweekly at a local queer community centre. He had seen a flyer posted at the community centre, and the group was inviting me to give a presentation about the study at their next meeting. I had interviewed staff at the community centre, and there had been no mention of such a group. I contacted the service provider from the agency and was informed that the centre was not aware of the group, but that any outside individual could book space for meetings without the agency’s involvement. With the possibility that the group was legitimate, I confirmed my attendance for the next meeting.

After confirming, the group leader put me on the meeting agenda so that I could present my research study to the group.

Researcher Field Note (First Support Group Meeting): When I entered the room, I was shocked. It was filled with queer Africans claiming refugee status, maybe 40–50 people. I did not understand how it was possible to not know about this many people. One man looked like my dad. There were all ages, men and women. I was expecting a handful of people, not a cross section of all of Africa. It was beautiful but also sad that they were trying to help themselves when there were resources available that they didn’t even know about. Even more importantly, they did not feel safe to let the community centre where they were meeting know who they were.

During my presentation, I talked a lot about who I was, when I came to Canada, my experience being a lesbian in Canada, and the details of the study. Most importantly, I discussed why I was conducting the study. The room was very quiet, and there were no questions after the presentation. The group facilitator thanked me for my time and informed me that they would like to discuss the presentation privately as a group and get back to me if anyone was interested or had further questions. I received a follow-up email the next day inviting me back to answer the following questions: (1) Could I provide financial compensation to study participants, as many

42 were unemployed? (2) Could I attend biweekly meetings to provide advocacy support and referral information? (3) Could I write letters of support for refugee hearings? (4) Could I provide support during and also attend refugee hearings?

During my second meeting with the support group, I was informed that social work was a recognized profession that could enhance credibility to a refugee claim through support letters and testimony at hearings. I also clarified that while they were currently meeting at a community centre, they had only requested the use of a meeting space, but no other services from the organization. The group was quite isolated, with only one member having completed a successful refugee process. All others were in various stages of the process, including the facilitator, whose main role was to secure presenters to attend the meetings and gather as much information as possible to assist the group members through the refugee process. After agreeing to the four conditions and learning more about the group, I recruited 17 participants for the study that night, and 30 from this group in total. This brought my study participant count to 40.

This began a 14-month journey of biweekly meetings, refugee hearings, individual interviews, social activities, and the group’s first Toronto Pride experience. After the 30th interview with group members, I decided that there was enough material to give me both a broad and in-depth view of the participants’ perspectives. I was also more restricted by financial constraints and lacked the ability to provide advocacy support to a larger number of refugees.

Who Were the Study Participants? Responsible Representation

I grappled with the traditional practice of organizing the research participants’ lives into a relatable matrix of conventional identity markers that make the participants relatable, intelligible, and comparable from a Western research viewpoint. The pre-populated identity categories of race, gender, and other equity data markers are seen as easily filled, in very straightforward and unproblematized ways (Smith, 2017). The collapsing of vibrant individuals and their lives into a two-dimensional matrix lends itself to looking for patterns of authenticity and averageness, verifying who is the average queer African refugee or, more directly said, who is an authentic

43 queer African refugee. This is the beginning of the winnowing process of simplifying life into bite-size categories that are easy for the researcher and reader to digest. The lives of the research participants, however, will never fit comfortably into the grid of identities I eventually proposed, but this process is the method in which social work researchers sort out differences and similarities for the purpose of truth-telling in the analysis that follows data collection (Gonick &

Hladaki, 2005).

Table 1: General Socio-Demographic Data (Participants 1 to 10)

SOCIAL PARTICIPANT 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1

LOCATION

COUNTRY OF UGANDA SENEGAL KENYA BOTSWANA KENYA UGANDA UGANDA SWAZILAND SWAZILAND UGANDA ORIGIN

AGE 42 30 28 24 32 34 35 27 29 38

GENDER MALE MALE TRANSM FEMALE FEMALE FEMALE FEMALE FEMALE FEMALE MALE AN

SEXUAL GAY GAY HOMOS LESBIAN LESBIAN LESBIAN LESBIAN LESBIAN LESBIAN GAY ORIENTATION EXUAL

YEARS IN 3 1 6 1 3 2 2 1 1 3 CANADA

IMMIGRATION HUMANITARIA REFUGEE PERMAN REFUGEE REFUGEE REFUGEE REFUGEE REFUGEE REFUGEE PERMANENT STATUS N AND ENT CLAIMANT RESIDENT COMPASSIONA RESIDE TE CLAIMANT NT CLAIMANT CLAIMANT CLAIMAN CLAIMANT CLAIMANT T

APLLICATION

OFFICIAL ENGLISH FRENCH ENGLIS ENGLISH ENGLISH ENGLISH ENGLISH ENGLISH ENGLISH ENGLISH LANGUAGE H

EDUCATION BA HIGH MA BA HIGH BA BA POLYTECH POLYTECH BA LEVEL SCHOOL SCHOOL COLLEGE COLLEGE

PROFESSION ELECTRICIAN ARTIST STUDEN BUSINESS NOT FASHION SOCIAL ARTIST ARTIST GOVERNMENT PRIOR TO T EMPLOYE WORK D MIGRATION ADMIN

Table 2: General Socio-Demographic Data (Participants 11 to 20)

SOCIAL PARTICIPANT 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

LOCATION

COUNTRY OF UGANDA IVORY COAST GHANA ETHIOPIA BURUNDI UGANDA KENYA NIGERIA BURUNDI NIGERIA ORIGIN

AGE 36 36 25 29 31 31 47 25 35 27

GENDER MALE MALE MALE FEMALE MALE MALE FEMALE TRANS MALE MALE

WOMAN

SEXUAL GAY GAY GAY LESBIAN GAY GAY LESBIAN HOMOSEXUAL GAY GAY ORIENTATION

YEARS IN 7 3 3 1 9 1 6 4 6 4 CANADA

IMMIGRATION Refugee Claimant Permanent HUMANITARIAN REFUGEE PERMANENT REFUGEE CANADIAN PERMANENT Canadian PERMANE STATUS Resident AND CLAIMANT RESIDENT CITIZEN RESIDENT Citizen NT COMPSSIONATE RESIDENT APPLICATION CLAIMANT

OFFICIAL ENGLISH FRENCH ENGLISH ENGLISH FRENCH ENGLISH ENGLISH ENGLISH French ENGLISH LANGUAGE

EDUCATION BA BA BSC BA MBA BA BA BA BA BSW LEVEL

PROFESSION TEACHER NGO ENGINEER Artist/Mus BUSINESS ASO TEACHER Nursing Telecomm Social PRIOR TO SUPPORT Work STAFF MIGRATION COODINATOR MANAGER

Table 3: General Socio-Demographic Data (Participants 21 to 30)

SOCIAL PARTICIPANT 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

LOCATION

COUNTRY OF Rwanda Sierra Leone Rwanda Nigeria Nigeria Kenya Uganda Ethiopia Uganda Ghana ORIGIN

AGE 23 28 25 42 31 30 39 28 33 37

GENDER Female Female MALE Male Transman Female FEMALE female MALE MALE

SEXUAL Lesbian Lesbian GAY Gay GAY Lesbian LESBIAN Lesbian GAY GAY ORIENTATION

YEARS IN 6 months 9 months 3 6 2 1 1 8 months 2 3 CANADA

IMMIGRATION Refugee REFUGEE Refugee PERMANENT Refugee REFUGEE REFUGEE REFUGEE REFUGEE H &C STATUS RESIDENT CLAIMANT CLAIMANT CLAIMANT CLAIMANT

OFFICIAL French English French ENGLISH English ENGLISH ENGLISH ENGLISH English ENGLISH LANGUAGE

EDUCATION High School college HS College BA BA HS HS BA BA LEVEL

PROFESSION Unemployed Hairdresser Transportation business NGO teacher Artist Retail teacher Food Coordinator Service PRIOR TO Worker MIGRATION

Table 4: General Socio-Demographic Data (Participants 31 to 40)

SOCIAL PARTICIPANT 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

LOCATION

COUNTRY OF Ivory Coast Kenya Kenya Nigeria Senegal UGANDA Uganda Ethiopia Nigeria Swaziland ORIGIN

AGE 25 29 18 20 31 26 439 40 22 26

GENDER MALE MALE MALE FEMALE Female transwoman FEMALE Male MALE MALE

SEXUAL GAY GAY GAY LESBIAN Lesbian GAY LESBIAN Gay GAY GAY ORIENTATION

YEARS IN 1 1 4 2 1 2 1 2 3 1 week CANADA

IMMIGRATION REFUGEE REFUGEE Permanent resident REFUGEE Refugee REFUGEE Refugee Refugee Refugee Visitor/ not STATUS CLAIMANT CLAIMANT claimant filed CLAIMANT

OFFICIAL French English ENGLISH ENGLISH FRENCH ENGLISH ENGLISH English English ENGLISH LANGUAGE

EDUCATION BSc BSC College University BA HS college BSc HS High school LEVEL

PROFESSION IT Engineer Student Student NGO Sex work Government IT Transportation driver PRIOR TO employee MIGRATION

I am very conscious of what is hidden in these categories and whose lives I struggle to squeeze into them, but I also must acknowledge how compliant the research participants were when asked to order themselves into these tight boxes. I was fascinated by how quickly they had learned to make themselves intelligible in these categories out of the necessity to be read coherently as a queer worthy of protection in Canada. I understand that the matrix I share reflects a fixed moment in time; it is how I understand individuals at the first moment of meeting, but understand that their lives are fluid and ever-changing. It is a snapshot of a very layered experience for layered individuals. The following details about the research participants are offered to provide myself and you, the reader, a zone of comfort or ease but in no way to aid in a meaningful understanding of the research participants as individuals or their lived realities.

Participants included individuals 18 years of age and older who self-identified racially and ethno-culturally as Black and Continental African. The participants also identified their

46 sexual orientation as non-heteronormative, using the categories of queer, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender to self-identify their sexuality and gender identity. All participants were currently living in Canada and were in the process of or had completed a refugee claim in

Canada due to persecution in their country of origin based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Of the 40 people I interviewed who met these criteria, 20 self-identified as male, 16 as female, two as transmen, and two as transwomen.

The age of participants ranged from 18 to 47, and the participants originated from 11 Sub

Saharan African countries, with all regions represented with the exception of North Africa. The countries included were Burundi, Uganda, Senegal, Kenya, Botswana, Swaziland, Ivory Coast,

Ghana, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone. Many of the participants acknowledged the limiting categories available for naming their sexual orientation, but for the purposes of the study

20 self-identified as gay, 14 as lesbian, and six as homosexual. As for port of entry into Canada,

26 arrived via Toronto, seven via Montreal, two via Windsor, two via Ottawa, and two via

Vancouver. Their number of years in Canada ranged from one week to nine years, and 27 were currently refugee claimants, one had not yet filed a refugee claim but was in the process, six had completed the refugee process successfully and were applying for or had already obtained their permanent residency, three had failed refugee claims and were in the process of applying for humanitarian and compassionate consideration, and three had completed the entire process and were currently Canadian citizens. All spoke one of Canada’s official languages prior to coming to Canada. Thirty-two participants spoke English, and eight spoke French.

Interview Process

Essed (2013) contends that experience is multidimensional, includes micro and structural dimensions, and represents one’s social reality. Qualitative interviews facilitate the potential to offer a deeper meaning of that social reality. Participants are provided with an opportunity to elaborate their realities in their own words without being restricted by the often-limiting perspectives of the researcher. With this in mind, I conducted semi-structured interviews seeking

47 information about the experiences of being a queer African refugee claimant or a service provider to this populations (see Appendix E). After conducting interviews with service providers, I was able to refine the questionnaire for the refugee participants. I could engage in a more detailed enquiry about the refugee process in Canada as I had gained a more elaborate understanding of the experience and what some of the key issues might be for refugee claimants from the service provider interviews.

The interviews were audiotaped to facilitate transcription and analysis. At the end of each interview, I asked the refugee participant to complete an anonymous information survey (see

Appendix F), emphasizing that responding to these questions was voluntary and they could skip any questions they preferred not to answer. I used the survey to ask questions that were not particularly relevant to each individual but would help me gain a better understanding of the group as a population. I also used the survey in order to ask questions that I felt would be perceived as being culturally rude if asked directly. Participants placed this survey in an envelope, which they sealed prior to returning it.

Individual interviews were conducted face-to-face with all participants. Interviews took place in Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa. Each interview lasted between 45 and 180 minutes, with the length of the interview increasing slightly as I interviewed more participants and added additional questions that evolved throughout the process. I was able to allow for elaboration on issues that were salient for each participant but extended beyond the parameters of my protocol.

Issues that came up in the first few interviews allowed me to adjust questions in subsequent interviews. For example, experiences navigating Canadian queer culture was an emerging topic participants explored beyond the initial interview protocol.

Face-to-face interviews also allowed me to observe participants beyond oral reporting in sterile environments. The interviews took place in participants’ homes, workplaces, community centres, universities, health centres, or any place they chose that was comfortable for them to discuss the very personal details of their lives. The opportunity to observe participants in their

48 homes and other spaces they navigated provided an additional layer of depth to the conversations for research purposes.

Researcher Field Note (First Interview – Participant 17): I was very nervous about conducting the interview in her home, but she was very proud to show me where she lived. I was concerned about professional boundaries, and as a social worker, I never get to see where clients live. It is a very imagined space, but here I was being served food and tea before our interview by a very comfortable participant. I think her age (47) may have contributed to her choice of inviting me to her home, it possibly could also be a way of ensuring that I understood who she was in order to provide better support. I was also very nervous about any perceived crossing of sexual boundaries since we were not in a public setting. I spent so much time in my head worried about being in the participant’s home that the interview was very rigid. I found it very difficult to relax. The subsequent interviews were much easier after this first one.

Each interview began with a thorough explanation of the issues of consent as outlined by my university’s ethics protocols. To this end, I described the research study and explained that the objective was to gain an understanding of the experience of being African and queer in

Canada and of the refugee process in relationship to sexuality and gender identity. I also emphasized that participation was voluntary and discussed the details of informed consent with individual participants (see Appendix G). All participants were asked to refrain from using their real name, country, or anything that they felt would identify them during the interview. Each participant chose a pseudonym prior to starting the interview, which they wrote on a name tag and wore during the interview so that I would remember to use the chosen name. Participants were assured of confidentiality and were each provided a copy of the recording for review via audio files that were emailed upon completion of the interview. Participants were given an opportunity to review the recording and to clarify, correct, or request that certain excerpts be excluded from the recording and final transcript. Three participants followed up with me to delete passages from their recording and transcript before they approved final versions.

Transcription Conventions

Conveying subjectivity in the analysis of data was a key motivator in how I approached the transcription phase of the research project. I transcribed verbatim, keeping the pauses,

“umms,” and “ahhs.” None of the participants were speaking in their mother tongue during our interviews, so it was important to capture the essence of the struggle to communicate a very emotional story in a language not their own. If participants were struggling with English, I asked them to repeat the word or phrase in the language they were most comfortable expressing themselves in and then return to an English interpretation if possible. This made transcription difficult at times, since I did not speak most of the languages spoken by the participants, including French. When transcribing, I noted in the transcription that the participant was speaking in X language.

Highlighting the emotional content of the interviews was also crucial for this study because it helped shape the resulting theory in productive ways. When a subject is telling you about the torture they experienced at the hands of police, or about having to leave their children behind when they fled their country, the emotion is present even if you cannot understand the language spoken (Duranti, 2007). Noting when participants spoke in their mother tongue, expressed emotion or facial expressions, and so on, all helped to keep the interview in context and added to the richness of these seldom-heard stories framed within African experiences of sexuality.

From this exercise, I came to understand that transcription is a process that is at all times theoretical, interpretive, and representational, and that I was making choices and inferences based on my subject location as a queer diasporic African in relation to the participants’ location as queer African refugees (Bucholtz, 2000; Jaffe, 2007). My transcription followed closely in pattern with what Bucholtz (2000) terms a “denaturalized” transcription, which preserves the features of oral language such as “umms” and “ahhs” and presents the in vivo language of participants. This was heavily grounded in my desire to present the constructed reality of the participants (Oliver, Serovich, & Mason, 2005).

Data Analysis

Although this study works with a small purposive sample, my participant sample of 40 individuals is considered sufficient to generate themes to ensure representation of the participants’ experiences (Padgett, 2017). This research was not intended to be a statistical representation but rather to highlight some of the key issues faced by members of a particular

African community. I sampled a variety of ethnic, gender, class, age, and sexual identity backgrounds in order to explore how these factors shape the experience of queer Africans in

Canada. The key in the analysis was to ensure that participant voices could not be silenced, disengaged, or marginalized, as the results from the interviews were being used to develop a theoretical pathway to understanding the experiences of queer Africans, noting areas of similarities and differences across the target group (e.g., gender, age, refugee status).

Interpretative phenomenological analysis is focused on generating a detailed and contextual perspective on a particular phenomenon as opposed to representing a population.

Interpretative phenomenological analysis positions the participant as the experiential expert, and transcripts were analyzed and read individually as each participant was seen as an expert in their own story. (Smith, Flowers & Larken, 2009). I read the interview transcripts and listened to the audio recording concurrently, which facilitated immersion in the data for the participant to become the analytic focus. Keywords and phrases were also highlighted during this phase. I then shifted my analysis to a more conceptual level in which each transcript was re-read and conceptually coded by asking questions of the data in an attempt to identify more abstract and psychological concepts (Smith et al. 2009). These emerging codes were clustered into associative groups, and these became subthemes which acted to establish patterns of meaning in the queer

African refugee experience. It was also essential to reflect on these themes to ensure they provided an accurate representation of the data set as a whole (See Appendix H).

I am aware of the traditional ethical principles associated with qualitative inquiry, but as a transformative researcher, my aim is to push beyond these traditional methods and create a process focused on the reduction of power inequities in the client–researcher relationship, with a goal of maximizing client resources and access to resources (Baines, 2017; Dominelli, 2002;

Sakamoto, 2005). My goal was to develop a theoretical understanding of the participants and their lives that was created with them and approved by them instead of being imposed upon them. I also wanted to ensure the credibility of the research, meaning that there is a high degree of fit between the participants’ views and my interpretation. This was achieved by evidentiary adequacy or prolonged engagement and persistent observation over a 14-month period, during which I was immersed in the process of 40 refugees claiming refugee status (Cresswell & Poth,

2017).

We need to develop a deep trust in the non-academic’s ability to have enough insight, enough reflexivity, and enough depth to be able to speak beyond their own individual experience. We need to recognize the non-academic as the expert in their own life, with the researcher learning from this expertise in order to facilitate a process of social change. My ethical responsibility is to work beyond the “do-no-harm” mandate of traditional research and seek to reverse power and privilege differentials in the transformational analysis process. This can only be achieved through the development of a collaborative process with research participants, one in which I am open to and actively seeking feedback on my analysis from the participants at each stage of the research process. Trustworthiness needs to be a demonstrated activity of collaboration, which requires that it be defined by the study participants. This ensures that the research is carried out fairly and ethically, and that analysis is based on findings that represent as closely as possible the experiences of the respondents (Padgett, 2017).

Politics of Accountability: Ethical Considerations

I must not only adhere to the academic standards and ethical requirements of my university, but also find meaningful ways of being held accountable to my research subjects,

52 their communities, and Canadian immigration and refugee law. The ethics I seek to consider address accountability and the balancing of these three interests in which there is a very real possibility that I may be called to account for and justify my actions, beliefs, and feelings toward others. Then there is the balancing of formal and informal accountability, in which I must simultaneously adhere to academic rules and regulations and engage in behaviour that produces trusting relations, shared culture, and verbal agreements (Karsten, 2015; Romzek, LeRoux,

Johnston, Kempf, & Piatak, 2014).

Communication and the transparency of information is a key driver for ensuring that the researcher’s accountability produces not only the social justice outcomes desired but also, more importantly, the equitable distribution of resources associated with the study. This becomes more pressing to attend to when the researcher’s power and resources available through the study can facilitate the participant’s success in the refugee process. This was the case with my study, in which many participants believed that participation would grant them key evidence to assist in the success of their refugee claims.

The politics of accountability, as defined by Razack (1998), is not simply a neutral exercise aimed at removing barriers to facilitate the safety of research participants. It is heavily dependent on the researcher and their goals and desired outcomes. By this, I refer to the act of contextualizing, identifying, and reflexively positioning my insider/outsider status. This is the process by which researchers hold themselves to the higher standard of consciously not reproducing oppressive practices in the research process, while at the same time acknowledging that oppressive social relations sometimes cannot be avoided in research. The goal then becomes how to minimize the impact of unavoidable dominance in the research relationship.

In order to address the position of power and authority that I might have over research participants during interviews, it was important to allow the participants to define what this looked like and how they could use that power and authority to their advantage. Many of the study participants were without immigration status in Canada due to failed refugee claims, not

53 filing status upon arrival in Canada, or the expiration of visitor visas. Pseudonyms were used during interviews not only for anonymity and confidentiality from an ethical standpoint but also for protection against the risk of research material being subpoenaed and used in deportation hearings. Verbal consent was also preferable to collecting signatures, which could be used for identification purposes.

The use of snowballing to recruit participants who are members of a community assessed as highly vulnerable was modified to be unidirectional. Requesting individuals or organizations to disclose the identities of members of the community would not respect the privacy of those who wished to remain queerly unidentified. Instead, my contact information was given to anyone interested so that they could choose to follow up with me directly. The financial conditions of the participants were hard to ignore, with 70 percent of the participants living below the poverty line.

It was, therefore, unacceptable not to financially compensate the participants for their time, and I made the decision that each participant would receive a payment of $40 plus two transit tokens.

While this aided in amplifying reciprocity, it also limited the sample size due to my limited financial resources.

Exceptions and Explanations

When we collect data that seem to be situated far from the majority of observations made in a study, it is our tendency as researchers to nullify the importance of including this information. As researchers, we have the privilege of determining what we do or do not use as data. In the exploration of transformative research, I have focused a great deal of the discussion on the theoretical positioning and possible bias of the researcher, paying little to no attention to how that positioning influences what that researcher might or might not see in the intricacy of data analysis. From this perspective, then, it becomes important to consider the manner in which a researcher identifies and handles exceptional cases, a key mechanism affecting the credibility of conclusions made from the qualitative findings. Qualitative outliers are very quickly identified; however, I believe the key is not to engage in interpretative maneuvers in order to

54 write this information out of your data set. It was more correct to thoroughly investigate the reason for the appearance of the outlying information, and to have the results of that investigation become part of determining how I process the data.

For example, one participant revealed during the interview that he did not claim refugee status based on sexual orientation or gender identity persecution. His claim was based on the fact that while he was in Canada on a student visa, a war broke out in his home country. He took this as a blessing, since he felt safer making the claim on this basis rather than having to come out as a queer refugee. I chose to keep his interview in the study, since his experience of persecution added valuable insight, as did his decision not to engage the refugee system as a queer African if other avenues could be taken.

During my interviews with service providers, two participants revealed that they themselves were queer refugees due to sexual orientation persecution. I made the decision to keep them in the service provider category, even though I was tempted to use their refugee narratives in the study. I thought their personal experience gave their professional insight more depth and kept the interview in the professional arena. I also made a deliberate decision to interview participants who were in all stages of the refugee claims process, as well as those who had completed the entire process and were Canadian citizens. While those who had filed their claims and completed the process were retrospective in their narratives, the insights they offered were as valuable as those from individuals still navigating the system.

Due to the levels of persecution in Uganda and Nigeria and the number of refugee claimants from these two countries, I could have limited my study to one region or country for a more uniform experience. I chose instead to recruit the widest variety of claimants from across the Continent to look at the universality of experiences. Finally, once it became known that participation in the study and the material it produced could become part of a refugee hearing package, the number of people calling became overwhelming. As noted earlier, my role as a social worker made me a credible witness in a refugee hearing. In grounded theory methodology,

55 we stop collecting data when we reach saturation (Cresswell & Poth, 2017). For me, this happened at about 30 participants, but I chose to keep going based solely on my wanting to give everyone in the refugee peer group an opportunity to participate and receive support. When I chose to stop the collection of data, it was because I did not have the financial resources to continue and was facing limited physical and emotional capacity to give to any additional participants who required advocacy and refugee hearing support. My need to show genuine concern for the welfare of participants in order to augment reciprocity brought my study and analysis to a natural conclusion. This allowed me to explore the notion of justice and equitable treatment within a research study, one that reduced marginalization and social exclusion and enhanced inclusivity.

Confidentiality and Ownership

As a social worker who has practiced primarily in the healthcare field, I saw that confidentiality in that context holds a different meaning than the one I was navigating as a researcher. For healthcare professionals, confidentiality requires that no personal information be shared unless it aids in the patient’s healing or continuity of care, or unless court mandated. In the case of my role as a researcher, the concept of confidentiality was less clear and involved elaboration of the outcomes expected from the study (Richards & Schwartz, 2002). This refers to outcomes expected by either the researcher or the participants.

As I was trying to mitigate the disruption of research participants’ autonomy, it became clear to me that I had to clarify which persons should have access to the initial data, how that might happen, and when the data might be used. This was not because I wanted to or felt a need to control the sharing of data before I completed the study; rather, it was because many of the study participants were participating in the study so that the interview and process could be part

56 of their refugee application. Without judgment on my part, it was clear from the beginning that most of the participants involved in the study were not invested in the research project, theoretical research goals, or creation of new epistemologies. Rather, their motivation to participate was largely based on the possibility that participation could assist in proving their sexual orientation, gender identity, or persecution. This possibility far outweighed exercising their rights to refuse an interview or withdraw their consent. However, I always pointed out the possibility of withdrawing given consent several times during the interview process. It became apparent that interviews with refugees had to be conducted not only with the utmost empathy but, above all, with their informed consent clearly articulated. According to Solomon (2013), there are two groups of vulnerable research participants: ones who are cognitively vulnerable, and ones who are economically vulnerable. I would add to this list those with precarious immigration status.

The re-framing of the parameters of confidentiality had to be addressed at multiple moments in the research process. I informed participants that while verbal comments provided during the research process would remain anonymous and confidential for the purposes of writing this dissertation, there would be constraints to confidentiality for other aspects of the project. After our initial meeting, participants provided email addresses and phone numbers to be contacted for follow-up interviews. It was important to clarify if messages could be left on voicemail. If yes, then I clarified that I would leave only my name and number and no other information in order to protect confidentiality. During our first interview, I made a point to ask each participant how, if at all, they would want to be greeted if we met in public in a social setting. The most common agreement was that context mattered, the participant would approach me first if they felt comfortable, and I should wait to be acknowledged. We discussed the likely possibility that we would share heteronormative African social spaces such as parties, social service agencies, religious institutions, and we considered how that should be navigated.

Researcher Field Note (King Sunny Ade Encounter): King Sunny Ade is a hugely popular Nigerian musician who was making a rare Toronto appearance. The Danforth Music Hall was packed, and it was exciting to see so many familiar faces and experience mini-reunions with old friends throughout the night. I was approached by a friend Bola (pseudonym) who I had not seen in many years. We were so excited to greet each other. “Come and meet my new boyfriend, he has just arrived from Nigeria,” she said. Her new boyfriend was study participant 20. He said “Hello, nice to meet you.” We shook hands and never spoke about this encounter when we saw each other each week at the support group.

At the close of each interview, we reviewed the type of people the participant would be sharing interview recordings with for the purposes of their refugee claimant packages. Lawyers, immigration consultants, and settlement and support workers preparing refugee cases on behalf of the participants were most frequently identified as those who would be given a copy of the recording to determine if it would help the participant’s cases. This also meant that adjudicators in the refugee hearings would possibly listen to the interviews. Participants were aware that confidentiality could not be guaranteed once the recordings were given to a third party.

The audio recordings of the participant interviews are clearly the product of participant knowledge and their intellectual property. Important questions arise as to who actually owns the interviews. Who owns the production of this knowledge? It was clear that I did not own the audio recordings, since I agreed to relinquish that right in exchange for the participants’ agreement to have their narratives included in my study. Once the participants obtained copies of their interviews, they retained both physical ownership and possession of their stories. To address this aspect of the research, I turn to the OCAP principles10—Ownership, Control,

Access, and Possession—which were formulated as a strategy to protect First Nations communities in research engagements (First Nations Information Governance Centre, 2014).

This was a sound research decision, because reference to these principles assists when looking at transformative ways to make meaning of the ownership of the queer African narratives collected in my study. OCAP is a way to participate in an Indigenous-created environment that promotes

10 The four components of OCAP—Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession—refer to the relationship of First Nations to their cultural knowledge, data, and information.

58 the pursuit of beneficial research and its ethical application. The transformative aspect of looking at ownership for me is the creation of a trusting relationship within research, which allows for access to individual lives. This, in turn, creates a more holistic approach to the research process, improving data quality, research relevance, and value to the community being studied.

Truthfulness and Transformative Standards

Throughout my experience with the current study, participants insisted on what I now term “truthful transformative standards” for research. The study participants set the parameters and standards by which I would function as the researcher in the research; they determined which meetings I should attend, how I would conduct myself in the meetings, how my data would be utilized, and what the expectations were of my role as researcher, and of the other skills and identities I held. All research activities and outcomes served the purposes of the community being studied. My benefits were secondary to the ultimate goal of the study participants, which, for the majority, was to obtain refugee status in Canada. Reciprocity between myself and the participants was clear from the beginning, even though it was quite different from what I had initially envisioned. Reciprocity, as defined by the research participants, also ensured that I had deep respect for the research relationship and was invested in the research, actioning desired outcomes for the participants.

General principles of qualitative analysis were employed to guide all the data analysis for the study. A preliminary analysis was conducted between each phase of the study to inform the next phase and individual interviews. The research questions structured the analysis, which was conducted in two parts: a deductive coding process, which identified major themes, and an inductive coding process, which ensured the analysis was comprehensive and that a central phenomenon could be identified. Appendix E details the interview questions utilized as probes to explore and seek clarity for each of my research questions. Both interviews with key-informant service providers and research participants were utilized to develop core themes. A list of

59 resulting themes from the interviews can be found in Appendix I. Each theme is also explored in detail in Chapters Five through Seven.

The qualitative data analysis software NVivo was used to code, store, and manage all text. All research analysis used a central coding list to guide and direct the coding of transcripts

(see Appendix H). Rigour, consistency, and trustworthiness were further addressed through checking the accuracy of interpretation with the interview participants, using the electronic data management program to keep records of the analysis process and theory-generation. In my final analysis, I was able to ascertain the conditions that led to the need to seek refuge in Canada, the strategies employed by refugees to work through the refugee process, and the outcomes and consequences of these efforts.

When Positionality Gives an Added Advantage

More than 25 years as a professional in the field of social work, working with African immigrant and refugee communities, combined with my activist work and my role as the executive director for a large prominent healthcare organization for racialized women gave me credibility and authenticity within the research space. The result was an ability to relatively easily gain access to potential research participants in a manner that would have been more difficult for someone considered an outsider. It was also important to note the level of authority I had over the research subjects. For example, when asking service providers from an organization to assist me in recruiting potential research participants, my insider knowledge and working relationship with all of the funded organizations that serve immigrants and refugees in Toronto allowed me to access key stakeholders very quickly, and allowed these contacts to feel extremely confident in referring clients to me. These kinds of connections could not have occurred without the deep level of respect and trust for my work that existed within the immigrant and refugee community before I embarked on this project. However, my status also could be seen as using power over staff of smaller organizations, who may have been more interested in maintaining a

60 strong working relationship with the organization I led than in assisting me to generate new epistemologies that would help us provide better service to queer African refugees.

While this level of insider status can provide insight into the lives of research participants, I think it is more important to understand how insider status can subtlety or covertly re-inscribe dominant–subordinate power relations in my decision-making processes and interactions with research participants. My being a Black queer African immigrant researcher doing research with Black queer African refugees does not preclude me from reinforcing my power and privilege if self-reflection is not the foremost practice used throughout the research process. Rendering visible at all times the contradictory relationship between power and privilege is a non-negotiable aspect of the transformative research methodology I aim to promote. I have the privilege to choose to be an insider or not, and if I decide to research from the inside, according to Dorothy Smith (2005), I am choosing to be a person who understands and feels the effects of the set of circumstances that I am studying. This ontological shift, as proposed by George Smith (1990), is a break from traditional ways of knowing. It is research that is not rooted in ideas but in the praxis of everyday struggle and the innate drive for human freedom.

Reflexivity as a Tool of Transformative Research

As a transformative anti-oppressive researcher, my goal is ultimately to facilitate the decolonization of knowledge production. In this effort, reflexivity becomes a major tool for ensuring rigour in the research process. It is a tool that promotes ethical exploration and situates me in a non-exploitive position vis-à-vis the research participants due to the act of decolonizing the discourse of the “other.” It forces me to constantly interrogate the cultural standards I use to interpret the research and lives of the participants, and to honestly assess the impact of this interrogative lens on the research process through constant self-monitoring (Josselson, 2007).

Understanding how I, as the researcher, may be impacted by the characteristics and experiences of the research participants, and vice versa, is of paramount importance. For me, this has

61 involved a continuous process of internal conversation about, and self-evaluation of, my positionality and the potential for the research study outcomes to be impacted by this vantage point.

Throughout the research, I undertook a process of self-exploration which, at any given moment, allowed me to monitor what it meant to be in relationship with the research participants and the potential ramifications of a particular position and/or moment on the research. In the transformative process, there is the practice of refinement, of constantly updating one’s own position relative to the study and repeatedly asking oneself and discussing with others (e.g., peers, colleagues, supervisors) about the current position and how it may affect the research.

One such example was the need to reflect on my professional designation as a social worker versus that as a researcher. Some of the questions I grappled with included, At what point should

I intervene if a research participant needed assistance? When could I justify stepping out of the researcher’s role into the role of a skilled social worker? What were the ethical considerations that needed to be explored when, during the course of an interview, I realized I had information that could assist a participant? Or that I could guarantee a successful referral to an organization that the participant needed? Or that I could use contacts to more swiftly navigate someone through a social service waitlist? These were scenarios that I reviewed with my colleagues and other experienced social work researchers.

Given my position as a researcher within a community where I held membership, it was important for me to understand the fluidity of my position and to not fall into the trap of thinking about my role as static during the research process. There was a fine balance between recognizing my lived experiences that closely matched those of the research participants and understanding the research participants’ experience from the perspective of an outsider (Padgett,

2017). In the research, I encountered a changing narrative that moved between emic and etic research experiences, where I fluctuated between being, at times, a member of the social group and, at other times, a distant observer.

Coming from the “shared experience” position of being a queer African border-crosser, I was well-equipped with insights and the ability to understand implied content and was more sensitized to certain dimensions of the data collected. I am familiar with the language of migration, both as a migrant and as someone who has worked in the field for over 20 years. I am aware of potential sensitive topics as an African and knew what to ask and how to ask it, and I understood participant responses in a nuanced and multilayered way. I was able to hear what was not spoken, probe more efficiently, and illuminate hidden hints that others might miss. In addition to these benefits of my insider position, the process of self-evaluation I conducted throughout the research process exposed many moments of blurred boundaries; the unconscious imposition of my own values, beliefs, perceptions, and bias. For example, when research participants discussed the difficulties of finding an apartment or employment, I summarized the experience and labelled it “racism.” I was corrected by participants, who had not yet come to articulate such experiences as racism and attributed it to difficulties with English, needing more

Canadian experience and education, or just a normal part of getting used to a new country and customs. It was in those moments that I understood my role as an observer and the impact of

“institutional capture,” in which I deployed labels before the processing or unpacking of my institutional language (Smith, 2005). This also made me aware that my experiences as a child immigrant were different from those of the adult refugees with whom I was in relationship.

While my dual location as researcher and community member carried benefits that shaped the research process, I also recognized that my perceived familiarity with the participants’ experience created information gaps, where participants left out important details because they assumed I would understand due to taken-for-granted similarities that did not need explanation. Here, my reflexive clarity was required to understand that I had not experienced a coming-out process on the Continent; I had not experienced family, community, or state rejection; and I had not fled my country due to state-sanctioned persecution. This tacit difference

63 was never articulated back to me by participants, but it was something that I kept front and centre in my own framework and lens.

Consequently, reflexivity became paramount in the research, not only by situating me socially as a means to enhance rigour and ethics, but also as an emotional positioning (Chaudhry,

2000). Emotionality allowed me to monitor the tensions between my involvement with and detachment from the study participants. It allowed for greater sensitivity on my part to have a solid understanding of myself and my role in the creation of knowledge through careful monitoring of my biases, beliefs, and personal experiences. It also allowed for the maintenance of a boundary between what was inherently my story and those plot points that were universal.

Research as Resistance

Acts of resistance and the development of alternative ways of producing knowledge can empower us to develop practices that help research participants overcome their marginalized status in the larger oppressive society. One can be seen to be “doing” transformative anti- oppressive research when one is able to not only to engage research methods in a way that includes resistance but also interrogate the production of dominant forms of knowledge and the way this impacts research participants. At the individual transformative level, anti-oppressive research makes connections between the self and the ability of the self to endure, reflect, and be a catalyst for change; the ability of the experience of transformation to mobilize and empower others; and the ability of research to question existing forms of knowledge and/or create knowledge where very little exists. The end goal is to build epistemology, theory, and practice that is more in keeping with the lived experiences of those being studied.

As researchers, we must concern ourselves not only with understanding how power is held over oppressed groups but also with knowing how to embolden others to seek alternative strategies that challenge the status quo. Self-exploration is one of the keys. For me, understanding, focusing on, and sharing my experiences as a queer African immigrant with others is, at times, emotionally difficult, but also empowering. It highlights for me the fact that

64 the most effective means of resistance can come from my own identity and the struggles I have encountered as a result of this identity, as well as the opportunities and barriers society has put in front of me because of my identity. My research explores the concept of using individual experiences, and the often-painstaking exploration and analysis of those experiences, as a source of knowledge and insight. These experiences reveal best practices that can be nurtured and applied to other situations, with a goal of improving the lives of individuals in similar situations.

This important source of “practice knowledge,” developed from experiences in everyday encounters, is the wisdom that can only come from trust and deep sharing between the researcher and participant.

Every subject responds to life circumstances and experiences based on their own biography and social identity, and therefore, my understanding of others’ circumstances is critical for these experiences to be understood and articulated. We cannot separate who we are as individuals from the research and analysis that we do, and we must be reflexive in how we influence the research process and how it, in turn, influences us and the decisions we make in our final interpretations of our subjects’ lives (Morse et al., 2008). In the traditional view of research, we are supposed to avoid “going native” at all costs, that is, getting too close to our subjects to be objective. But what if you are already a native? I am more inclined to support the notion put forward by Fals-Borda (2001), who challenges the traditional research requirement of objectivity, stating that researchers who claim neutrality or objectivity willingly support the status quo. Contreras (2015) alludes to the notion that rejection of value-free research will increase the usefulness or richness of the research process and results. In this view, objective research is seen to be impaired in its understanding of the transformation required to carry out a social justice agenda. There is an imperative to ground our research in the assumption that it needs to be part of the strategy to further social justice and human rights through meaningful involvement of community and transformative research methodologies, thus leading to the greater realization of social change (Mertens, 2012).

I aim to be practical in what I want to accomplish with this project, which places action, interaction, and emotional responses to events at centre stage and locates them within the larger historical, social, economic, and political contexts in which events occur. The use of qualitative methodology was a solid research decision, because it is a process whereby research participants can be viewed as active agents in their lives rather than as passive receivers of the impacts of lager social forces. While qualitative methods claim to represent the views of study participants, my approach is more accurately defined as providing a theoretical rendering or an interpretative portrayal of the studied world of queer African refugees rather than an exact picture of it.

Through the research process, I have tried to see the lives of study participants from the inside- out and enter into their personal spaces and settings to the broadest extent possible. Through the use of self-analysis, reflection, and my acquired insider knowledge as points of departure, I was able to move from interview questions to how I looked at the data, how I listened to interviews, and how I was able to think analytically about the stories collected.

Chapter 2 The Death of FannyAnn Eddy and Future Imaginings of Queer African Subjects

“Yet, despite all of the difficulties we face, I have faith that the acknowledgement by the Commission of the inherent dignity and respect due to lesbian, gay people can lead to greater respect for our human rights. As evidenced by the liberation struggle in South Africa, where the constitution bars discrimination based on sexual orientation, respect for human rights can transform society. It can lead people to understand that in the end, we are all human and all entitled to respect and dignity.” — FannyAnn Eddy, UNCHR 2004, NGO Statement on Human Rights

This is the first of three chapters that provides a concise overview of the theoretical discussions and accompanying literature that is relevant to the understanding of queer African subjectivities. I outline specific arguments and ideas in fields of study that I feel are relevant to my research, provide foundational overviews, and highlight gaps or areas needing further study, demonstrating why my research is useful, necessary, and valid. My key research question—How do queer African refugees come to know themselves and negotiate their identities and security between nations?—is discussed through an interrogation of the conditions that make possible and those which constrain the emergence of subjects who come to be called “queer Africans.”

This chapter explores the notion that in order to fully engage in discussions of queer

African lives we need to build a frame of reference that enables us to articulate the complex interactions between race, gender, nationalism, culture, identity, and sexuality. Such a framework, I believe, will inform and signify the dialogical relationship between historically specific categories of sexuality and social location in the lives of queer members of African communities. I emphasize in the discussion that follows the need to look at the origins of queer theory and explore its future as it engages with intersectionality in a manner that leads to the development of a praxis framework that can articulate the lives of queer Africans. This direction involves exploring the nonnormative alignment of sexuality and resisting the tendency to essentialize or conflate it with mainstream definitions of gender and/or sexual expression.

Queer African theorizing is a growing field that is expanding our understandings of who we are as queer African subjects. I feel that, in order to fully explore the notion of queer African subjectivity, there is a necessity to first explore concepts of diaspora and transnationalism from a specifically African perspective. I argue that a praxis framework that can articulate the lives of queer Africans must be inclusive of the processes and experiences of queer Africans in the

Diaspora as well as on the Continent. The reality for queer Africans is that no African state has been able to fully protect the lives of its queer citizens, even when legislation is in place that attempts to do so (Brown, 2012; Mwambene & Wheal, 2015).

Forced migration and engagement with African diasporas globally is a significant part of the queer African story, and it should not be separated to maintain the colonizing practice of dividing and separating African people geographically. Africans remain Africans regardless of location—a popular sentiment we see being adopted in current movements such as Ghana’s

“Year of Return,” which promoted the return to Africa for members of the African Diaspora.

Other African countries followed suit, acknowledging the 400th anniversary of the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade and the need to reunify African people globally (Sarai, 2019; Year of

Return, 2018). We are also seeing queer African scholarship move towards the inclusion of diasporic African methodologies and theorizing, emphasizing that this is necessary in order to accurately paint a whole picture of queer Africans (Adjepong, 2019; Moreau & Tallie, 2020;

Nyeck & Epprecht, 2013).

As members of the Canadian parliament prepared to debate and cast their votes on same- sex marriage, myself and members of queer African communities in Canada were reeling from the brutal murder of Sierra Leone queer rights activist FannyAnn Eddy, on September 29, 2004.

This vicious attack on such an internationally prominent, outspoken queer rights activist was a wakeup call, not only for members of queer African communities on the Continent but also those of us living in the Diaspora. It epitomized the brutality of persecution experienced by members of queer communities globally. It highlighted the lack of protection afforded to our communities,

68 the dire need for a unified global movement fighting to protect the rights of all, and the need to challenge cultural norms, provide support, and monitor the human rights of queer individuals globally as opposed to the sole enhancement of the rights of those living in the West. The brutal murder of FannyAnn on African soil challenged our queer immigrant and refugee notions of

“home” and “return,” and it challenged our taken-for-granted rights and freedoms as members of queer communities in the Diaspora—as well as our notions of citizenship and true belonging in a nation.

This pivotal event points us to the fact that we essentially have multiple imaginings of home, each of which influence and are influenced by identity, perceived freedom, and the political strength to effect change (Mohanty, 2003). On one hand, some of us living in the

Diaspora are fighting to increase our rights in the West and push a Western queer rights agenda in which we are still marginalized as African people; on the other hand, some of us are fighting for basic survival and validation of our existence in our countries of origin.

Considering oneself as a queer African living in the Diaspora prompts a different understanding of the mechanisms by which national belonging is internalized. As a queer

African living outside of the Continent who is protected by the Canadian Human Rights Code, I need to interrogate how I am imagining a queer African praxis framework that will centralize the lives of queer Africans on the Continent. What risks am I willing to take? And who am I putting at risk as I push forward this articulation?

There needs to be an engagement in geographically bound self-discovery that involves the understanding of what it means to be an individual with specific experiences of identity: one whose identity has been imposed upon as a subordinate other, premised on exclusion and invisibility, and simultaneously created by acts of refusal. Our existence as queer Africans displaces the heterosexual norm and launches a critique of African nations from the locational politic whereby our power as impossible Africans is articulated. Such collective queer African identities acquire specific content from narratives of belonging and ancestry. Identity becomes a

69 necessary component of agency, resistance, and survival and is attained through an ongoing process of self-analysis and interpretation of one’s social position.

Every self is a storied self, and stories that support the visibility of queer Africans need to amplify how these Africans negotiate their identities and politics across dynamic spaces. A queer

African story is one that clearly articulates the formation of a queer African identity that cannot be separated from the theorization of resistance, revolution, and change. Bisaillon et al. (2019) has asked us to also engage with the concept of “defiance.” Subtle acts of defiance can be found in the everyday, taken-for-granted actions that promote survival through deliberate acts of solidarity with chosen communities. As queer African subjects emerge in Canadian discourse and demand political voice and representation, they are resisting cultural homogenization. They are counteracting these dominant discourses with constructions of queer African subjects that recognize shifting cultures and nations (Valdes, 2002).

In the Canadian context, there is a tendency to subsume the Continental African experience within Immigrant and Refugee Studies, Black Canadian Studies, and/or Afrocentric

Studies, none of which aid in creating visibility for this distinct group. The emergence of the queer African subject, then, requires changes to methodological, political, and culturally based theoretical approaches in order to allow for the articulation of who we are, for us to claim our space in history and create a political platform that honors the racial and ethnic dissentions that mark us as different from the mainstream white queer communities in Canada (Khayatt, 2002;

Massaquoi, 2015; Walcott, 2005).

Queering the Diaspora

For reasons of necessity, urgency, and sometimes choice, queer Africans cross borders and find their lives unfolding in diasporic spaces. The concept of “diaspora” presupposes the idea of borders and, correspondingly, the concept of the border encapsulates the idea of diasporic processes. Diasporas can perhaps be seen then as a naming of an “other” that has historically referred to displaced communities of people who have been dislocated from their native

70 homelands (Bell & Binnie, 2000; Okpewho, 2009; Patton & Sanchez-Eppler, 2000). This concept of diaspora is increasingly invoked by displaced peoples who maintain a connection with a prior home. Their displacement for economic or political reasons creates the conditions for exile and the demand for new communities with new relationships to the homeland. With this in mind, we now have to ask, “what kind of history of sexuality will be written with the collision of dislocated queer Africans in Canadian spaces?” For queer African refugees in particular,

Canada becomes both a contested space, where identities are being forcibly constructed under the weight of dominant white Canadian culture, and a subversive space, where they are free to explore their multiple identities, including sexual identity and orientation, often for the first time.

The main features of a diaspora, according to Safran (1991), include a community with a history of dispersal, myths/memories of the homeland, alienation in the host country, desire for eventual return, ongoing support of the homeland, and collective identity that is importantly defined by this relationship. This leaves diasporic subjects who are members of queer communities in a precarious situation, since the current discussion of diaspora often overlooks an examination of specific modes and effects of displacement, geographic movement, and sexuality.

By this, I am referring to the movement between nations, cultures, and regions, which promotes the intricate realignment of sexual identity, sexual politics, and sexual desire (Luibhéid, 2000,

2008; Manalansan, 2003; Mole, 2018; Patton & Sanchez-Eppler, 2000).

While geographic location provides historical and cultural anchors, the naming of sexual identities based on history, social location, and experience is predicated on values and strategic approaches to collective analysis, social justice, political and anti-capitalist struggles. African diasporas have come to be associated with resistance to the nation state within which they are located, and, in this vein, diasporas are best discussed through the politics of culture, identity, and subjectivity (Arthur, 2000; Byfield, 2000; Grewal & Kaplan, 2001). There is no clear obvious fit between geography, sexuality, and politics for queer Africans. It is then necessary to clearly map out distinctly how this concept will be constructed and used as a theoretical tool in

71 terms of my exploration of a queer African perspective. As Braziel and Mannur (2003) suggest, diasporas set the parameters of geography, national identity, and belonging. In the context of a proliferation of these new queer border crossings, the language of borders and diasporas acquires a new relevance. With this thought in mind, I would once again suggest that the theorizing of diaspora is a critical point in the discussion of a queer African praxis framework. Such theorization provides critical space for a discussion of sexuality that is not divorced from historical and cultural specificity. Diasporic analysis troubles the rigidities of queer identity itself, and as the concept of diaspora suggests, these are identities that are scattered and regrouped into new points of being. Sexualizing migration creates new historicities of displacement and facilitates the queering of diasporas (Luibhéid, 2008; Manalansan, 2003;

Patton & Sanchez-Eppler, 2000).

Brah and Clini (2017) suggest that diasporic space is the point at which boundaries of

“inclusion” and “exclusion,” of “belonging” and “otherness,” and of “us” and “them” are contested. How is a queer African diaspora historicized, politicized, and sexualized? I asked myself these questions as I conducted my research with a group of 40 queer African refugees who had sought or were currently seeking asylum in Canada. Drawing on their life histories, these men, transmen, women, and transwomen described some common experiences in their life project. Although their circumstances (e.g., family background, educational level, cultural background, access to resources, and sexual identity) vary greatly, their stories share many common features; it is my hope that these commonalities will create the foundation for understanding queer communities in Africa, and the subsequent necessity for some members to leave countries of origin and become part of the African Diaspora. These life narratives become part of what I propose as a queer African praxis framework, which allows us to interrogate the concept of sexual orientation and identity from an African perspective. In the formation of this queer African frame of reference, it is important to be attentive to the nature and type of process through which the collective queer African “we” is constructed. Who is empowered and who is

72 disempowered in a specific construction of the queer African “we”? How are social divisions negotiated in the construction of the queer African we”? And what is the relationship of this queer “we” to other queer communities globally?

I believe being queerly marked entails the realignment of identity, politics, and desire as one moves between cultures, metropolises, regions, and nations. Being Kisi, Kifi, Buyazi, Supie,

Mashoga, Tousso Bakari, a Grinder, AC/DC, Woubie, Kuchu, a woman who does business,11 homosexual, lesbian, queer, transgender, and/or gay, involves answering to those terms, acting on emotions, feeling desire, and engaging in sexual practices that have different meanings depending on place. What does it mean to be queerly marked and answer to those terms in

Africa, and what happens when that queerly marked African body becomes a refugee in Canada as part of the African Diaspora?

The possibility of future imaginings of queer African lives is needed for the future imaginings of a queer African frame of reference. In the following section, I use Shoats’ (2002) line of analysis to look at relational maps of knowledge that highlight the negotiation of sexuality as is it is presented and understood in diverse situations and contexts. I also explore the linking of historical experiences and discursive networks across borders as they relate to sexuality.

An Elaborate Project

We might want to think of articulating a queer African praxis framework as a project of elaboration, since the politics of marginal sexualities has not so much been neglected as been shielded from public view. Many members of society think that sexuality is a very “straight”- forward political and physiological matter, and that queer people should not be discriminated against, but that is as far as their political interest goes. The question still remains as to whether, or in what context, queers have political interests that connect them to broader demands for

11 These are many of the terms used throughout countries on the African Continent to name people engaging in same-sex desire, but they are not necessarily identity labels. These terms are now being taken up by some queer African communities to reclaim African terminology in an attempt to replace the limiting nature of Western labels of the LGBTQ acronym.

73 justice and freedom. Michael Warner (2002) asks the simple but poignant historical question,

What do queers want? Any person who comes to a queer realization of themselves understands that their oppression is connected but not limited to desire, family, fear, shame, healthcare,

HIV/AIDS, personal freedom, gender, reproductive rights, parenting, silence, invisibility, public display, terror, violence, intimacy, and depression (GLAD focus group, 200512). Being queer means addressing these issues all the time with consequences that are sometimes fatal, as was the case with FannyAnn. As queer activists from non-Western contexts become more and more involved in setting political agendas, and as the rights discourse of internationalism is extended to increasingly more cultural contexts, mainstream queer theorists will have to become alert to the limiting localizing tendencies of our theoretical language.

I believe that a queer African praxis framework not only allows for the articulation of our lives as queer Africans but also challenges a mainstream queer frame of reference, as stated previously. It does not allow us to recycle the socio-sexual and socioeconomic hierarchies of oppression against which we fight. It is framed around the confrontation of both personal and collective political forces, which aim to oppress both domestically and internationally under heteropatriarchy13 (Alexander, 1997). The use of the term “queer” is based on a particular history, and as Africans, we have limited if any history with the word. How, then, do we insert ourselves into this discourse and for what purpose? How do we lay claim to the discourse?

I would say that we are announcing the arrival of a new moment in our political, social, sexual, theoretical, and cultural lives through the proliferation of reference to queer. We are interrogating the complex system of sexual norms in African cultures, where the normal African

12 During my research, I facilitated a focus group with 20 queer members of Gays and Lesbians of African Descent (GLAD), a peer support group for Continental Gays and Lesbians living in Toronto. The question posed to the group was, “What does being queer mean to you, in one word?” These were some of the responses. 13 According the Alexander (1997), the term “heteropatriarchy” refers to the twin processes of heterosexualization and patriarchy. At this historical moment, for instance, heteropatriarchy is useful in continuing to perpetuate a colonial inheritance and in enabling the political and economic processes of recolonization.

74 is not queer and the normal queer is not African. To firmly locate queerness in an African historical, political, and intellectual context, and to identify the culturally based problematic that a queer African praxis framework intends to remedy, we are determining what Gilroy (1995) might define as the conceptual category of “queer African.” We are offering an analysis of the present situation of queer Africans, interpreting a queer Africa past, and moving a step closer to the inclusion of queers in Africa’s future.

Queer Markers and Queer Meaning

A post-structural approach to sexuality understands that there is no one true queer history or one true queer identity; rather, there are many histories and many identities, which are fluid and dynamic. For one to announce “I am queer” is to identify as belonging to a group that resists dominant sexual codes. To announce “I am queer and African” is not only life threatening in this current political climate, but it is also engulfed by notions of globalized categories that are difficult to transport across cultures and between nations, and it calls into question the very category of queer itself. It challenges the very situatedness of the category in white gay history.

We need to question whether it is a personal category, a political one, or a linguistic one. For one to call themselves “queer” possibly means they are a certain type of person, that they engage in certain sexual behaviors, that they have a certain kind of political orientation, that they dress in a particular type of way or look a certain way. Until a word gains wide usage in the culture, the category or type of person does not exist (Khayatt, 2002). Altman (2013) would also add to this discussion that queerness is socially constructed and cannot be understood without recognizing that an identity and the resulting behavior is derived from social norms.

Identity that is based on same-sex desire may be potentially productive for new forms of self, community, and social relations. Bannerji (1993) comments on her disconnection from the surrounding white queer androgynous aesthetic as she adorns herself in traditional South Asian attire, which has multiple readings for her as a South Asian Canadian lesbian but is read as

“femme” identity in a white lesbian context. She challenges the roles and behaviours attributed

75 to that presentation, which complicate her attempt to negotiate ethnicity and sexual identity in a

Canadian context. A queer African praxis framework speaks to the need for a particular strategy of reading sexuality outside of dominant configurations of visibility, same-sex desire, and identity within some cultures and against others. It speaks to Foucault’s “paramount moment of possibility,” which is the positioning of bodies and pleasures that are not already enmeshed in the discourse of queer theory (Foucault, 1990).

The current academic study of sexual orientation—connected to the emergence of queer politics of identity and new queer formations—has historically focused on Western examples, with primary emphasis placed on white, middle-class gay life (Berube, 2001; Kinsman, 2001;

Reed, 2016). The emergence of transnational sexuality studies and queer migration studies has shifted the discourse to include diverse immigrant voices in a limited sense, with emphasis on how these subjects understand, make sense of, and engage with the prevailing practices in their new country of settlement (Cantú, 2000, 2001; Roque Ramírez, 2002); conflicting feelings about home and family in relationship to the new country (Manalansan, 2015; Roque Ramírez, 2006); understandings of racism in the new country (Dasgupta & Dasgupta, 2018; Gopinath, 2005;

Puar, 2018); and the experience of asylum seekers and legal practices in the new country

(Cossman, 2007; Lee, 2019; Luibhéid, 2008; Murray, 2016; Rehaag, 2017).

These diasporic and transnational interrogations of queer identity create and open the potential for a discussion on queer African identity, but not one that exists outside of a Western discourse and focuses on an identity which is formed prior to diasporic engagement. I argue that

Western scholarship on both identity in queer theory and national identity in postcolonial theory fails to comprehensively account for the manner in which queer African identity is formed and articulated prior to engagement with diasporic spaces, and, further, how that identity is complicated post-engagement with these same spaces. I necessarily refer back to Moraga (2003), who asks us to understand identities as relational and grounded in the historically produced social facts that constitute social locations. This points to the critical practice I hope to explore,

76 which allows us to understand how the methods of theorizing queer African identities need to be developed.

In the following discussion, I engage a line of analysis that looks at relational maps of knowledge which highlight the negotiation of sexuality as it is presented and understood in diverse situations and contexts. I also explore the linking of historical experiences and discursive networks across borders as they relate to sexuality. To fully understand and support a queer

African praxis framework, we need to move beyond the gaze of this group as the history of a marginalized minority population and, rather, look at the organization of social hierarchies and impact on queer African subjects in the biggest possible sense. We need to look at this group as being part of and central to historical analysis and the production of sexualities, and understand that things will not remain the same as we create new possibilities and fight to change old repressive patterns.

Primarily concerned with documenting past and present manifestations and implications of same-sex attraction, queer theory operates from the perspective that heterosexuality or normative sexuality could not exist without queer or anti-normative sexualities. What, then, are the discursive constructions and constructed silences around the relations of race to identity and subjectivity in the practice of same-sex desire within the development of queer African subjectivity? How do sexualized identities shaped by silence, erasure, and invisibility coexist with other sexualities? How do these subjects articulate the discourse that shapes their lives?

What are the spaces that they shape and occupy in Canada, and how do these newly emergent identities shift and transform as they cross borders?

Documented histories of racialized queer cultures and communities are scarce, not only in Canada but also globally (Creese, 2019; Giwa & Greensmith, 2012; Gopinath, 2005;

Manalansan, 2014; McCready, 2015). In fact, it is safe to say that while the field is growing, there is no significant and consistent historicized documentation of racialized same-sex practices, nor of how we actually theorize about same-sex desire. Even more unsettling is the limited

77 attention paid to same-sex desire, geographic and socio-political location, and the conveniently constructed silences around relations between and around sexual orientation, nationhood, race, identity, and subjectivity (Massad, 2007). A review of writings by racialized lesbians, gay men, and queers does not produce a critical mass or a coherent body of published works or authors speaking about a queer African experience. This is historically due in part to limited institutional access, but perhaps more so to differing or competing priorities and divergent definitions and ways of addressing sexuality and queerness.

Queer communities globally may very well express solidarity with each other, but what must be acknowledged in the day-to-day working-out of collective liberation struggles is a twofold reality: a clear and active recognition of the extent and nature of the varying contexts, and a rich and deeply reflective understanding of the contrasting priorities these contexts create.

In response to this absence, we have seen the emergence of a queer of colour critique envisioned by Roderick Ferguson (2003). Ferguson extends Kimberlé Crenshaw’s (1989) notion of intersectionality within postnationalist and transnationalist frames, and grounds it in the experiences and histories of queers of colour. As such, the main mission of queer of colour critique is to understand how certain bodies matter and certain bodies are located on the periphery of queer theory. A queer of colour critique provides a unique view from a peripheral location in search for social justice (Chan & Howard, 2020; Manalansan, 2018). This critique, more importantly, highlights the fact that a critically informed queer African praxis framework requires an in-depth analysis of genealogies, histories, and philosophical underpinnings or it will simply be another critique of queer theory.

As queer African subjects emerge in Canadian discourse and demand political voice and representation, they are resisting cultural homogenization. Alexander (1997) discusses historicity as the sense that things will never be the same, as new possibilities open and old repressive patterns close. It is from this point of departure that my discussion of a queer African subjectivity truly takes shape. Sexual meanings are not universal absolutes but are ambiguous and

78 problematic categories, with this becoming more evident as we explore sexuality and sexual meanings globally. In the current political articulations of queer sexualities in North America, social and cultural norms have been reconceptualized and are standing on their own merit, even though definitions are still, in my estimation, unstably articulated and coded. In the North

American context, the phrase “lesbian and gay” has become the standard way of referring to what, only a few years ago, was simply “gay” and, prior to that, was “homosexual” (de Lauretis,

1991).

Queer politics, on the other hand, has come to replace older modes of lesbian and gay politics by coexisting alongside them while, at the same time, opening up new possibilities.

Queer subjectivity creates a new space in the framework of sexuality. It is a space of inclusivity, a means by which to articulate the complexity of multiple oppressions and an alternative for those who wish to avoid essentializing identities (Giffney, 2004; Hartal, 2018; Phiri, 2015).

Let’s Hear It for Queer and the Necessity for Two Theories

Contemporary progressive political movements have often faced the problem of proving legitimacy and authority due to lack of representation and/or diversity. Activists have long taken issue with the politics of representation and the problem of who speaks for and about others.

Much of the experience-based literature articulates a clear divide between cultural identities and resulting theories that are based on sexuality (e.g., lesbian, gay, transgender, queer) and ones that are based on race or ethnicity, with the two paradigms rarely intersecting to form a comprehensive legitimate discourse. Academic interest in how intersectional discourse shapes racialized, gendered, sexualized, and oppositional subjectivities is often tied to academic attempts to shape intellectual commitments.

With the increased emergence of queer subjects within mainstream discourse and the elevated demands for political voice and representation, we have seen a stronger strategic resistance to the mainstream tendency of cultural homogenization. Queer subjects or those whose sexual identity, orientation, and/or behaviour are seen to oppose the heterosexual norm are

79 counteracting dominant discourses and requiring a significant change in methodological, political, and culturally based theoretical approaches. This shift would allow for the articulation of identity and the claiming of space in history while creating a political platform in terms of, not in spite of, the dissention that marks queer subjects as different from the heteronormative tendency.

With its introduction in 1991 by Teresa de Lauretis, the term “queer theory” set out to encompass new histories of gays and lesbians (Goldman, 1996). However, several years earlier, in 1989, Kimberlé Crenshaw had introduced the term “intersectionality,” which set out to amplify the systematic ways in which differences in social location, including but not limited to race, gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic status were interrelated as distinct categories rather than conflated into a single experience of oppression. Difference was seen by both intersectionality and queer theories as central to the understanding of how marginalization was experienced and lived. Queer theory was seen as having the ability to problematize what it meant to be and inhabit the definitional categories of lesbian and gay.

Both intersectionality and queer theory benefit from the mutual exchange of concepts and ideas. Intersectionality accounts for the multiple levels across which oppression operates, and queer theory pushes us to deconstruct categorical identities and normativity. Intersectionality articulates the site of becoming marginalized or oppressed, where queer theory allows us to question norms that perpetuate marginalization or oppression. Together, these theories force us to ask different questions and ask questions differently (Coloma, 2006), and their theoretical systems can be combined not only for academic exercises and purposes but also as political tools in the creation of epistemologies, social justice coalition-building and practices of resistance.

Queer theory, then, can be seen as innovative because of the degree to which it facilitates self- consciousness about how society mediates self-understanding of sexual identities and promotes queer culture-building. By this I mean the radical project of recognizing identities, desire, and

80 sex that can exist when the heterosexual subject is not the referent point or the normal discussant of sexual culture.

As discussed, queer historicities and theories of intersectionality do not only foreground the experiences and presence of queer African refugees. They also provide a framework for exploring the interlocking nature of oppressions in the lives of these individuals. Naming intersectionality as the intersections of marginalized and dominant social locations within individuals and groups, and naming the interlocking nature of systemic oppression as a matter of context and reflexive process in research, allows for more meaningfully diverse stories. It activates an exploration of the multiplicity of social location and systems of oppression as opposed to the idea that any one system of oppression can be held entirely still for interrogation.

An intersectional queer theory is a transformative political project that can be used as a critical lens in scholarly practice to decenter the naming of mainstream subjects as fixed definitions of collective queer identities (Chikwendu, 2013; Davids & Matebeni, 2017). I want to develop a queer academic tradition that focuses on the lived experience of structural inequalities in order to re-conceptualize the queer subject as embedded in difference and cultural diversity. It is important to refocus the emphasis on the everyday lives and intimate experiences of those who practice a queer tradition and to take into account other identities that intersect to place them queerly in the world.

Queer theory was also seen to be a vehicle of desirous utopian imagination, as in the style of Michael Warner (2002), both fighting for equality while claiming difference and demanding political representation while insisting on its material and historical specificity. The project of queer was to celebrate the diversity of subjects who experienced heterosexist oppression without essentializing identity, while at the same time acting as an umbrella term for all those who had been marginalized because they transgressed the heterosexual norm (Khayatt, 2006). The project of intersectionality was to celebrate diversity without conflating identities or creating hierarchies of oppressions, while at the same time acting as an umbrella term for the expressed experience of

81 multiple oppressions. The multiple identities of oppression formed an axis that amplified the magnitude of social inequalities one experiences through categories of oppression that are shaped by one another rather than as a single, discrete, and unrelated event (Crenshaw, 1998).

A queer theoretical practice that operates through an intersectional lens becomes a useful tool for making visible how some desirous subjects pass as normal and how others are rendered marginal. We see this play out in countries where the rights of queer citizens are protected while racialized queers still experience racism within their communities. It allows people to see how both social processes and social representation are crucial in understanding oppression. Without a doubt, “queer” can be seen as a term that negatively erases difference, but I am working with the utopian use of the term, which is theoretically structured around the concept of intersecting identities as they relate to sexuality.

Lesbian and gay sexualities were understood and imagined as forms of resistance to cultural homogenization that were counteracting dominant discourses with other constructions of the subject in culture. Queer politics and queer issues, on the other hand, were linked to political struggles. Queer theory was seen as having the ability to problematize what it meant to live intersectionally as LGBTQ. We can also understand the purpose of queer theory by looking at how it functions. It is my view that queer theory performs as a constative narrative with the power to challenge all norms relating to sexual identity. Queer is purported to transcend difference. To be gay or lesbian, for example, is to merely be assigned an identity, whereas to be queer requires the visioning and production of abstract genderless free-agents who are textually indeterminate (Warner, 2002). Queer theory, then, attempts to unpack the identities “lesbian” and

“gay” and subsequently demonstrate how these categories are overdetermined by such factors such as heteronormativity, race, gender, and ethnicity (Martinez, 2003; Somerville, 2000;

Valdes, 2002; Walcott 2005).

Queer theorists rightly critique identity categories that present themselves as being stable and authentic, but what becomes an appealing aspect of queer theory is the refusal to name what

82 that identity means (Duggan, 1992). Queer theory, then, becomes a useful tool for making visible how some desirous subjects pass as normal and others are rendered dysfunctional. Queer theory can be seen as a useful foundation because of the degree to which it facilitates self-consciousness about how society mediates self-understanding of sexual subcultures and for its promotion of queer culture-building. By this I mean the radical project of recognizing identities, publics, desires, and sex that can exist when the heterosexual subject is not the referent point or the normal discussant of sexual culture (Giffney, 2004; Warner, 2002).

I have set up the concept of “queer theory” to deliver so much, despite the fact that in reality it is a theoretical framework that is thoroughly embedded in white North American academic culture. Despite this crucial shortcoming, I believe that queer theory has the potential to transform how one can theorize sexuality in relation to cultural, racial, or ethnic identity by the steady deconstruction of binaries such as heterosexual vs. homosexual and male vs. female. As queer Africans, we do not live our lives based on single-issue politics. We are fighting multiple intersectional oppressions and require theories that can problematize the complex diversity of oppressions we are experiencing (Massaquoi, 2015). I know that if queer theory is to be truly seen as innovative and challenge what is “normal,” it must provide a framework within which to challenge racist, misogynist, and other oppressive discourses, as well as those that are heterosexist and homophobic. It cannot simply challenge heteronormativity but must instead question the very systems that sustain heteronormativity. There needs to be a clear understanding of the ways in which systems of oppression are linked and create discourses that seek to undermine and expose the entire system through frameworks that address both local and global sexual identities.

In the vein of Sheik (2015), I believe the queer agenda to be liberatory, in the sense that it is grounded in the profound understanding that social justice inclusive of sexuality can only be realized through the recognition of the intersectional nature of oppression and the need to work in coalition with communities based on intersecting identities such race, gender, geography, age,

83 and ethnicity. I have been focusing on the ability of this theory to articulate a sexual subculture, as movement of political resistance that demands a change in sexual politics. Truthfully, queer theory mirrors the discourse of white gay and lesbian histography and sociology, which has haphazardly added on marginalized groups such as racialized communities as an afterthought, with little to no understanding of socio-sexual specificity. In particular, queer theory is seeking to challenge notions of heteronormativity and heterosexism.

The foundations of queer theory, according to Escoffier (1990), placed emphasis on intellectualized interpretations of texts rather than the social history or sociology of gay life. He also notes that, at the time, this new field had thus far failed to incorporate women and people of colour in any significant way, and he claims that postmodern theoretical concepts make interpretation difficult and obtuse for anyone outside of the academy. Those pioneers who produced queer theory have made abstractions of queers of colour in particular, according to

Berube (2001).

The production of queer knowledge housed in the academy and in activist communities is controlled and policed, and limits the way we think about being queer and, essentially, who can or cannot be considered queer. Just as heterosexuality limits the discourse on other sexualities, the structuring of queer theory around whiteness limits racial or ethnic discussions of queerness.

The continued constructed silence around race and non-North American queer perspectives forces us to essentialize our identities as ethnic and queer communities of colour in order to effectively highlight our opposition to the queer norm within queer theory and to flag how we are continually excluded, yet again, from another discourse (Warner, 2002).

As previously stated, “queer” can be seen as a term that negatively erases difference, but

I am holding onto the utopian use of the term, which is theoretically structured around the concept of intersecting identities and allows me to begin the exploration of a queer African praxis framework that looks at the multiple positions of gender, race, ethnicity, culture, and geography. Valdes (2002) wonders whether we can truly have queer liberation without reference

84 to gender, race, or class. If queer liberation only stands for sexual liberation, what kind of foundation is it standing on if it is supporting and perpetuating queer male privilege, class privilege, and/or white privilege? Queer activists who evoke a single-oppression framework misrepresent the distribution of power within and outside of queer communities, and therefore limit the comprehensive and transformational character of queer politics (Johnson & Henderson,

2005).

There can no longer be a universal category of “queer” that includes all queers with gender, race, and ethnicity, for instance, being subsumed under some neutral umbrella and used as merely a descriptor. In the critical project I am proposing, gender, race, and ethnicity are central to the methodology as well as to the content of a queer theoretical framework. I am not simply arguing for a theory about and for queer Africans, but for the expansion of the concept of queer to include an articulation of the lives of queer Africans. I am calling into question the concept of queer resistance or queer liberation that does not step outside the boundaries of

Western notions of freedom.

Hammonds (1994) suggests that the use of the term “queer” without the qualifier “Black” highlights the lack of meaningful theoretical engagement with the intersectionality of race and sexuality. For her, the term “lesbian” without a racial qualifier can be simply read as “white lesbian.” What methodologies, then, need to be created in order to read and understand how sexualities that are shaped by silence, erasure, and invisibility coexist with other sexualities and address the impact of the visible on the invisible. Hammonds (1994) articulates this thought:

“When I am asked if I am queer, I usually say yes even though the way in which I am queer has never been articulated in the body of work that is now called queer theory” (p. 1).

Mainstream queer theory fails to acknowledge that its very processes are connected to the construction of the sexualities of white subjects historically and contemporaneously. In queer theory, questions of race and ethnicity tend to be overlooked in order to analyze sexuality in the same manner that race-based scholarship tends to minimize compulsory heterosexuality. Such an

85 analysis shifts queer theory’s gaze from the resistance of mainstream heterosexuality to the elaboration of one’s identity being located in constantly shifting intersections of oppression, which are not only resisting heterosexuality but other queers as well (Milani, 2014). Hammonds writes,

Torn between the homophobia of the black community and the racism of the white lesbian community, I need, as a black lesbian, to speak for myself and in my own voice, which is not the voice of the white world. I do not want my black experience filtered through your white academic language, the rage and passion edited out, explained away. I do not doubt your good intentions; I do doubt your ability to comprehend or accurately represent my lesbianism, which cannot be taken out of context of my blackness. (1994, p. 88)

I use this example to propose the implementation of a logic that requires us to critically reassess the ways in which we understand and pursue our history, politics, and sexualities, and to articulate them in terms of the very differences that characterize queer communities and our membership in them. The imaginative strategies employed by Black queers within Black Studies require the negotiation of two epistemological sites: blackness and queerness (Ferguson, 2003).

This is key and worthy of inquiry if I am to simply replace the Black signifier with African. If any true radical potential can be found in that act, it would seem to be located in the ability to create a space where transformational political work can begin, and where we can articulate opposition to dominant norms from an African perspective. By transformational I mean a politic that aims not to find opportunities to integrate into dominant institutions and normative sexual relations but instead to pursue a political agenda that seeks to challenge specific systems and laws that make our lives as queer Africans nonnormative. The signifier symbolizes and acknowledges that through our existence and daily fight for survival, we are mobilizing intersectional sites of resistance to forces that, in the words of Cathy Cohen (2019), seek to problematize our sexuality and constrain our visibility.

Johnson and Henderson (2005) argue that there is a compelling social and political reason to lay claim to the modifier “Black” in “Black queer.” Both terms are markers and signifiers of difference, but “Black” resists notions of assimilation and absorption. This logic sheds light on

86 the dynamics of heterosexism, homophobia, and coming out in families and communities with specific gendered, racial, and ethnic contexts. It will help us move away from primary resistance to negative images of non-white or non-Western queer identity and move to challenging queer theory that lacks gendered, racial, and ethnic dimensions. I am pushing for the use of a queer

African lens that not only disrupts the queer project but further disrupts the Black queer project, by inserting new and divergent positions into a queer Black North American project that has forgotten that Africa matters.

I am interested in examining the concept of “queer” in order to think about how we might construct a new African political identity that is truly liberating, transformative, and inclusive of all those who stand outside of the dominant constructed norm of globally sanctioned heteronormativity. While Walcott (2005) points out that Black diasporic queers have actually pushed the boundaries of transnational identification much further than we recognize, I feel queer Africans are pushing this boundary even further, much to our diasporic advantage. This pushing of the boundary through a queer African praxis framework would provide a better explanation of the world in which we are trying to exist and a more favorable articulation of the world in which we act politically. This framework allows us to harness the privilege and power of the Black diaspora but speaks to the liberation of all Africans, not only those defined within the Black diaspora. By political act, I mean concerning oneself with active intervention, provocation, interruption, and disruption rather than reproduction. By reproduction, I am referring to the reiteration of oppressive ideologies and behaviours that marginalize those who identify as sexual or gender non-conforming. In short, I am talking about an extremely new framework for cultural criticism and social analysis—one that is slowly emerging and taking shape.

Queer Africans?

In the final scene of Dakan (1997), the first queer feature film from sub-Saharan Africa, we see a pair of male lovers drive off towards the unknown. What has unfolded in this film is the

87 story of two young men who, in “coming out” to their African families, must disappear and become invisible due to the fact that their society does not yet have the capacity to recognize their union. As a result, the film itself does not have the capacity to depict how life unfolds for these men as they decide to accept their dakan (destiny) and form a lasting relationship. The typical Hollywood ending is not possible here since narratives are not available for the integration of queer relationships into traditional African society. While coming out in a white

North America tradition is trendy and mainstream, this is an African story that sees one forced into non-existence, into obscurity, by the same act. The father of one of the young men articulates the potential consequences of coming out in a traditional African context, saying, “Do you know what this means? The whole town, our family will be scandalized, horrified, everyone will be terrified by the two of you, the whole country will treat you as outlaws and criminals.”

Theoretically speaking, in an African context, by coming out, one runs the risk of shaming, terrifying, and losing not only family and community but also one’s nation. The category of “queer” now functions in, what Alexander (1997) terms, a “heteropatriarchial context” in which one becomes an outlaw and is operating outside the bounds of the state; therefore, one is to be simultaneously punished within it and banished from it for disrupting heterosexual norms. I am using the film Dakan as a starting point for a much broader discussion within which to theorize a peaceful life experience that has yet to be imagined on any large scale.

The non-heterosexual African cannot be imagined and therefore occupies a space of impossibility in a family, in a community, in a nation. As was stated by a mother in the film when her son asks her if it is bad to be attracted to another boy, “It never happens, since the beginning of time, it never happens.”

We see this same sentiment depicted in the most recent queer African film, Rafiki (2018), which was written and directed by Kenyan filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu. While the protagonists here are young women, the film remains unable to move us past the place where the first queer

African feature film left us. There is an essentialized cultural assumption that heterosexuality is

88 the only legitimate sexual expression, and with this heteronormativity being taken for granted, same-sex relations are rendered invisible. This phenomenon is also noted by Machera (2004) in the response given by African students when the issue of homosexuality was raised in the classroom: “‘That is impossible!’ ‘it can’t happen!’ ‘if it does, they will be cast out!’ ‘I would advise them to go to America’… the suggestions are endless – no compromise” (p. 163).

One of the biggest challenges of queer Africans globally is forced invisibility (Arnfred,

2004; Murray & Roscoe, 1998; Nyanzi, 2013; Tamale, 2011). African citizens commonly express the belief that homosexuality is not significantly present in African countries and that if it is expressed it can’t survive. Currently only nine14 out of 54 countries on the Continent recognize the rights of queer citizens. It therefore becomes obvious that the creation of an effective queer African presence behind any border would involve the active rejection of the notion of invisibility in two locations—within our nations of origin and within nations of the

African Diaspora where African bodies are present. We must simultaneously address concepts of queerness on the Continent and in the African Diaspora, due to the fact that these same concepts travel with queer African bodies as they cross borders. We can also argue that the struggles of queer Africans everywhere is vital testimony to the presence of same-sex desire on the African

Continent.

From this viewpoint, the queer African subject exists neither in the imaginations of the citizens in the country of origin nor in the country of diasporic destination. Transnationalism thus enters the picture as theoretically significant to the discussion of sexuality. Sexuality is experienced intimately but constructed and constrained within geographic boundaries of both the country of origin and country of destination (Doyle, 2006; Grewal & Kaplan, 2001; Patton &

Sanchez-Eppler, 2000). In order to identify ourselves rather than be identified by others, we must first see ourselves, then come to know ourselves. We can no longer cooperate in the maintenance

14 Homosexual activity has been decriminalized in Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Lesotho, Mozambique, Sao Tome Principe, Seychelles, and South Africa.

89 of our own invisibility, essentially facilitating the disappearance of queer Africans. The practice of erasure inevitably facilitates imposed violence on queer Africans and undermines the political project of community formation, both locally and globally. This practice effectively undercuts the intellectual integrity and moral force of sexual orientation justice (Altman & Symons, 2016).

If we have no language to articulate queer identities in Africa, if we claim they do not exist, then their persecution also does not exist.

An unfortunate result of these efforts—to address and remedy the historical denial of queer Africans by expanding our understanding of who might constitute the historicized queer

African—is the creation of the essentialized and transhistoricized queer African. Due to lack of documentation and theorizing about African same-sex desire, and a reliance on Western queer theoretical frameworks, our attempts to recuperate historical accounts may identify queer subjects past and present who may not themselves identify as such and leave out those who are comfortably situated within the identity. For example, in Swahili, there is no equivalent word for

“homosexual,” although a word for “feminized man” exists and the word basha indicates a male penetrative partner. Boy-wives have been recognized in Zande, Arab/Bantu, and Siwi cultures, often with family approval. The boy would later be married to a woman, the former “husband” paying the bride price (Murray & Roscoe, 1998). To label a woman Supi may refer to the close friendship of two women, which may or may not be sexual in nature (Dankwa, 2011). To label customary and complex relationships as queer, or homosexual, as colonial officials did, was the work of arrogant reductionism; meanwhile, the subsequent essentializing of identity by their enlightened queer descendants strikes against multiple competing aspects of sexual behavior and sexual identity in traditional societies. It is the work of the current project to make culturally based distinctions between queer African behavior and identity.

The Un-African Homosexual

This concept of queer African invisibility is very different from the challenge of homophobia based on negation, which has long been the experience of our Caribbean and Black

Canadian counterparts, who are not only struggling for recognition within the mainstream queer community but are also being silenced within their own communities (Crichlow, 2003). The most prominent example has been the proliferation of homophobic lyrics in dancehall music, or

“murder music,” from Jamaica and the diaspora. The music and artists have been blamed for inciting attacks on gay men specifically and fostering a culture of homophobia in the Jamaican community generally (Wahab, 2016). The International Stop Murder Music campaign, with a branch in Canada, has been successful in ensuring that “murder music” artists are prohibited from receiving visas to enter Western countries to perform, and that concert venues have been pressured into not booking such artists.

From an African perspective, there is no need for derogatory language or silencing language to describe us in most of our mother tongues because we theoretically don’t exist.

There is limited language to engage or not engage in a dialogue about us since our existence is negated. It is believed that any homosexual activity taking place in Africa was brought by the colonizing Europeans and invading Arabs, and for those of us living in the Diaspora, that it was acquired while we were away from home. This contradictory belief system proliferates across the

Continent as a means to erase pre-colonial histories of same-sex practices, which have been well- documented (Amadiume, 1987; Arnfred, 2004; Hoad, 2007; Murray & Roscoe, 1998).

African political leaders have facilitated this widespread belief of our non-existence by publicly denouncing homosexuality—case in point, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s

(in)famous pronouncement at the opening of the Zimbabwe International book fair in 1995, during which he publicly described gays and lesbians as “lower than pigs and perverts.” This led to a fear-based disappearance of a visible queer presence in the country (Luirink, 1995).

President Arap Moi of Kenya followed suit, with claims that “words like lesbianism and homosexuality do not exist in African languages because homosexuality does not exist.”

Namibian President Sam Nujoma publicly announced in March 2001 and, again, on April 1,

2001, that “the Republic of Namibia does not allow homosexuality or lesbianism here. They

91 cannot exist in Namibia. Police are ordered to arrest you, deport you and imprison you.” He described homosexuality “as against God’s will”—this was coupled with the urging of police officers to eliminate gays and lesbians from the face of Namibia. In July 2000, a Sierra Leone national paper, the Concord Times, ran a personal opinion column by Kingsley Linton lauding that “Africa has morals whilst Canada has homos” as it cited Canada’s media obsession with same-sex marriage when there were more “important” issues to report on globally. In a similar vein, Nigerian sociologist Ifi Amadiume, in her ground-breaking scholarship on African sexuality and gender identity, denied the presence of lesbianism in what are otherwise described as “woman-woman marriages” and chastised Black lesbians for using Western interpretations of

African situations to validate their choices for same-sex relationships (Amadiume, 1987).

These examples of African homophobia are no different from homophobia in Western nations, but what makes them noticeably unique is the assertion that homosexuality is un-

African, that homosexuality comes from elsewhere and African homosexuality is impossible. It is an impossibility to be both queer and African at the same time in the same body. To be queer and African is to be excluded from your nation of origin and rendered invisible. To be queer and

African in Canada is still being determined. With the recent emergence of contemporary queer

African identities in the Canadian landscape, we know it at least requires a form of double consciousness—being both queer and African within a system of Europatriarchy here and system of denial in Africa.

According to Alexander (1997), this line of reasoning leaves no room for indigenous agency of queer Africans, who become queer by virtue of foreign influence. Attempts to reconstruct counterhegemonic memories of indigenous queer African culture would be necessarily housed outside of state structures because of the oppressive codification, regulation, and disciplining of queer African bodies from within. Counterhegemonies, or Warner’s (2002) counterpublics, become important to the construction of indigenous queer African culture. By counterpublics, I am referring to exchanges that remain distinct from authority and contravene

92 the social rules of citizens in general. Counterpublics are, by definition, formed through their conflict with the norms and contexts of their cultural environment. Counterpublics are worlds structured by alternative dispositions and thus make different assumptions about existence while maintaining an awareness of subordinate status (Warner, 2002). An articulation of queer African culture as a counterpublic enables the intimate elaboration of same-sex desire that can be contextualized as lives are vocalized, embodied, and erotically practiced through a new articulation of African sexual citizenship.

The heteronormative belief that heterosexuality is the only sanctioned “normal” form of sexual expression is the base of an African discourse on sexuality that positions heterosexuality as compulsory and homosexuality as pathological, immoral, or deviant (Machera, 2004; Ratele,

2004). In this vein, heterosexuality is normative, healthy, natural, and life-producing whilst homosexuality is sick, unnatural, and deadly (Ampofo, 2004; Case, 2002; Helle-Valle, 2004).

According to Alexander (1997), the nation-state is always conceived in terms of heterosexuality being equated to good citizenship, and loyalty to the nation being tied to reproductive heterosexuality. This demand for reproductive heterosexuality positions queer Africans as in need of regulation and discipline for expressing insurgent sexuality that challenges the hegemonic nationality discourse and positions the queer African as threatening to the nation while the heterosexual African is loyally building it. African (homo)normativity has yet to be defined and, in fact, struggles to appear in the current regime of power, which uses the normativity of heterosexuality as a form of domination. According to Jackson (2006), heteronormativity is not solely the enforcer of heterosexuality, but we must also look at the complex network norms such as inheritance laws, property laws, and social organization based on the heterosexual family unit and strict gender roles, which sustain its organization. Resistance to the regime of “normal” operates as the narrative of the counterpublic of a queer African social movement.

I am borrowing from Lacroix (2004) when I say that I hope to explore the concept of a definitional centre for queer Africans. This is not to essentialize the experiences of queer

Africans across a Continent and in the Diaspora, nor do I wish to engage in an Africanist discourse which, according to Said (1993), “is the systemic language for engaging with Africa for the West, associated with primitivism, tribalism and African provenance” (p. 193). There is still an assumption that Africa as a whole can be described and discussed within the confines of a few generic descriptors, and that the diversity of each country can be collapsed into sweeping generalizations (Mohan & Zack-Williams, 2002; Steady, 1987). I hope to not replicate this trend, and I am well aware that although there is some degree of similarity in the experiences of colonization and neo-colonial economic relations shared by the countries of the African

Continent, a single study cannot reflect the tremendous diversity and complexities of a Continent comprised of 54 states and a population of over 900 million, never mind its relationship to sexuality and sexual identity.

The most I can hope to accomplish is to make certain assumptions based on generalized commonalities concerning issues such as the impact of government policies, Western interventions, and the situated experiences of queer Africans throughout the Continent and in the

African Diaspora. I hope to explore the idea that there is a central point of departure that needs to be defined in order to create the basis for a foundational engagement with queer theory from an

African location. There is a long-standing discussion of queer theory in a transnational context, as seen in the works of Cruz-Malave and Manalansan (2002), Luibhéid (2000), and Patton and

Sanchez-Eppler (2000). This context remains largely a response to the exclusions present in traditional queer theorizing, which remains largely curated within a Western academic framework. I am arguing that we don’t want to just have a theory that includes queer Africans— we want a queer African theory. One that can centralize queer African lives, include queer indigenous African histories, and challenge enduring colonial practices. While the current discussion of queer Africans rejects the peripheral logic inherent in any emergent group laying

94 claim to queer theory, I embrace this current peripheral location of queer Africans, and it is from here that I determine the centre of their existence as we develop frameworks and theories of

African centrality.

Chapter 3 Africa Matters

“LGBTQ lives should not be so cheap, but nothing can change as long as LGBTQ people live in fear for their safety when they claim their basic human rights. We want to be alive. We want to be recognized as human beings because we are. We want to be treated with dignity. We want to live in our countries. We want to fulfill our dreams, build families, work hard, and thrive in our countries We want to live without fear, in peace and not thinking every morning that we might end up in prison or graves at the end of the day. We want to be free to love and to be loved. We deserve all these and more.” — Victor Mukasa, United Nations Testimony, December 12, 200915

This is the second of three chapters that provides a concise overview of the theoretical discussions and accompanying literature that is relevant to the understanding of queer African subjectivities. My key research question—How do queer African refugees come to know themselves and negotiate their identities and security between nations?—is further discussed beyond the theoretical frameworks of queer theory, intersectionality, and diaspora discussed in

Chapter Two as I explore the larger systemic meaning of the emergence of queer African presence in Canada. The queer African refugee represents not only the African state’s failure and inability to support queer citizens from horrific abuse, but also the Canadian state’s failure to support queer African refugees, who are under stringent demands to “prove” their homosexuality and are routinely deported, denied, and repatriated to the oppressive situations they fled.

I argue that the queer African praxis framework I am trying to visualize recognizes that the visible presence of these refugees in Canada highlights the agenda of new social queer movements in the Global South. Likewise, it understands the need to use Western spaces for protest and safety in the globalized fight for queer human rights. Throughout this chapter, I explore the notion that a queer African praxis framework requires us to look at the West’s

15 From the transcript of Victor Mukasa at the UN, speaking on grave human rights violations against LGBTQ people. Full video available online at http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ondemand/specialevents/2009/se091210pm2.rm

96 depiction of the treatment of queer citizens in Africa, and the lack of acknowledgment of autonomous resistance to their oppression before arrival in Canada. This narrative sets the tone for how queer African refugees will be treated, understood, and constructed as they navigate security within the Canadian refugee apparatus. This chapter directly questions Western anti- homophobia projects that fail to consider their imperialistic dynamics and ignore the intersections of race, class, and colonialism as they perpetuate the narrative of the truncated life of the tradition-bound, inferior, victimized queer African. Chapter Three also asks the reader to reflect on the sexualizing of colonization, recognizing the importance of understanding that

African colonization by Europeans was not only shaped by the same sodomy laws upheld in

Canada but was also in keeping with an imperial and colonial agenda—one that aimed to wipe out and exterminate any sexual practices and subjects who violated heterosexual normativity.

Understanding how these shared anti-sodomy laws shape the identities of queer Africans in both

Africa and Canada prepares us to understand how new forms of imperialism in human rights agendas and discourses trouble life for queer Africans on the Continent as well as those in

Canada today. Finally, this chapter clarifies exactly what rights queer Africans are fighting for and what mechanisms are facilitating or hindering achievement of these social justice goals.

On June 28, 2009, five years after the murder of FannyAnn Eddy, a group of African refugees took to the streets of Toronto, Canada, leading the 2009 Pride Parade.16 They were led down the parade route with dignity and strength by Ugandan transgender activist Victor Mukasa, who had been named the 2009 Toronto Pride International Grand Marshall. Each year, Toronto

Pride affords this title to an individual who has demonstrated exceptional international leadership in LGBTQ advocacy. Victor Mukasa was forced to flee Uganda after police, in 2005, illegally raided his home, assaulted him, and confiscated documents related to human rights and LGBTQ

16 Pride parades for LGBTQ communities globally are events celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) culture. Most pride events occur annually, and many take place around June to commemorate the Stonewall riots, a pivotal moment in the modern LGBTQ rights movement of North America.

97 organizing. Victor returned to Uganda and, along with a Kenyan activist, successfully sued the government for the raid and violation of his human rights.

As this group of Africans marched in one of the largest and longest-running Pride parades in North America, they faced one million spectators, cameras, and international media outlets.

They shouted and chanted for their human rights, not only denouncing the persecution they had faced in their countries of origin because of their sexual orientation and gender identity, but also calling out the apathy of the Canadian immigration system, which is fickle at best when hearing asylum cases. While this group of African activists were organized around the language of direct action, meaning non-state-mediated action, they were engaged in an activity taken for granted by most Canadians who watched. This moment was noted as significant, but not simply because

Africans were leading one of the largest gay Pride parades in the world; this was not the first time we have seen Africans marching and leading a Pride parade. In fact, the first documented participation of Africans in such an event took place on the African Continent in October 1990.

Johannesburg, South Africa, was the site of this first inaugural protest march initiated by Simon

Nkoli,17 who demanded recognition of the right to be full productive LGBTQ participants in the equal society proposed in the constitution of the new South Africa (de Waal & Manion, 2006).

This also was not the first time Africans took to the streets of Toronto during Pride. We saw the

African LGBTQ community, family, and friends participate in Toronto Pride for the first time in

2001, with the emergence of Gays and Lesbians of African Descent (GLAD). The purpose of this group’s participation was to create visibility for the members of the African LGBTQ community—to be seen, and to demystify the debate about whether we existed or not. What makes the 2009 appearance of Africans at Toronto Pride most significant is that it was the first time queer Africans demanded their rights en mass on diasporic soil. Africans took to the streets and demanded their human rights not just for life here in Canada, but also for life on the

17 Simon Nkoli was a South African anti-apartheid, gay rights and AIDS activist. He is recognized as the founder of South Africa’s Black gay movement.

Continent and in the many countries represented by the refugees. They willingly attached their voices and faces to these demands and stood behind the most highly visible queer African on the

Continent at that moment.

At the exact same time that this Toronto Pride Parade took place and was internationally broadcast, the Ugandan government prepared to pass a private members bill, submitted by

Member of Parliament David Bahati, in order to suppress the rising emergence and strength of the LGBTQ community in Uganda and its demand for human rights. The bill aimed to strengthen the nation’s capacity to deal with “emerging internal and external threats to the traditional heterosexual family” (Ankunda, 2010; Houreld, 2009; Veness, 2010). The bill proposed that same-sex attraction is not an innate and immutable characteristic, and that the people of Uganda must be protected against the attempts of sexual-rights activists seeking to impose their values of sexual promiscuity.

The proposed legislation would strengthen the criminalization of homosexuality in

Uganda by introducing the death penalty for people who were considered serial offenders, were suspected of “aggravated homosexuality,” were HIV-positive, or had engaged in sexual acts with those under 18 years of age (Kron, 2010; Olukya, 2010). People who were caught or were suspected of partaking in homosexual activity would also be forced to undergo HIV tests. The bill went on to further propose that Ugandans who engage in same-sex sexual relations outside of

Uganda also fall under the jurisdiction of this law, and may be extradited and charged with a felony, making no distinction between Ugandans in the country or in the Diaspora. Furthermore, if passed, the bill would have required anyone who is aware of an offense or an offender, including family members, companies, media organizations, or non-governmental organizations who support LGBTQ rights, to report the offender within 24 hours. If an individual did not do so, he or she would also be considered an offender and would face, upon conviction, a fine

(McVeigh, Harris, & Among, 2009). Homosexuality was already illegal in Uganda under a colonial-era law, but Bahati argued that tougher penalties were needed to counter the influence

99 of gay activists from Western countries. This, yet again, was promoting the concept that homosexuality is driven by a Western agenda and not by indigenous queer Africans. After much pressure, global scrutiny, and threats of financial aid sanctions from Western governments, a less-harsh version of the bill, which reduced the death penalty to life imprisonment, was passed by the Ugandan parliament on December 20, 2013, and passed into law on February 14, 2014, by

Ugandan president Museveni. On August 1, 2014, however, the Constitutional Court of Uganda ruled the law invalid as it was not passed with the required quorum. This Constitutional Court ruling is still being appealed by Ugandan parliamentarians and was recently re-tabled on October

28, 2019.

This now-infamous anti-gay bill catapulted Uganda to the front of the line of the 38

African countries imposing extremely repressive laws against its queer citizens, despite some movement forward with South Africa being the first country in the world offering human rights protection for LGBTQ citizens under its constitution. However, even with these protective laws on the legal books, queer communities in South Africa are faced with extreme abuses supported by cultural and religious norms and have little support from authorities (Ahmed, 2009; Thirikwa,

2013).

The queer African refugees taking part in the 2009 Toronto Pride Parade force us to look at the diverse human rights agendas that are gaining traction within the so-called queer community, as well as the fragmentation of the fragile sense of queer cultural unity some have felt in the past, especially during the annual celebration of Pride. The sexual history of queer

Africans is being written across nations and publics, with the streets of Toronto becoming a privileged site to produce, organize, and, for some, relinquish homelands in order to find safety and freedom of protest. The presence of these refugees and asylum-seekers at Pride represents the transforming of Western queer communities, with these transformations involving trans-local negotiations for protest platforms in shared public space. With this sharing of space, long-

100 standing queer communities are not fully swept away, as is the fear of some, but are instead complexly reworked through specific local encounters and diverse agendas (Luibhéid, 2000).

The queer African refugee operates as a reminder of not only the African state’s failure and inability to achieve security for its citizens from horrific abuse, but also the Canadian state’s failure to support queer refugees who are under stringent demands to “prove” their homosexuality and are routinely deported, denied, and repatriated to the oppressive situations they fled (Miller, 2005; Murray, 2016). The appearance of these refugees highlights the agenda of new social queer movements in the Global South and the use of Western spaces for compelling public catharsis and protest in the globalized fight for a just life.

The North/South Divide

Despite the fact that human rights abuses that are linked to sexual orientation happen in every country globally, the issue has become a North–South discussion, wherein the Africans are said to barbarically kill queer citizens while Canadians humanely debate whether they can marry.

Gay-bashing in Canada is seen as a random act of violence by a homophobic individual, while gay-bashing in African nations is seen as a symbol of the backwardness and primitiveness of the entire society (Epprecht, 2014; Janoff, 2005; Smith, 2014).

Globally, we have seen how state-sanctioned assertions of the importance of “national preservation” inevitably create restrictions on any minorities seen as a threat to the nation, particularly those who are queer and, increasingly in Canada, those who are immigrants and refugees (CBC News, 2014). As we see the rise of an increasingly conservative climate in

Canada in recent years, Canadian legislation has become more anti-immigrant. A case in point is

Bill C-24, The Strengthening Citizenship Act, which was ratified in 2014. This federal bill gives the Canadian government the right not only to strip individuals of their Canadian citizenship but also to repatriate those former citizens if they are eligible for citizenship in another nation.

Essentially, the bill creates two classes of Canadian citizens: those who can never lose their citizenship, and those who will be subject for the rest of their lives to the potential of having their

101 citizenship revoked should the necessary conditions be met (such as false claims on the immigration application or during the initial process). This adds a complex layer to the discussion concerning queer African citizens who are forced to leave their countries of origin due to state-sanctioned persecution and become refugees within Canadian borders.

Arguments have been made that transnationality and migration are shrinking the possibility of an operative civil society in developing nations and that the creation of transnational communities is due to the increasing failure of a civil society in those nations

(Mohanty, 2003). This decontextualized analysis is further perpetuated within the Western notion that the ability to facilitate movement toward the advanced West symbolizes passage from the primitive to the civilized and a form of upward mobility for the non-Westerner, with Western citizenship now becoming a privilege as opposed to a right (Brennan, 1997). Those that remain behind will subconsciously, or even consciously, be viewed in a state of inferiority and will therefore remain less privileged.

We are clearly seeing this racist discourse play itself out through the West’s depiction of the treatment of queer citizens in Africa and through the lack of acknowledgement given to autonomous resistance to oppressions prior to arrival in Canada. There is an assumption that queer migration is a smooth road in which the queer African is oppressed, decides to leave the oppressive country, and simply travels to a queer-affirming destination. This simplistic trajectory fails to acknowledge that queer flight is often preceded by heroic acts of resistance against oppressive forces, as opposed to the passive reception of homophobic violence, which, in turn, causes flight from an intolerable environment. These acts of resistance most often take the form of small gestures in which one is attempting to live life as a queer African. In a society where punishment for such acts is extreme, the smallest engagement with queerness, such as gathering for a party, having a clandestine relationship, or simply declaring publicly, “I am queer,” is seen to be heroic. The falsely linear trajectory also fails to acknowledge that migration for any reason severely alters an individual’s social and material circumstances and substantially impacts how

102 queer refugee identity comes to be re-formed, reclaimed, and re-lived. There also continues to be a flawed meta-message that successful activism and change can only happen for queer Africans when there is a collision with Western intervention, and thus the progress made by queer activists who do not leave the Continent needs to be ignored and treated as irrelevant.

The success of Victor Mukasa’s case received very little media coverage or Western support prior to his appearance at Toronto Pride in 2009. His success then became important only in relation to the Canadian-granted opportunity bestowed upon him to publicize the LGBTQ fight against the Ugandan government. The media attention he received as a lone agent against the repressive Ugandan government failed to acknowledge the coalition of African activists who had worked tirelessly to secure his court victory. The sponsors who brought Mukasa to Canada failed to publicly reveal that the team of queer Ugandan activists who were also invited to march with Mukasa in the parade were denied visas by the Canadian government to enter the country. It was felt they would not return to Uganda and would choose to seek asylum in Canada, since, in their minds, that is the obvious desire of all queer Africans: the potential privilege of Canadian citizenship. The denial of the activists’ entry into the country erased the visible appearance of a strong organized queer resistance movement in Uganda and essentially created the narrative of the lone courageous activist (an anomaly) that would need the humanitarian support of Canada in his lone fight in his country of origin. It remains a difficult task for the West to absorb, understand, and support queer African movements over the addictive high of rescuing a lone, isolated victim.

Monumental victories that have been made by queer activists on the Continent have historically gone unacknowledged by Western activists, governments, and queer and mainstream media. No congratulations or kudos were extended to the Sierra Leonean and Rwandan activists who lobbied and successfully convinced their governments to change hard and fast positions to recognize sexual orientation and gender identity as human rights, joining eight other African countries who signed the 2008 United Nations declaration. We gave very little applause to the

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Cape Verdean activists’ fight and victory in 2004, when their country joined South Africa as the second country on the Continent to decriminalize sodomy. We provide very little moral support to the continued fight of South African activists who hold their governments accountable to the rights of the LGBTQ community that are enshrined in one of the most progressive constitutions in the world.

It has been barely noted that South Africa was a co-sponsor of the United Nations’ 2011 initiative to develop global strategies to end violence and discrimination against sexual minorities, or that, most recently, former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano, in his capacity as joint chairperson of the High Level Task Force for the International Conference on

Population and Development (ICPD), sent an open letter to African leaders, calling for an end to all forms of discrimination—including that on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

This action was followed by the decriminalizing of homosexuality on June 29, 2015, in

Mozambique’s new penal code. The portion of the old penal code that criminalized homosexuality had been in place since 1887, when Mozambique was still a Portuguese colony.

This monumental event in LGBTQ history was grossly overshadowed as the world celebrated the US Supreme Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage in all 50 states on June 26, 2015.

There was no mainstream media coverage of the Mozambique victory, despite its occurrence on one of the most inhospitable Continents in which to be queer. We also saw very little fanfare for

Botswana activists on June 11, 2019, when the high court struck down colonial sodomy laws and decriminalized homosexuality.

African activists have a proud history of struggle, from the dismantling of colonialism and apartheid to contemporary movements against the neoliberal order. Grassroots activism is a blunt powerful weapon, and with the growing visibility of queer activism on the Continent, these activists are in a crucial position to link the battle against the new imperialism with the struggle against exploitation in all its forms. Their work has the potential to spark an international permanent revolution that deeply links the developed and developing worlds in their shared

104 understanding of the place of queer bodies within all borders. These connections make queer resistance and revolutionary struggle in Africa, as well as our solidarity, so important today. The

West’s politically driven doctrine that claims it has an inherent obligation to “protect” all world citizens also has philosophical underpinnings that take precedence over and forget about local developments on the ground. These interventions often do not consult those affected by violence, and they often turn queer African citizens into wards and palatable, passive beneficiaries of an external paternalistic power, as opposed to bearers of rights and active agents in their own liberation.

The support of queer African movements in a Western humanitarian framework will produce nothing real or permanent in the fight for liberation—this we have seen, time and time again, in the African struggle to wrest freedom from domestic and international oppressors.

When the crucial decisions of humanitarian interventions continue to involve how to assemble sticks and carrots as the tools to encourage political processes that marginalize political leaders and empower queer actors, we will see only temporary relief and weak results. The lingering legacy of colonialism and imperialism will always sharpen skepticism and suspicion of ulterior motives in the African fight for queer rights. Enthusiastic Western anti-homophobia campaigns continually fail to consider their own imperial dynamics and ignore the intersections of race, class, and colonialism as they perpetuate the narrative of the truncated life of the tradition-bound, poor, victimized queer African. Success can only be achieved with a deeper understanding of complex conflicts, a clear reading of motivations, and an accurate portrayal of the capacity of the combatants.

They Who Cast the First Stone

Canada’s rights for its queer citizens are seen to be the most advanced in the Americas, with queer citizens having almost the same rights as all Canadians and more legal rights than most other Western queer citizens. Despite this fact, the Canada we know now has been shaped through British imperialism and is currently an extension of the American economic empire

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(Bannerji, 2000; Li, 2003). Until Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, then-minister of justice, made his famous statement that “there’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation,”18 and until the bill repealing Canada’s sodomy laws (Bill C-150, Criminal Law Amendment Act,

1968–1969) received royal assent on June 27, 1969, Canada looked no different from the African nations we are now throwing stones at in terms of their conceptualization, and subsequent criminalization, of their queer citizens. Trudeau’s statement is often waved like a flag to show the maturity of the Canadian nation and its citizens in matters of sexuality, and to highlight the immaturity of nation states who continue to uphold sodomy laws.

Prior to 1969, like most African nations, Canada’s unreformed same-sex laws were modelled after the British sodomy statutes, which were developed to control same-sex desires deemed as endangering the nation-state. Religious anti-homosexual ordinances were also a part of this construction of same-sex laws (Kinsman, 2001). In brief, before 1859, Canada relied on

British law to prosecute sodomy, and “buggery” remained punishable by death until 1869. A broader law naming homosexual male sexual activity as “gross indecency” was passed in 1892, and changes to offences in the criminal code in 1948 and 1961 labelled gay men as “criminal sexual psychopaths” and “dangerous sexual offenders,” respectively (Knegt, 2011). These labels provided the grounds for varying prison sentences, and, historically speaking, Canada has followed the same trajectory that many African nations are following today.

African colonization by Europeans was not only shaped by the same laws upheld in

Canada but also fell in keeping with an imperial and colonial agenda that aimed to wipe out and exterminate any sexual practices and subjects who were in violation of heterosexual normativity

(Long, 2009). This has not only aided in the erasure of the history of same-sex practices in a pre- colonial African context but also left us with laws that persecute queer Africans today, since

18 Available through the CBC Digital Archives Website, https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/omnibus-bill-theres-no-place-for-the-state-in-the-bedrooms- of-the-nation (Accessed 29 February 2020).

106 many African countries still practice British, French, and Roman Dutch Law, and the moral doctrines of Christianity and Islam have replaced traditional values.

According to the 2008 Human Rights Watch report titled “This Alien Legacy,” more than half of the world’s remaining sodomy laws derive from a single law on homosexual conduct that

British colonial rulers imposed on India in 1860. Section 377 under the Indian penal code was the first colonial sodomy law integrated into a penal code, and it became a model for countries across Africa and everywhere the British imperial flag flew. Section 377 was intended to set the standard of behaviour with which to reform the colonized and protect colonizers from moral impropriety. Prior to colonization, several Indigenous Nations of North America maintained belief in more than two genders, with some identifying up to six different gender categories. In most cases, such individuals were held in high esteem, being seen as having been given a gift from the Creator. Historically, aspects of gender-diverse community members that were different and unique were often embraced, as these qualities where seen to add value and contribute to life within the communities (Meyer-Cook & Labelle, 2004). This was in direct opposition to the imposed sodomy laws, which aimed to ostracize, isolate, and eliminate non-heteronormative expression.

Contemporarily, we see that, across Africa, the number of colonial constitutional articles regulating homosexuality varies, but the wording of the offence is virtually identical. For example, in Zambia, “carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature” is punishable; in Uganda, “any person who has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature is guilty of an offence and is liable to life imprisonment”; and the Nigerian penal code states that

“any person who has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature...is liable to imprisonment for 14 years.”

After attaining independence, the new governments of Africa followed one of three paths with respect to criminal law (Cowell, 2010). Some enacted a new criminal code that codified existing criminal practice, including the legislative provisions that the newly independent states

107 thought important. Namibia, Lesotho, and Swaziland, for example, currently have no stated anti- sodomy laws on their revised statute books, but they still subscribe to common-law anti-sodomy presumptions. It is possible to prosecute an individual under those provisions. Out of 1819 countries that followed British Common Law, 12 simply amended existing colonial criminal or penal codes and punish so-called crimes against the laws of nature with anywhere from five years to life imprisonment or death.

Finally, some governments decided to keep the common law in place. Maintaining the common-law system was a preferred choice because it provided a system of established precedent and stability, which was invaluable to newly independent states. In Sierra Leone, for example, crimes against the laws of nature are punishable by life imprisonment, and the entirety of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act is still in force. The Act was “saved” by the post- independence constitution, and it is still a functioning part of the country’s criminal law (Kirbey,

2009; Maguire, 2004; Murray & Viljoen, 2007).

When the constitutions for the newly independent African nations were drawn up, with

Ghana being the first in 1957, our forefathers honoured their former rulers by preserving colonial values—ironically, these would themselves be reformed in Britain over the following decade.

These laws were rooted in repressive Christian Victorian morality, and they were embraced enthusiastically by the African nationalist middle class. The existence of these anti-sodomy laws allows African anti-homosexual leaders to cite such laws as evidence that LGBTQ relationships have always been recognized as “un-African”—and therefore, un-African laws are required for an un-African practice. As these attitudes filtered through society, they transmuted into a virulent heterosexism—a consequence of African people being culturally stripped of everything by colonial masters, including the promises of a better life after independence. This was in keeping

19 African countries with amended British Common Law include Botswana, Cameroon, the Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

108 with the phenomenon of colonized peoples internalizing and perpetuating values that evolve and transform in the countries which originally imposed them (Fanon, 1967).

It is out of this culture, fortified by widespread contemporary religious practice— particularly the contemporary Evangelical churches of Canada and the United States which now proliferate much of the African Continent—that the Continental closet and culture of homophobia has grown. However, on March 14, 2012, Sexual Minorities of Uganda (SMUG) took a bold step to disrupt this narrative and filed a federal lawsuit against Scott Lively, a US- based anti-gay evangelical extremist, for his role in the persecution of LGBTQI people in

Uganda, and in particular, his active participation in stripping away their fundamental human rights, including the rights to free expression, association, and assembly. In a 2017 US federal court ruling, it was affirmed that Lively aided and abetted the crime against humanity of persecution, but the case was dismissed because the federal court did not have the jurisdictional ability to prosecute the accused. Regardless of the outcome, the lawsuit inevitably changed the course of history in terms of the story of Western imposition of homophobia in African countries. A clear message was sent to Western Evangelicals that their brand of homophobia will be met with extreme opposition when there is an attempt to cultivate such hatred on African soil.

National Heroes or Traitors?

We can unequivocally state that colonialism did not introduce homosexuality to Africa but rather introduced the intolerance of it, along with the systems of surveillance, regulation, and laws to suppress it (Biruk, 2014; Kizito, 2017; Murray, 2009). Understanding African same-sex desire requires not only interrogating the origin of, and subsequently abandoning, these myths, but also suspending certain deeply held Western beliefs and values concerning sexuality and same-sex relationships. Theorizing about queer African sexuality is crucially dependent upon the existence of a conception of African sexuality in general. I am not arguing that queer sexualities are derivatives of African heterosexuality, only that we cannot understand the former without

109 understanding it in relation to the latter. I think this forces us to examine the construction of the

Continent as a closet for queer Africans. In the West, we tend to concentrate on the closeted individual and how we can encourage them to “come out” of their personal closet by focusing on their internalized homophobia, private shame, and performative deception. In queer African theorizing, there is a need to refocus this gaze to look at how cultures create closets, how colonization has created intensely interwoven closets and expansively oppressive conditions, and how the resulting culture of heteronormativity makes coming out, if one chooses this path, heroic in scale for most individuals. If we accept the existence of the politics of queer invisibility (un-

Africanness) as a historical legacy shared by all Africans, then expressions of queer sexuality are rendered dangerous to both the individual and the collective. From this, it follows that the culture of dissemblance makes it acceptable for heterosexual Africans to cast queer Africans as proverbial traitors to both the nation and the Continent.

Neville Hoad’s (2007) work points us to important historical disruptions in modern-day debates on the Africanness of homosexuality, which are necessary for understanding the current political urgencies in Uganda and across the African Continent. Hoad (2007) dissects a fascinating aspect of Ugandan history that is crucial in the discussion of African homosexuality, particularly with respect to the current position of queer Ugandan citizens. As the story goes,

Kabaka Mwanga II, the last independent ruler of the kingdom of Buganda, clashed violently with

British colonialists over his right to practice what Hoad terms “corporeal intimacies” with male pages in his court. Twenty-two young male converts to Christianity who refused to have sexual engagement with the ruler were executed and burned alive in 1886. These young men were subsequently canonized as saints on October 18, 1964, by Pope Paul VI for choosing death over sodomy. Currently in Uganda, the Uganda Martyrs’ Day Celebrations are held every June 3rd at the Uganda Martyrs’ Shrine located in Namugongo, Uganda, the site where the martyrs were executed. In Uganda, this day is a public holiday to give millions of people the opportunity to make pilgrimage to what is considered to be a holy place for Christians.

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Although Hoad (2007) is speculating on cultural practices that have been interpreted by missionaries as sodomy, it seems the story may be more complicated: It is implied that the colonialists felt Kabaka Mwanga II was engaging in sinful inclinations against the order of man, but a closer read of the situation leads one to see an act of anti-colonial resistance. Mwanga may not have been having sexual relations with the pages but was perhaps enacting political power on his subjects in response to colonial domination. According to Stoller (2006), the importance of the British Empire in the formation of local ideologies of sexuality in Europe, and subsequently within colonies such as Canada and Uganda, cannot be underestimated in the production of the

“homosexual,” which was intricately linked to the consolidation of colonial power. Imperial legacies and the struggle to define African authenticity create the inability to imagine the relationship between Africa and homosexuality, which, in turn, forces queer activists to reclaim their bodies from failed imagination and practices (Walcott, 2013).

The form of othering experienced across the Continent by queer Africans is often interpreted by international communities as an indication that we are culturally more heterosexist or homophobic, which, by extension, translates into more primitive. I am very conscious to not represent African communities in this manner, as lacking in knowledge, compassion, social justice, and/or sensitivity to human rights. My project is more about the need for queer Africans to push their communities to reform their normative frames of reference for African identity. The very lives of queer Africans are dependent on our ability to radically change the discourse that shapes them.

According to Foucault (1990), sexual categories such as “homosexual” and

“heterosexual” are themselves products of particular sites of power and knowledge. The recent historical emergence in Western societies of “the homosexual” and other sexual identities reflects a shift in tactics of power, from an emphasis on sexual behaviour to one of sexual personhood. The construction of natural and unnatural sexual acts would be dichotomized as normal and abnormal identities, or as powerful and powerless—oppressor and victim; comrade

111 and traitor. We see how sexuality therefore becomes a central site for the construction of subjectivity where one’s marginalization shapes a commitment to radical politics. A queer

African radicalness rewrites the African in a way that requires us to examine identity beyond the single story20 of victim, and the more complex rendering of African identity is at least approached.

The Offense of Doing Queer

To name oneself queer in an African context, I would argue, is read as what “we” do as opposed to who “we” are. The discrimination that queer Africans face is based on what they do, independent of who they are. It is the perception of this “doing” that is considered offensive. It is common to hear from a Western homophobic perspective the statement, “I don’t care what they do as long as it is kept private.” Western queers, however, in modern times, are not fighting to be private but rather to be freely public. The African fight, on the other hand, is one of fighting to be privately safe. The fight is to avoid persecution for the choices they make about how they live their private lives—“private” referring to private desires that are critical to the construction of personhood. It is the understanding of sexuality as part of the private truth of the person which is socially performed. Doctrinally, the first-stage attack against sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination has focused on privacy law. As was the case for Victor Mukasa in

Uganda and many other queer African activists, private lives are exposed in African tabloids. the

Ugandan Rolling Stone newspaper cover story of October 9, 2010, featured the headline, “100

Pictures of Ugandas Top Homos—Hang Them.” The subsequent article went on to list suspected

Ugandan homosexuals and their addresses. This is cited as causing homophobic attacks across the country. Also, we see that Kenya’s Weekly Citizen, which notes itself as “Kenya’s most

20 The reference here is to the risk of critical misunderstanding when one does not interrogate the complexity of individual lives. The concept was made popular by writer Chimamanda Adichie in her 2009 TED talk, “The Danger of a Single Story,” available online at http://www.ted.com/speakers/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie (Accessed 22 February 2020).

112 authoritative political newspaper,” published a front-page story on May 11, 2015, that included photos with the headline, “Top gays, lesbians list in Kenya.” The article was clearly written to incite violence toward the LGBTQ community and activists.

In the case of Victor Mukasa, a Kenyan journalist posed as a lesbian and gained Victor’s confidence. His private life was then exposed in the national newspaper, which gave the go- ahead for the state to raid his home—the home of a practicing homosexual, a crime punishable by life imprisonment (V. Mukasa, personal communication, [June 18th] 2009). His home was raided without a search warrant, personal items were stolen and confiscated, and Victor and a female house guest were undressed and assaulted to “prove” that they were women. Both were then arrested. Victor Mukasa, in turn, sued the Ugandan Government for failure to protect his human rights and privacy.

The case, Mukasa and another v. the Attorney General, was a civil case filed as an application under Article 50 of the Constitution of Uganda for the enforcement of fundamental rights and freedoms guaranteed in Articles 20–45 of the Constitution. The purpose of the case was to establish precedent in the enforcement of Ugandan constitutional rights as applying to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT/Kuchu21) people, regardless of whether they are thought to be homosexual or transgender. In a landmark decision, the presiding judge, Justice

Arach, called upon the international conventions and emphasized that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights requires us to respect human rights and protect LGBTQ people in a spirit of brotherhood, which includes sisterhood. The judgment upheld the following articles of the

Constitution of Uganda as applying to all people, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity and/or expression: Article 23, which states, “No person shall be deprived of personal liberty”; Article 24, on respect for human dignity and protection from inhuman treatment, which states, “No person shall be subjected to any form of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading

21 Ugandan term embraced by the LGBTQ community to mark their identity.

113 treatment or punishment”; and Article 27, concerning right to privacy of person, home, and other property, which states, “No person shall be subjected to: (a) unlawful search of the person, home or other property of that person; or (b) unlawful entry by others of the premises of that person or property. No person shall be subjected to interference with the privacy of that person’s home, correspondence, communication or other property” (Arach-Amoko, 2008). Victor Mukasa stated,

The world has changed. I am overjoyed and overwhelmed. We are celebrating this victory. My spirit was in that courtroom. My spirit is in union with all Ugandan lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex people. I am happy that justice has come. The fact that the Ugandan High Court is relying on international human rights conventions is a good sign that justice will come to everyone in Uganda someday. It was my dream that justice would come, and it has come. And it is my bigger dream that justice will come to every human being in Uganda who is oppressed. This does not mark the end. The struggle continues until every human being is free. Let us work together to understand the meaning of human rights. For in every country, the most important role that police can play is to protect people. This judgment is a serious reminder to the Ugandan police that all Ugandans, including LGBTQI people, should be handled with respect and dignity. (SMUG Press Release, 2008)

Public Fight for Private Relations

Fighting for queer African rights is not simply an anti-nationalist position or an anti-

African position. As for the case of Victor Mukasa, the assertion of identity, new cultural practices, and the need to uphold the constitutional rights of the nation has mobilized a political force which is advancing the opposition to heteronormative domination across the Continent.

Contemporary Africa is saturated by the project of constructing national heterosexuality, which requires daily fighting of misogyny, religious hypocrisy, and government-sanctioned human rights violations, as I have outlined and evidenced through examples in previous chapters. The

Ugandan ruling clearly illuminates the fact that the national heterosexuality project, with its contradictory strategies for self-maintenance, reproduction, and creation of space for immaculate behaviour and sanitized citizens, can be dismantled. This case not only points to what the possibilities are in any given political moment but also pushes us to reflect on how we think about possibilities, the conditions that create these possibilities, and how we imagine paramount moments of future possibilities.

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Warner (2002) points us to the fact that ordinary belonging requires confidence in public, and failure to achieve this can result in political depressiveness, blockage in activity and optimism, and disintegration of politics toward isolation, frustration, anomie, and forgetfulness.

Queer Africans are not only fighting for their privacy, then, but also for the elimination of the oppression which denies them of their confidence in public. By this I don’t mean simply their voice in queer Western spaces, which is a poor substitute for a confidence within the African heterosexual public; rather, I am speaking of a public confidence that seeks to transform fundamental styles of private and public embodiment, identity, and social relations and envisions the potential normalcy embedded in societal queering.

The project of creating a queer African praxis framework or public implies that a discourse other than silence or invisibility can be produced. In making this point, I want to emphasize that queer African communities are challenging our silencing, are creating visibility and presence, and are specifically resisting the African culture of queer silence resulting in anti- queer brutality. Kasha Jacqueline and Julian “Pepe” Onziema, for example, successfully sued for an injunction to stop the Ugandan Rolling Stone22 tabloid from publishing the names and pictures of people it believed to be gay or lesbian. With the support of Sexual Minorities Uganda

(SMUG), they successfully fought in the face of national harassment and brutality.

Most significantly, they remained active and vocal in their fight for human rights in the form of privacy, and in attesting to their desire to remain in their countries of origin despite the difficulties they would face due to the violation of their privacy rights. The issue of sexual orientation and gender identity is something that the African public would rather keep silent and has only been addressed publicly through stigmatizing sensational media exposure. The

22 Not to be mistaken with the US-based Rolling Stone magazine, which focuses on pop culture. the Rolling Stone newspaper was a local tabloid published in Kampala, Uganda. The paper’s first edition was published in August 2010 and, by November of that same year, it had suspended publication.

115 unspoken message is that public acknowledgement of sexuality would be a destructive and immoral act and must be kept in check through violent intimidation (Kaggwa, 2011).

I also want to emphasize a distinction between invisibility and silence. Sylvia Tamale

(2011) reminds us that silence in many of our African cultures can be as powerful and empowering, or at least as enabling, as speech. Nyanzi (2013) recounts Gambian president

Yahya Jammeh’s homophobic pronouncements and the subsequent silence from the Gambia’s

LGBTQ community, noting the powerful nature of this silence. The very lack of a coordinated visible response from queer Gambians highlighted the fear, danger, and tyrannical oppression they were living under. This silence also shone a spotlight on the fact that even the president could no longer deny the existence of queer people in his country. While they may not have been vocal, their presence was enough to warrant his attention and for their silence to draw the forceful reaction of the international community.

Queer African public confidence is a site that disrupts silence and imagines a positive affirmation of sexuality that is rather complex and represents discursive and material spaces where the possibility of language, desire, and agency are forged. There needs to be a development of a queer practice that articulates how invisibility, otherness, and oppression are produced and reproduced on queer African bodies—the ultimate goal here being an engagement that will produce a queer analysis outlining strategies for differently located queer bodies to produce interventions that embody both their unique and common interests. Western queer spaces need to be challenged to address the voices of queer activists from non-Western contexts.

As these subjects become more vocal, and as they announce themselves in public spaces, the setting of political agendas will have to shift, and the Western rights discourse will be necessarily challenged.

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For example, in 2009, Egale Canada launched a public campaign entitled “Queering

Black History Month.”23 Egale Canada is Canada’s leading LGBTQ human rights advocacy organization, advancing equality, diversity, education, and justice. The aim of the campaign was to recognize the outstanding contributions of queer Black, African, and/or Caribbean Canadians.

While advancing the history of queer Black Canadians and inserting their lives into Black

History Month initiatives, the campaign failed to address or acknowledge the racism within the wider mainstream queer community and the absence of Black voices within queer white

Canadian space. While giving profile to queer Black Canadians who might otherwise go unnoticed in the Black Community during Black History Month, Egale did not contextualize the absented voices of Black queers and our issues within their national agenda.

We need to begin looking at sexual politics that are trans-local, meaning the interrogation of sexualities that move transnationally, with the subjects who, ultimately, will intimately feel and publicly describe their identities based on local and historical understandings of their sexuality, generalizations about their membership in queer communities, and international understandings of their rights as members of particular nations (Grewal & Kaplan, 2001). Sites of recognition in the formation of identity acquires its specific content from transnational narratives of belonging and ancestry (Gilroy, 1995). It is the route to our roots, an understanding of identity which cannot be separated from the conceptualization of who we are as narrated identities dependent on geographical location.

Western queer activism and theorizing itself needs to address the lack of universal language, as well as isolating discourse, which is locally situated within its theoretical frameworks and useless to the non-Western queer (Abou-Rihan, 1994; Khayatt, 2002). Queer

23 “Egale Canada began the Queering Black History Campaign in 2009 with an annual postcard dedicated to honouring the achievements of Black, African, and Caribbean LGBTQ people in Canada during Black History Month. The postcard is meant to attend to glaring omissions in our history books and increase the scope of inclusive education and, in turn, help foster safer and more welcoming school environments within the Black community in Canada” (Egale website, http://egale.ca/all/queering-black-history)

117 activism cannot be fixed in place and needs to be able to consider the transformation of sexuality that moves between nations, cultures, languages, and environments. Trans-location itself, movement itself, now enter the picture as theoretically significant factors in the discussion of sexuality.

Dark Myths and Same-Sex Desire

Europeans have created many myths about queerness on the “Dark Continent,” but the myth that homosexuality is either completely absent, incidental, or situational in African society is one of the oldest, most enduring, and most damaging. Others include the myth that same-sex relations were solely the result of a lack of access to members of the opposite sex due to war, migration, or employment; situational relationships in same-sex boarding schools; part of a short-lived adolescent phase; or for economic gain through prostitution or traditional same-sex marriages. In each of these claims, the possibility that an African individual may actually want and find pleasure in another of the same sex is effectively denied (Amadiume, 1987; Arnfred,

2004; Epprecht, 1998; Murray & Roscoe, 1998). Essentially, within this framework of African sexuality, same-sex relations are discounted and minimized as culturally insignificant or cultural anomalies.

The position of Africans in the global AIDS epidemic was desperate from the beginning, with Sub-Saharan Africa still carrying a disproportionate burden of HIV, accounting for more than 70 percent of global infections (Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, 2019).

Silence, erasure, and the use of images of immoral sexuality dominate narratives about the experiences of Africans with AIDS. African voices are not heard in discussions of AIDS, and

African people are once again othered as deviants due to their sexual practices or identities

(Tharao & Massaquoi, 2013). In the HIV movement, we have historically seen researchers vehemently deny the existence of same-sex relationships in Africa and claim that, due to this lack of homosexuality on the Continent, there is little risk of homosexual contraction of HIV. It was not until 2005 that we saw one of the first journal articles stating HIV might be an issue in

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Africa with men who have sex with men (MSM), and in 2009, we saw the first research that unequivocally stated MSM were at significant risk for HIV infection (Smith, Tapsoba, Peshu,

Sanders, & Jaffe, 2009). Gay rights activists in the West exploited the notion of no homosexuality in Africa so that HIV would not be seen as only a white gay man’s disease, but rather as one predominately spread through heterosexuality on a global scale, since the African epidemic was considered to be a heterosexual one (Epprecht, 2010).24

It should be noted that within an African sexuality framework that enforces compulsory heterosexuality, there are no references to traditional law, pre-colonial discourse, or examples of traditional African belief systems that singled out same-sex relations as sinful or linked them to concepts of disease or mental health—except in locations where Christian and Islamic principles have been adopted (Murray & Roscoe, 1998). What we do find are deeply ingrained defenses against colonial stereotypes of African hyper-sexuality, institutionalized sexual exploitation,

HIV/AIDS stigma, and internalized European standards of morality, which have all informed and laid the foundation for the taboo of African same-sex desire (Mercer, 1991; Nederveen, 1992;

Tharao & Massaquoi, 2002).

As queer Africans living in the diaspora, we often get caught up in surviving, managing the settlement, immigration, and refugee process, and navigating an inhospitable racial environment, but we also must remember that we have an important role to play in the queer rights movement, both in the West and on the Continent. Our presence and participation are important in dismantling the marginalization that persists within the Western rights movement, as well as in validating our existence in our countries of origin. Both politically and economically, transnational Africans have a vital role to play in contemporary social processes operating on an increasingly global scale, and any theory which truly reflects queer Africans must account for complex, dynamic, overlapping geographies and oscillating identities while

24 Notes from the lecture “Making of African Sexuality: An Intellectual and Political History,” the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, December 4, 2010.

119 interrogating the relations between transnational subjects, their nations of origin and destinations, and an understanding of cultural and sexual dynamics.

One of the biggest challenges facing any project that attempts to dismantle or interrogate a system in which one group dominates another is to provide for a new system that does not reproduce the structure of the old (Fanon, 1963). In proposing a queer African praxis framework, there must be a strategic effort to avoid simply assimilating to dominant Western culture and essentializing notions of queer identity. We must become fluent in each other’s histories if we are to undo the ingrained mythologies that constrain us (Alexander, 1997). It is not my intention with this project to correct the record of queer African invisibility by locating queer African heroes and sheroes from our past, which has been a strategy often used by African and Black nationalist movements. Instead, I am developing tools and methodologies to interrogate the conditions that make possible, and those which constrain, the emergence of individuals who come to be called queer Africans.

The idea that the emergence of queer Africans might be a desirable outcome remains unthinkable for many. A queer African praxis framework aims to identify some of the necessary changes in our political and cultural approaches to realize such a potential. These changes, I believe, will facilitate positive modes of thinking and behaviour that exceed the current exclusionary logic. Heterosexism, for example, can be overcome only by actively imagining a necessarily and desirably queer world (Warner, 2002).

Queer Africans exist by virtue of the world they create together. This project elaborates the many diverse truths and challenges facing queer liberation projects, both in terms of identity and space. It also highlights that any movement of queer liberation cannot be representative without proactively addressing community-building, providing the tools for communities to do so and reaching beyond the intellectual landscape of academic theories. We are looking at the re- articulation and reconfiguration of queer lives that do not necessarily resolve or dissolve their conflicts and tensions but instead refashion them into proactive patterns of thought and

120 behaviour. I am suggesting that we strive to identify the constructed silences within our work and transform them into meaningful practice. In expanding the ways that we think about queerness, we will also be opening up our theories to a wider audience.

Queer Resistance and Transnational Flows

Discussions of the nation-state within queer theory have a tendency to focus on resistance to nationally sanctioned heterosexism. This universal model of resistance, with its idealized politics of identity, obscures rather than illuminates the terrain of globally diverse sexual subjectivities in a postmodern world. I make a distinction between homogenized queer resistance and strategic collective political resistance, which, in Grewal & Kaplan’s (2001) view, produces radicalized consciousness necessary for radical change and revolutionary transformation. The essentializing of queer resistance is, in essence, advocating for a Western identity politic of sexuality that focuses on a Western definition of defiance, as opposed to a diverse global fight for human rights and freedoms. Without an analysis of transnational hegemonies that reveal themselves in sexual relations, the queer movement will remain isolated and prone to reproducing the universalizing gestures of dominant Western cultures.

Within any framework that incorporates elements of transnationalism, there needs to be a critical engagement with a “global–local” binary. The site of a local engagement with queer subjectivity destabilizes the homogenizing tendency of a universal queer formation. In this discussion, I am not just grappling with critique of a universal queer subjectivity or African resistance to Western sexual politics in the traditional sense of Amadiume (1987); rather, I am addressing the emergence of new forms of governmentality, with regulatory practices and strategies to control sexual bodies that are dependent on location, and the power and definitions of the sexual body within that location. Historically, the view that “community” and “local” were synonymous was the encouraged thought; communities were seen to define the local and were formed in place. With the rise of transnationalism, we see that communities are on the move, and place-formation is no longer an accurate assumption. While some accept the creation of a

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“global–local binary” as a step forward in the search for an adequate vocabulary of power relations, others such as Stuart Hall (1997) argue that a return to the local as a response to the seeming homogenizingf or essentializing of resistance can only work for social change if it does not become rooted in exclusivist and defensive practices that romanticize the local as inherently innocent (primitive) and ultimately superior to global evilness.

Looking, then, at transnational migration, the resulting queer subjects, and the Canadian nation-state, we can see that this analysis begins to interrogate fundamental questions related to global inequality. The discussion highlights many sensitive realities related to economic benefits, social and personal security, oppression—most specifically, racism, sexism, and heterosexism— and the very essence of who/what is Canadian and the material entitlements that label affords. If we were to thoroughly examine the current manifestations of the Canadian nation-state, one could clearly see that it is organized around struggles of capitalist development, class formation, and the constant racializing of the Canadian political economy (Bannerji, 2000; Gabriel, 1996;

Henry & Tator, 2005; Smith, 2000). What is much more difficult to conceptualize is how the state becomes organized around sexualities, especially with the emergence of the transnational queer subject within national borders. It can be said with confidence that there is a general culture of silence surrounding sexual orientation and same-sex relations in an African context.

As members of queer African communities, we are challenging our silencing, and we are creating visibility and presence as the African culture of silence surrounding our existence has also created our vulnerability. Without voice and presence, the fight for queer rights becomes a monumental task.

Imbedded in the notion of a queer African praxis framework can be seen a conceptual apparatus that poses a critique of modernity and its various narratives of advancement and development. This framework produces linkages between diverse representations of queer desire and cultural practices among Africans globally. It enables us to consider the development of queer desire and pleasure in radical sites, as well as in the context of movement and migration.

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The current manifestation of queer sexualities is articulated by the familiar tropes and signifiers of Western homosexuality. A queer African praxis framework pushes for the defamiliarization of conventional markers of homosexuality, replacing them with alternative strategies for signifying non-heteronormative desire. These alternative strategies suggest a mode of reading and seeing same-sex eroticism that challenges invisibility and emerging sexual subjectivities. They are the rewriting of the colonial constructions of African sexualities and the recalculating of contemporary gay and lesbian transnational politics—while simultaneously interrogating different African nationalist narratives that imagine and consolidate the nation in terms of compulsory heterosexuality. Derrida (2006) reminds us that addressing sexual alterity requires us to attend to the mobility of sexuality across the globe and across the body in order to gain insights into the individual and collective paths of heteronormative escape and queer reconstitution.

Chapter 4 Queer Flight

“I can’t run away and leave the people I am protecting. People might die, but me, I will be the last one to run out of here…” — David Kato, quoted in Edwards (2010)

This is the last of three chapters that provides an overview of the theoretical discussions and accompanying literature that is relevant to an understanding of queer African subjectivities.

My research question—How do queer African refugees come to know themselves and negotiate their identities and security between nations? —is further explored by expanding on the discussion in Chapter Three, which clarifies what rights queer African refugees are fighting for and what the mechanisms are that facilitate or hinder the achievement of these social justice goals.

In Chapter Four, I outline the notion that queer flight is defined by heteronormative escape and queer reconstitution in a new locale. It is only when local African queer zones or spaces of queer safety become compromised that flight is considered the only option for survival.

This discussion helps us to understand the conditions that create a desire and often necessity for queer movement between nations, and to consider what makes Canada an ideal destination for queer Africans. To further our discussion of queer subjectivity, Chapter Four summarizes how the queer refugee comes to know and understand themselves through surveillance at Canadian borders, their struggle in crossing these borders, and their difficulty finding protection within these borders. I also reflect on the idea that queer African subjects may have become dislocated and displaced within their communities before flight, and that this liminal state is carried with them and amplified as they try to integrate into their new diasporic community. We begin to answer my core research question by interrogating how we understand the production and reception of diverse sexualities within the framework of transnational movements, with the concepts of diaspora, borders, and transnationality together offering a conceptual grid for

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124 historical analysis of contemporary queer, transnational movements of people, information, cultures, commodities, and sexualities. Chapter Four looks at the interplay between transnational migration and the Canadian national assertion of refugee control at borders. This is evident in

Canada’s homonormative judicial response to the claims of queer African refugees. It is within this context that queer African refugee claimants must present a clear case for their need to remain protected behind Canadian borders, despite the range of systemic barriers that make this a challenging possibility. This idea will be explored throughout this chapter.

On January 26, 2011, David Kato was bludgeoned to death in his home by an assailant with a hammer. Kato was known as the grandfather of the Ugandan gay rights movement and the first openly gay man in the country. As one of the most visible members of Sexual Minorities of

Uganda (SMUG), he served as the group’s advocacy officer. Only months before his murder, his picture appeared on the front cover of the Ugandan Rolling Stone tabloid, which identified him as one of the top 100 homosexuals and encouraged readers to “hang them [all].” On January 3,

2011, High Court Justice V. F. Kibuuka Muske ruled that Rolling Stone’s publication of the

“homosexual list,” and the accompanying incitation to violence, threatened the fundamental rights of Kato and the others and violated their constitutional right to privacy. Kato’s estate was awarded damages, and the paper was required to refrain from publishing names and addresses of members of the LGBTQ community, which had been their standard practice.25

David Kato’s incredible resistance to the oppression of sexual minorities in Uganda and his emboldened activism attracted a fleet of supporters that included the international press, international human rights organizations, UN agencies, and heads of state—most notably US

President Barak Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The Canadian government passed

25 Full details of the case ruling against the Rolling Stone tabloid can be found in “The Republic of Uganda in the High Court of Uganda, At Kampala Miscellaneous Cause No. 163 of 2010,” available at https://www.icj.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Kasha-Jacqueline-David-Kato- Kisule-and-Onziema-Patience-v.-Rolling-Stone-Ltd-and-Giles-Muhame-High-Court-of-Uganda- at-Kampala.pdf (Accessed 29 February 2020).

125 a unanimous vote in parliament and called upon the Ugandan government to conduct a thorough investigation into Kato’s death and to increase the human rights protection of all Ugandans

(House of Commons, 2011). Kato’s story epitomizes the globalization of sexuality that appears to now be guided by three key markers: First, the critical growth of gay international civil society, which has helped push an agenda to create the space in which queer issues can be contested and challenged on the global political stage (Colás, 2002). Second, the current eagerness of economically powerful nation-states to address, critique, and police the gender and sexuality issues within less economically powerful nations. Finally, the push for these economically powerful nations to finance and control relevant human rights institutions in order to establish universal (read: Western) standards for the rights of queer citizens at the national and local levels. Queer human rights have now become the barometer with which to measure the level of civility of nations in the new gay international political order (Douzinas, 2000; Stychin,

2003).

The repression of queer bodies is being promoted as evidence for the narrowing freedom of the developing world and the civilized expansion of freedom in the West. Twenty-five countries currently allow gay marriage, which is seen to be the ultimate expression of queer human rights, and 75 nations treat homosexuality as a crime, with 10 of those countries enforcing the death penalty (Dehghan, 2015). Yes, it is true that we cannot ignore the fact that queer human rights tend to be most expansive in nations where there is a perception of democracy and civil participation and most restrictive in nations with dictatorial rule. There is, however, a global dichotomy where some nations are entitled to organize themselves as they wish and then, in turn, dictate the pace at which and the manner with which fundamental rights and freedoms are achieved in other jurisdictions. On a trip to Kenya in July 2015, President

Barak Obama condemned his host country’s treatment of gays and lesbians in a joint press conference with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. Obama expressed that such discrimination would erode freedoms and lead the country into greater trouble. While he was able to make this

126 statement in Kenya, Obama did not utter such a strong statement in his own country in support of the queer community’s many struggles for equality under the US Constitution (Dovere, 2015).

Such statements are, however, now being made by Western leaders in an effort to push change under their terms, which often has nothing to do with resistance to the oppression for which local queer citizens fight or their clear analysis of the multiple and intersecting causes of queer political persecution and oppression. These statements only serve to show, yet again, how

Western leaders flex political muscle to emphasize colonial dependence and the skewed power dynamic between North and South, where the withdrawing of aid is always leveraged and

African leaders can be publicly shown for “what they are”—brutal and barbaric—in comparison to the benevolent West.

These Western demands are occurring despite the fact that the international bodies that determine standards for the quality of global life have themselves been slow to change. The

World Health Organization, for example, considered homosexuality to be a mental handicap, a disease, a disturbance, and a perversion until 1990, and the first UN political body to affirm equal rights for LGBTQ people did not do so until 2011 (Gerber & Gory, 2014). We now see the emergence of a tension between the creation of queer global governance, which is being forced on local contexts while it ignores the ways in which sexuality often differs greatly when measured against a Western framework. This dichotomy has essentially created one of the greatest human rights divisions in modern history. It is this same division, carried forward and enacted throughout the refugee process, that queer Africans must engage as they navigate the

Canadian refugee apparatus.

In many local contexts, the virulent violence against queer African citizens that is endorsed by governments is a recent phenomenon. These governments have defined homosexuality as something un-African, a Western imposition that must be rejected in order to stop Western values from taking over the nation. They incite hatred and mete out violence from presumed heterosexual Africans against sexual- and gender-dissident Africans in an effort to

127 disappear them and revoke their claim to rights from the national project (Ekine & Abbas, 2013).

All of this in order to distract the masses from looking at the government’s failure to govern effectively as an authoritarian regime, one that is crippled by corruption, rising debt, and a shrinking global economy. Queer citizens have essentially been made scapegoats in the name of patriotism by using tactics such as alienating myths to incite fear and condone police brutality, mob justice, and blatant discrimination in housing, employment, and medical services. All of these have been used to directly destabilize and undermine the participation of queer citizens as equal members of society (Ossome, 2013).

Sexuality emerges as an important lens for narrowing our focus on human rights and the arena of transnational governance or, more accurately, transnational surveillance, because the relationship between human rights and sexuality remains so contested in practice. It serves to illuminate the gap that lies between international human rights and politics, a gap often obscured by the expansion of civil society and the mainstreaming of queer human rights movements, particularly those in African nations (Buss, Fletcher, Monk, Monro, & Phillips, 2005). According to Massad (2007), the mainstream queer fight is not an epistemological one but rather a simple geopolitical struggle where the world has become polarized between supporters and opponents of queer rights. The mainstream queer fight is unrelenting in its missionary-style rescue campaign, often inciting discourse about homosexuals where none previously existed and forcing a fixed

Western binary onto its discussion of sexuality. This has produced anything but a liberatory outcome; rather, it aims to produce a world that mirrors Western standards of sexuality categories, practices, and definitions that are seen to be the safest from surveillance, question, and condemnation.

We need to interrogate the practice of equating queerness with resistance to heteronormativity from this Western-imposed dichotomy. Without careful thought, we would be left with the question of whether queer resistance or organizing is really independently occurring in the African context or if escape to a Western setting is the only option. With the creation of

128 this doubt, it becomes very easy to impose recycled, ready-to-go Western solutions into a perceived vacuum of queer African nothingness. It becomes easier to co-opt local movements

(that are seen as not happening) in order to push Western frameworks and to create and co-opt

African individual lone heroes as spokespersons for the Western neo-colonial agenda. Western presence and domination in this arena provide African leadership the ammunition to claim homosexuality as un-African, a Western creation. The heavy-handed Western intervention on this issue subordinates the queer African actors in the struggle, entrenches racial divisions in the global queer struggle, and silences progressive queer African voices and movements by making their progress invisible (Ndashe, 2013).

We are then unable to see activist-created queer zones or safe spaces that are estranged from heterosexual culture, or the non-normative inscriptions through which queer African bodies are produced—that is, the queer bodies that emerge in opposition to contemporary African social and political conditions shaped by mandatory heterosexual culture (Hoad, 2007). We are unable to see the tacit scenes of sexuality shaped by an official national culture dependent on the enforced notion of privacy. This was the case with the rulings against the Rolling Stone tabloid and in favour of Victor Mukasa, which can be taken as starting points of the fight for legal queer privacy, which has become a proxy for queer human rights in those African nations that have extreme anti-sodomy laws, such as Uganda.

When queer zones cannot be protected and the emergent queer body cannot be kept safe, when queer privacy laws cannot be upheld and the hollow pronouncements from Western world leaders do not reach those local people living in the developing world, resulting forms of persecution because of one’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including torture, arrest, imprisonment, extortion, rape, and death threats, become unbearable. Under these circumstances, living with dignity and basic human rights is sometimes impossible and often requires survival strategies that include silence or hiding and, sometimes, fleeing one’s country of origin. The need to retreat is based on the imperative to survive, not only physically but also economically,

129 socially, and culturally. The queer zones that are often created first as social and sexual territories become, out of necessity, spaces to obtain basic needs such as shelter, food, healthcare, safety, and family. As these zones become highly insecure with the threat of state- sanctioned sexual, physical, emotional, and psychological brutalism, they often cannot survive the encroaching borders of morality and illegality that undermine their existence. When the resources to maintain these zones finally become exhausted, flight becomes the only viable option (Ossome, 2013).

Destination of Desire

Queer flight is, in many ways, a defining feature of “the queer international.” It conjures up the mass movement of peoples, from one territory to another, due to violence and extreme oppression. For those of us in the economic North, this movement more immediately manifests itself in the negative debates about refugees that predominate in most recipient countries (Esses,

Veenvliet, Hodson, & Mihic, 2008; Jenicek & Wong, 2009). Refugee movement is also often assumed in the terms we use to track the “progress” of human rights, from weak and minimal protection to stronger protection through law and policy. Finally, this form of movement conjures up the “internationalization” of social movements—the expansion of the members of queer civil society who are now forced to operate transnationally due to forced migration.

Transnationalism, then, for the purposes of this discussion, can best be described as the amplification of social processes that facilitate cultural interconnectedness and mobility across space (Grewal & Kaplan, 2001). The figure of the queer African refugee, for example, is a symptom of globalization, and a transnational framework is necessary in the analysis and understanding of the specificity of sexualities in the shadow of globalization. According to

Grewal (2005), transnationalism is the most useful term to describe migration, suggesting that culture is of more importance than nations, and sexual identities are linked closer to cultures than to nation and institutions within the nation-state. Appadurai (1996) also provides a seminal framework for thinking about current global queer cultural flows that have altered the global

130 cultural economy dramatically. Of the five imagined world landscapes Appadurai uses to explain the nature of the new global economy, my discussion benefits most from the intersection of

“ethnoscapes” and “ideoscapes.” The former refers to the space that is created as people move between nations as tourists, immigrants, refugees, migrants, and so on, and the later is used to frame government ideologies such as heterosexism and counter-ideologies such as local queer resistance. Both help us begin to understand conditions that create the desire and, often, necessity for queer movement between nations, with Canada being seen as an ideal ethnoscape and ideoscape for queer migrants.

What, then, is the role of transnationalism in the construction of a queerness that places

African subjects at the centre of its analysis? First, it calls for us to pay attention to power relations embedded in the global movement. It now becomes part of the knowledge production through which transnational subjects are constituted. The social aspects of sexuality become embedded in the material histories of movement and in the inevitable encounters and contact that occurs as a result. Our analysis must engage in a discussion of cultural difference in relation to sexuality, power relations, history, movement, resistance, and transformation.

A transnational framework also allows us to interrogate ways in which the state becomes involved in producing sexual identities through migration in an era of globalization. The past three decades of Canadian immigration history have seen the queer activist fight to decrease surveillance and increase the movement of queer bodies across Canadian borders, starting with the removal of gays and lesbians from the list of inadmissible bodies in the new Immigration Act of 1978. We also see the development of this discourse from the Immigration Act and public policy on the admission of same-sex partners through the expansion of the family class codification in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and Regulations of 2001. Most recently, the redefinition of marriage through Bill C-38 in 2005 and the ability of same-sex couples to sponsor spouses contribute to state production of transnational sexual identities. It must be remembered, however, that the sexualization of immigration is supported, monitored,

131 and determined by the presumed heterosexual citizens of heteropatriarchal communities that strategically define who belongs and who does not belong to the nation. The discussion, then, centres nationalism, sexuality, and geopolitics along with political economy, all of which underlie the regulation of sexualized migration at the current moment.

Refugee claims filed in Canada on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity persecution produce queer subjects through a political and legal articulation of such narratives within Canadian borders and based on Canadian norms. We cannot think of queer subjects, then, as purely oppositional or resistant to dominant institutions that produce heteronormativity within their countries of origin. We see here again a local–global divide at work in the study of sexuality, and in the aftermath of the rise of globalization, few things remain locally defined, including sexual identities that inevitably become global entities. In such a discussion, the process of sexualizing migration to Canada is read as the process of movement from persecution to freedom. The queer African subject is forced to flee a heteropatriarchal nation and must cross the surveilled borders to an accepting nation where, once arrived, they will be free to express their true sexual identity in relative safety. This narrative is reductive but growing in the global

“coming out” discourse, and it is gaining popularity as a queer human rights narrative that identifies the queer African body.

In this narrative, the queer African subject must leave the third world location of sexual oppression in order to “come out” in a liberated Western location. Here, there is also the assumption that queer sexual practices were pre-political prior to movement to the West, and, once across the Western border, the queer African subject becomes a politicized modern queer subject. It is this same discourse that allows the civilized modern Western queer to freely cross borders to rescue third-world queers so that they too may enjoy the privileges afforded in the

West. Razack (2002) reads the concept of liminal space as the border between modernity and primitivism. The Western queer body comes to know itself from journeys that recognize (1) movement from the West to the third world as movement from the respectable to the degenerate,

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(2) they return unharmed, and (3) the practices of domination allow them to control the outcome of the journey.

I use the terms “space” and “body” here for their political utility, critical use, and oppositional practice, as I do not want to lose these elements in an over-theorized discussion of queer global movements. Razack (2002) points to the notion that there is a clear relationship between identity and space. What is being projected onto queer bodies from the South as they cross into Canadian space? In Foucault’s (1995) discussion of subjects in space, he claims that discipline requiring enclosure in a protected place causes us to look at nations as spaces enclosed by protected borders, with policies for crossing those borders. Discipline works on the partitioning of space and rank, or power begins to define the distribution of individuals in spaces.

Discipline is what ultimately controls the movement of the queer body. By means of such surveillance, two kinds of bodies are produced: the normal body and the abnormal body. The former belongs to a heterosexual, socially acceptable body, while the latter is exiled and spatially separated as it belongs to the queer body. Queer African refugee bodies, then, come to know themselves by their surveillance at Canadian borders, their difficulty crossing those borders, and their perceived movement from danger to safety when they successfully arrive.

As Hall (2003) suggests, cultural identity is not an essence but a positioning. Hence there is always a politics of identity, a politics of position that suggests it is possible to utilize, for example, specific signifiers of racialized, sexualized, and ethnic identity such as “queer African” for the purpose of contesting and disrupting discourses that exclude African queerness from diasporic understandings. I would stress once again in my argument that the collapsing of “queer

African” is not a natural or static category; rather, in Spivak’s (2012) sense, it is a strategic use of positive essentialism for a situationally specific political movement. This positioning is what makes meaning possible in this context, according to Hall (2003).

The histories of queer displacement shows only some diasporic features that, as Gilroy

(1995) has argued, are not so much oriented to root in a specific place and a desire to return as

133 much as they desire the ability to recreate a culture in diverse locations—in this case, a queer

African culture often has no desire to return to a troubled concept of home. For the queer subject, transnational connections linking diasporas need not be articulated primarily through a real or symbolic homeland. We are discussing the queer dislocation from the nation-state of geographical origin and the relocation into one or more states, territories, or countries. We are also discussing here how queer subjects may become dislocated and displaced within their own communities, cultures, and nations long before ever leaving home, and how they remain dislocated in the newly formed diasporic community. Discussions of queer displacement possibly need to focus on a shared, ongoing history of displacement, adaptation, and resistance prior to and following the movement, which may be as important as the projection of the queer subject onto a specific nation of origin.

I am building on what Grewal and Kaplan (2001) term a “politics of location,” a politic that investigates the productive tension between spatial theories of subjectivity that can help us delineate conditions of queer transnational practice in postmodernity. Location becomes a question of where we speak from and who is sanctioned to speak. A sexual politics of location becomes a method of interrogation and deconstruction of position, identity, and privileges in terms of sexual orientation. I also return to the foundational work of hooks (1990), who considers a politics of location as an identification of the spaces where we begin to process transformation. Mohanty (2003) has also called for a modified and extended practice of the politics of location that includes the historical, geographical, cultural, psychic, and imaginative boundaries that provide grounds for political definition and self-definition. In a transnational world where cultural asymmetries and linkages continue to be mystified by economic and political interest at multiple levels, I argue that we need detailed, historicized, geopolitical mappings of the circuits of power in relation to sexual orientation in order to understand the queer African refugee experience. The composition, duration, and patterns of migration are affected by these circuits of power, and the majority of migrants are believed to move from the

134 third world periphery to the Western metropolitan core, in search of not only safety and protection but also better economic opportunities (Sassen, 2014).

The core has been constructed as the desirable, the inevitable, and the ultimate goal, with its promises of freedom, safety, and happiness. We can conceive that this would be a most appealing construction for those who engage in same-sex practices from the developing world, making metropolitan cores in the West ideal destinations despite the fact that this alluring environment is at moral odds with the transnational subject whom we know is necessary to keep our Canadian cities running. The draw is not to the Canadian nation as an idealistic concept but to the nation as a waged setting and an accepting setting; it is a safe setting in terms of the expression of sexual desire, despite being a setting at odds culturally and racially with the refugee from the developing world.

It has been a long-standing tradition for those who identify as queer throughout the

Western world to gravitate to the metropolis, partly to escape the isolation, marginalization, homophobia, and transphobia in conservative communities and families, and partly to be a part of the large queer communities and spaces they occupy freely in these metropolises. Far more than any Canadian, the queer Canadian has treated large cities as a Mecca, or site of opportunity

(Goldie, 2001). Warner (2002) believes that there is no other group more dependent on this kind of pattern in urban space than queers. Metropolises are crucial for the accessibility of culture, because without it, queers would always feel outnumbered and overwhelmed. What, then, does the Western metropolis symbolize for their queer African refugee counterparts? What happens when their lives intersect in this queer destination of desire? How will the discussion of queer issues be altered with the growth and emerging presence of racialized queer communities in

Canada as they fight for entitlement within the nation?

Heterosexual Borders, Queer Crossers

We can begin to answer these questions by interrogating how we understand the production and reception of diverse sexualities within a framework of transnational

135 social/cultural/economic movements. This becomes difficult given the reality that, with a limited pool of documentation concerning African sexuality, cultural production, and migration, we cannot easily theorize the production and reception of diverse sexualities globally. Forced migration is in no way a new development, and according to Ong (2006) and Shohat (2006), it must be read as part of a larger history of colonialism in which Europe attempted to globally impose a universal blanket of truth and institution of power. In this vein, for us to engage with queer African identity is to engage with and appreciate the long-term impact of power across space, the linkages between old (colonial) and new (global), and the importance and boundedness of long-distance connections. It is important to note that, in a transnational framework of movement and exchange, sexual identities are similar to all others in that they are imbued with power relations.

Who do heterosexual Canadian citizens imagine themselves to be, and how much does this identity rely on the use of systemic power to keep the transnational queer subject in their place? Considering this discussion, citizenship within the Canadian nation is defined by white heterosexual normative standards of nationhood. Racism and homophobia have informed pronouncements, determinations, and perceptions of who does and does not belong to this nation

(Goldie, 2001). The impact of this reality is important in the discussion of migration, sexual orientation, and belonging. The construction of boundaries between those who belong within the borders of Canada and those who are excluded in terms of sexual orientation needs to move beyond a simplistic anti-homophobic analysis that focuses on the individual’s experience of discrimination towards a systemic analysis that interrogates power relations and social practices.

I would venture to say that Canadian state formation is organized around capitalist goals and has also been a project of oppression, one which is racist, classist, sexist, heterosexist, and essentially anti-queer.

As stated earlier, Razack (2002) illuminates the important relationship between identity and space and challenges us to look at what exactly is being projected onto specific bodies in

136 particular locations. The concept of transnationalism, and the resulting discussion of borders, references the idea of location, which needs to be emphasized. Since there is a tendency within such discussions to strongly focus on dislocation and displacement, a focus on experience that is dependent on location can easily be usurped. The concepts of borders, transnationalism, and politics of location together offer a conceptual framework for a historicized analysis of the contemporary movement of queer subjects.

For those arriving at Canadian borders as African people from former British, French, and Portuguese colonies, the very concepts of identity, sovereignty, and entitlement are already eroded, and our disposition as colonized peoples has created and maintained the ideal condition for otherness prior to and upon arrival at Canadian borders (Hall, 2003). There is an assumption in the West that Black transnational subjects arriving to Canadian borders are heterosexual unless otherwise stated, and, with heteronormativity being taken for granted, the queer refugee is not only racialized, othered, and marginalized but also rendered invisible. The essence of one’s arrival in Canada (where you come from, when you arrive, your immigration status upon arrival) clearly articulates many things about who you will be perceived to be, how you will be treated in the nation-state, and how your entitlement to what the nation-state has to offer will be determined (Massaquoi, 2004).

Refugees particularly have come under attack by the Canadian government and public as being undeserving of the same rights and privileges afforded to so-called Canadians. For example, most recently, a collective of healthcare professionals known as Canadian Doctors for

Refugee Care filed a case with the Federal Court of Canada against the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration. For more than 50 years, the Government of Canada has funded comprehensive health insurance coverage for refugee claimants and others who have come to Canada seeking its protection through the Interim Federal Health Program. In 2012, the Ministry of Health passed two orders that significantly reduced the level of healthcare coverage available to refugees; for example, cuts were made to funding for life-saving medications such as insulin and cardiac

137 drugs, as well as to basic pre-natal, obstetrical, and pediatric care for women and children

(Canadian Doctors for Refugee Care, 2014). In what was seen as a breach in the government’s obligations under international conventions and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Federal Court of Canada ruled against the government’s cuts to refugee healthcare in July

2014, citing that the changes amounted to “cruel and unusual” treatment and were contrary to

“Canadian standards of decency” (Ranalli, 2014). The newly elected Liberal government restored health coverage for refugees to its pre-2012 form in April 2016.

The history of Canada’s immigration policy is one that has been and continues to be designed and redesigned over the years so as to attract certain immigrants while excluding others

(Bhuyan, 2012). The negative stereotypes that have been ascribed to groups identified as

“undesirable” are part of the state sanctioned strategy to ‘protect’ and regulate Canada’s border.

Borders, then, for Brah, create arbitrary dividing lines that are at once social, cultural, and psychic (Brah & Clini, 2017). Borders become liminal spaces that are patrolled against those whom we construct as outsiders and others. They are where claims of ownership and belonging are staked out, contested, defended, and fought over. Borders embody metaphorical narratives and call attention to the specific features of particular groups of bodies. The creation of borders begs us to question how they are regulated, what strategies are used in such regulations, who is kept out, and what the reality is for those who are deemed undesirable crossers. The realities, for instance, of African refugee bodies proclaiming queer identities in a social context that is fraught with homophobia and heterosexism facilitate border interactions that are defined by difficulties obtaining visas, detentions, deportations, and the possibility of loss of life in the country of origin if one is returned.

Many of us who are transnational subjects from African locations are prepared to encounter otherness based on race due to our experiences of colonization, imperialism, and apartheid. What many of us are not prepared to do is willingly place ourselves in the role of the other in terms of sexual orientation (Khayatt, 2002). In fact, it is often physically dangerous to do

138 so in our countries of origin, and although our human rights are protected by legislation in the

West, the risk of loss and ostracization from family and community, and of banishment into a

Canadian environment that is less than supportive of difference, particularly racial deviation from white heteronormativity, is too great a risk to take. As we cross borders, we often abstract queerness from our Africanness and our relations to gender, race, and class out of fear, necessity, and survival. In doing, so, however, we are assisting in the perpetuation of the notion that queerness is equated to whiteness from a Canadian perspective, and same-sex desire is a foreign manifestation from an African perspective.

The concept of diaspora, borders, and transnationality together offer a conceptual grid for historical analysis of contemporary queer transnational movements of people, information, cultures, commodities, and capital. The three concepts are immanent and closely intertwined with the notion of the politics of location or dislocation. What is the currency, value, and contemporaneity of a queer African discourse? Mercer (2003) helps us begin to answer this question through discussions which differentiate diaspora from transnationalism. In his estimation, transnationalism speaks to the larger, more theoretical, concept of globalization, where diaspora addresses the migrations and displacement of subjects. Although diasporas often invoke the imagery of separation and dislocation as an inevitable aspect of the migratory experience, diasporas are also potentially the sites where individuals and collective memories intersect, reassemble, and reconfigure.

Legitimacy, Security, and the Benevolent Nation

Acceptance into and protection within Canadian borders based on sexual orientation or gender identity has been in place for over two decades. Canada was the first country in North

America and one of the few Western nations to grant refugee status for claims based on sexual orientation or gender identity (SOGI). In a 1992 refugee status ruling, an Argentinian gay man,

Jorge Alberto Inaudi, was granted refugee status in Canada because he feared persecution in his country of origin due to his sexual orientation. The case was decided on by an Immigration and

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Refugee Board (IRB) panel and marked the use of the definition of a refugee facing persecution because of sexual orientation for the first time in North America. This landmark case led the way to the Supreme Court ruling Canada v. Ward a year later, which resulted in the explicit inclusion of sexual orientation in Canadian refugee law (LaViolette, 1997). This meant that any individual claiming refugee status for having to flee persecution due to their sexual orientation had the right to access Canada’s refugee determination process. Under Canadian refugee law, persons seeking asylum are required to satisfy two main legal tests: they must demonstrate a reasonable fear of persecution, and they must prove that the persecution they fear is because of their membership in a particular social group, in this case, the LGBTQ social group (LaViolette, 1997). By extension, then, if a person satisfies this definition of a refugee, Canada has a legal obligation to not return the person to the country where he/she may face persecution. Despite such progressive legislation, queer refugees bound for Canada are far from assured of gaining admission, and refoulment26 is a high probability (Murray, 2016).

While the Canadian government does not keep statistics on the number of SOGI refugee claims per year, it has been estimated that only 50 percent of such claims are accepted annually

(Rehaag, 2008). Canada’s approach has been lauded as a model to emulate and is seen as the most accessible of all Western nations, but Canada has increasingly been using stringent and repressive measures to screen out potential refugee claimants. New legislation entitled Protecting

Canada’s Immigration System Act (Bill C-31)27 came into force in December 2012, enacting many changes that undermine equitable treatment for all refugees and providing queer asylum seekers with particular challenges. Advocates are still fighting to repeal Section 38-1-C of the

26 The unnecessary expulsion of an individual who should be recognized as a refugee. 27 Bill C-31: An Act to Amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, the Marine Transportation Security Act and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Act 2012, c.17 (60-61). Online at https://lop.parl.ca/staticfiles/PublicWebsite/Home/ResearchPublications/LegislativeSummaries/P DF/41-1/c31-e.pdf (Accessed 26 February 2020).

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Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA), which limits migration due to medical inadmissibility and upholds health-based discrimination within Canadian Immigration law. This, despite a House of Commons standing committee recommendation for a full repeal of the

Section in 2017 (Bisaillon, 2018).

As previously discussed, flight has become a necessary strategy of survival for some queer Africans. Many have been surveilled, arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and publicly humiliated because of their sexuality or gender identity. Survival has required remaining hidden, secretive, vigilant, and defiant. It is within this context that the queer African refugee claimant has arrived at Canadian borders and is required to present a clear case that will convince the

Canadian immigration system of their right to remain protected behind these borders. It has been systematically shown that whatever the reason for an individual’s refugee claim and the need for protection, newcomers whose sexuality or gender varies from prescriptive models are all but guaranteed a range of systemic barriers, including in the refugee determination system, in how our immigration policies are amended and implemented, and in the settlement and integration experience. They face barriers within mainstream queer communities and organizations, within society at large, and within social institutions (Miller, 2010; Murray, 2011). There are a few new obstacles as well. For example, under the new legislation laid out in Bill C-31, refugee claimants are given what is seen by many as being an unrealistically short timeframe to file a refugee claim upon arrival in Canada. Bill C-31 provides claimants 45 to 60 days from their initial applications to final hearings, depending on their countries of origin, and at most 50 days to submit all corroborating evidence before their final hearings. Prior to the bill passing in 2012, there were no time limits on this process. The expedited timeframe does not give LGBTQ claimants a fair chance to obtain competent legal counsel, nor to prepare themselves or their evidence in one of the official languages; accordingly, these legislative changes result in unfair rejections.

The second major obstacle created by the stringent new legislation is access to a secondary process known as the Humanitarian and Compassionate Application. Prior to 2012,

141 refugee applicants whose refugee claims were rejected could apply immediately to remain in

Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. This was crucially important for queer refugees because it was common to be able to prove that one faced discrimination in African nations but difficult to demonstrate that this discrimination met the legal test for persecution

(Sajnani, 2014a). However, the discrimination and harassment they faced was sufficient to meet the criteria for a Humanitarian and Compassionate Application. Under the new legislation, a failed refugee claimant cannot make a Humanitarian and Compassionate Application for 12 months following a final negative decision of the Immigration and Refugee Board. Given the expedited process for persons from designated counties, this would effectively remove access to

Humanitarian and Compassionate Applications for most failed refugee claimants, as they would have been already removed from Canada prior to the 12-month waiting period.

Refugees in general, and queer refugees in particular, are by definition excluded from the history of Canada as understood in national terms. This erases their own history of belonging to a political queer community that enjoys rights and claims through the nation-state. This historical exclusion is, in turn, used contemporarily to justify ongoing exclusion that makes entering the country and accessing Canadian resources and security difficult. We can also look at the interplay between transnational migration and national assertions of refugee control at borders, which is clearly evident in Canada’s judicial response to claims by queer refugees. In criticizing the refugee boards and adjudicators for their ambivalence in accepting sexuality as a basis for refugee protection, one only has to look at the manner in which queer refugee claims are rejected. While same-sex activities between Canadian citizens was decriminalized in 1969, more than two decades passed before citizens who were experiencing sexual orientation and gender identity persecution in other locales would be considered protectable bodies within Canada.

Since the acceptance of sexual orientation and gender identity as potential bases for refugee protection, adjudicators of the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board have consistently held onto heteronormative pronouncements in their decision-making (Murray,

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2016). For example, one of the most consistent negative rulings has been that asylum seekers are under a duty to protect themselves by hiding their sexuality. In making such determinations, the request to shield one’s sexual orientation or gender identity has not been considered an interference with basic human rights nor a form of persecution in and of itself, if we were to use the Canadian standard of legal interpretation. In Okoli 2009 FC 332, the IRB rejected the refugee claim, citing that, as a Nigerian Gay Man, the applicant had an alternative for safety available to him by moving to the capital city of Lagos, where it would be easier for him to hide his sexual orientation. The same sentiment was expressed in Fosu 2008 FC 1135, where a Ghanaian male claimant was rejected because, it was argued, he could move to the capital city of Accra, where he could live more discreetly (Sajnani, 2014b).

These adjudicators are ultimately asking refugees to apply the Canadian strategy of seeking out metropolises without clear indications of the effectiveness of this strategy in local

African contexts. How legal concepts move and work between cultural contexts depend on the metanarratives such concepts are required to create. In this case, the concepts are required to decide who deserves to be protected behind Canadian borders and who should be ejected. The concepts define national boundary limitations, sexual limitations, public and private queer zones, and the separation of the national from the international and the sexual from the political.

We must remember that the current queer African legal fight is to secure privacy and private practices, whereas the Canadian queer legal fight, which led to the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1969, paved the way for desired sexual autonomy, public freedom, and expression. It is contradictory for African refugees to be asked to hide same-sex desires when to ask the same of a Canadian citizen would be both a violation of their human rights and unconscionable, especially knowing that queer privacy in Africa is under violent attack, as we can see from the Victor Mukasa and David Kato cases. These decisions also affirm that public spaces are only for heterosexual activity and that African states are justified in public persecution when queer bodies are at play.

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What is not being discussed, however, is how the Canadian state is performing a second violation as it justifies this public persecution against queer Africans because of the perceived threat to public heteronormativity. Many queer citizens live in societies that subject them to severe and gruesome forms of state-sanctioned violence, but unlike most other types of refugee claimants, people experience sexual orientation or gender identity persecution individually in relative isolation. To survive stigma and violence, people learn to deny, cover, and/or hide their sexuality or gender identity. These survival tactics and impacts of trauma do not disappear upon departure from the country of origin. This fact, coupled with a Canadian refugee system aiming to keep people out, undermines one’s ability to access safety and permanent status in Canada in an equitable manner.

The tribunals’ supremacy of truth becomes one of choice. That is, the choice to decide whether to associate with other queer bodies or whether to publicize your non-normative sexuality (Sajnani, 2014a). This non-normative identity and subsequent persecution is seen to be self-inflicted, with one choosing whether to activate it or not. Lack of self-control becomes another determining factor in the decision about which social groups are more genuinely deserving of protection and which are not. Queers, then, become underserving recipients of refugee protection because, as a social group, they are seen to be the authors of their own persecution. They could exercise choice to exclude themselves from the persecuted group. The resulting effect is to persecute lesbians and gay men through silencing, thereby inflicting a profound form of discrimination on them as sexual minorities. The impact is not only considerable harm to the person who is denied their right to live as a queer citizen without fear of persecution but also the maintenance of those systemic biases and stereotypes that are the very antithesis of the protection offered under international refugee law.

Queer Africans often arrive at Canadian borders without a clear understanding of themselves as queer refugees and all that identity entails; neither do they understand themselves as belonging to a group identified as a sexual minority, or at least they do not recognize and

144 identify with sexual minority identities as they are defined and organized in Canada. Seeking protection behind Canadian borders, however, requires one to quickly occupy such an identity and role because the individual’s ability to remain within these borders is dependent on the ability to execute a performance deemed worthy of this title (Murray, 2014). Queer refugees are negotiating culturally prescribed identity narratives that shift before, during, and after migration, and when these shifting narratives come into direct contact with state apparatuses that require definitive proof of sexual identity and lived experience in order to grant refugee protection, the potential for inaccurate assessments and misguided decisions is high.

A queer perspective of sexuality expands the notions of refugee, asylum, and resettlement, particularly with regard to what factors force people to migrate or flee particular spaces. Queer refugees and asylum seekers have been vigorously transforming Canadian queer communities. These transformations involve transnational negotiations, through which pre- existing identities and communities are neither fully retained, changed, or dismantled but are instead complexly reworked through specific local encounters. Seeking asylum is hardly a direct path to protection in Canada, but, when granted, asylum does make the world less harsh and less dangerous for some queer bodies. This does not address the continuing violence and systemic institutional discrimination faced by queers worldwide. As I endeavour to give voice to and highlight the dilemmas faced by queer African refugees in Canada, the fact remains that I will miss entirely the answer as to why, despite the efforts of activists, heads of state, international agencies, and scholars such as myself, the daily lives of queers Africans continue to be precarious. I recognize that this question will not be answered in this project.

The most I hope to do is illuminate the ways in which queer African subjects negotiate their elision from national memory and their function as a threat to nation-states. I will interrogate how the struggles of queer African refugees make discussions about the heterogeneity of the African diaspora unavoidable and how diasporic experiences may not be obviously so but are always sexualized. There is a tendency for theoretical accounts of diasporas and diasporic

145 culture to hide this fact, to talk of displacement in unmarked ways, thus normalizing heterosexual experiences and masking queer ones. A queer African praxis framework that speaks to the refugee experience is a project that not only affirms and celebrates complex representations of

Africanness, which are privately accentuated by sexual political consciousness, but one that also challenges representations which are publicly regulated by those who define African cultural expression by prioritized heteronormativity. A queer African praxis framework, then, becomes one that clearly articulates the formation of a queer African identity that cannot be separated from the theorization of resistance, revolution, defiance, and change.

Chapter 5 Pre-Migration28

“I’m still alive and still passionate about this struggle and so I shall keep fighting, in whichever capacities and wherever I am in the world. Even if that is now from North America.” — Victor Mukasa, one year after claiming asylum in the US

It must be noted that research participants in this study were queer Africans before their identity became amplified as refugees. I thus began my inquiry from a place of attempting to identify who my research participants were and their experiences before fleeing their countries of origin. This chapter directly answers the following research questions: Who are we as queer

Africans? How do participants negotiate security in their countries of origin? and How do participants utilize space to subvert their oppression in their countries of origin? (see Figure 2, p.

13). In this chapter, I argue that queer Africans come to know themselves and experience their queer identity first and foremost through discipline for daring to inhabit a non-heteronormative body. The discipline experienced by participants was institutionalized and systemic, meted out by cultural institutions, religious institutions, political leaders, law enforcement, family, and community members. Social practices tolerated and perpetuated the enacting of violence against those perceived as queer group members, with the primary forms of persecution being physical, sexual, and psychological violence, incarceration, and forced marriage.

My findings allow us to complicate participants’ relationships to family, who were placed in precarious positions due to state-sanctioned laws and cultural beliefs that prevented them from fully embracing their queer family member. One of the key findings in this chapter is a clear articulation of physical and geographic spaces of safety that queer Africans have created within their countries of origin. I argue, based on the findings, that flight from one’s homeland does not occur until these spaces have been disrupted and no longer can provide safety and security for

28 I am respectfully notifying the reader that the content of the following chapters may produce emotional discomfort or even possibly distress. While these are the stories as told by research participants, I must acknowledge the graphic nature of the violence and abuse often described.

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147 queer Africans. It becomes very evident from the findings that queer Africans often become exiled within their own countries long before they take flight from their persecution. The following three chapters outline the findings of my study by integrating refugee voices, describing fragments or snapshots from their daily experiences of navigating lives pre-migration and the existential condition of seeking asylum in Canada. The participants’ narratives, included extensively in their own words, work side-by-side with my interpretation and representation of who I believe them to be and what experiences I believe them to be having.

Who are These Subjects We Call Queer African Refugees?

In 2014, news spread rapidly and globally through the queer African activist community.

Victor Mukasa had fled Uganda and claimed asylum in the United States. With assistance from a friend, Victor obtained a letter of invitation to the US, a visa, and fled with one suitcase. Victor represented the strongest and most prominent of queer African activists, one who stood up to his country’s government, demanded his rights as a queer citizen, and won. What was the message being sent by Victor’s flight? Defeat? Betrayal? Survival? Could the leading voice for queer

African rights lead this fight from North America as a refugee?

With this project, I am seeking to find the definitional identity of a group that I have been theorizing as and calling queer African refugees. I am also trying to map the individual subjective experience of forced migration that results in the displacement which has created this identity. The research participants in this study generously offered their narratives of navigating the refugee process and asylum-seeking. They engaged in truth-telling or “speaking out” in a manner that depicted a reality made accessible to us through their own terms and definitions.

With the experience of exclusion operating in the daily lives of refugee claimants both pre- and post-migration, I have aimed to study and incorporate an understanding of that insight as a central theme in my work. The identity of queer African refugee cannot be separated from the way selves are narrated in their countries of origin and of asylum. Every self is a storied self, and every story is grouped within the geographic realities of others, such that each participant

148 consists of both the stories they tell about themselves and how those narratives connect to the stories told by others (Massaquoi, 2004). The understanding of subjectivity is a combination of cognitive, affective, and embodied experiences, and no single dimension can be privileged above the others (Venn, 2007). However, there also needs to be an engagement in geographically bound self-discovery throughout the research process—this involves developing a conventional understanding of what it means to be an individual whose identity has been created by acts of refusal or has been premised on exclusion. Subjectivity is constituted by reference to discursive practices and shaped by the effects of power operating through individuals. The theorization of resistance, revolution, and change cannot be separated from the theorization of the formation of definitional selves. This is the dance I will engage as I try to balance my understanding of stories told by the participants themselves and my ability to represent their lives as authentically and accurately as possible.

There is a tendency of refugee theorists to depict a universal refugee experience, thereby creating an essentialized, broad-stroke refugee condition (Kumsa, 2006). While the often-brutal experience of uprootedness and crossing borders might have some universal commonalities concerning the experience of being forced out of one’s country, it is the unique reconstruction of one’s present refugee subjectivity that I would like to explore in this research. It is an intersectional subjectivity of queerness, Africaness, and refugeeness. In order to understand this concept of refugeeness, according to Lacroix (2004), we must search for the definitional centre and understanding of the individual’s subjective experience of being forced to flee their country of origin. Within the queer African praxis framework I explore in Chapter One, it is a forced migration that is most often precipitated by torture, terror, separation from family and loved ones, witnessing death, and experiencing near-death. There is an experience of loss and suffering that is beyond the imagination of most Canadians.

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I have come to understand through my inquiry that queer Africans come to know themselves and experience their queer identity first and foremost through their persecution.

Participants reflected on this fact:

I think the situation for most African gays and lesbians is... one of concerns around safety and you know personal agency, freedom from violence, freedom from the fear of violence and just the ability to live out a full life, fully participating in the society without concern for being killed or mistreated and that being sanctioned by the state, by the state using laws to restrict their full personhood. (Lesbian from Sierra Leone, 9 months in Canada [P22])

The situation for the LGBT is very intense in my home country. We are persecuted, we are harassed by the police, they always, we’re always in the crackdown. For example, when I was at university, they would come in our house or residence. They put up spies... to work for them. Sometimes you don’t know so you don’t know who’s watching your back. This is very, very intense. And because the penal code of my country says homosexually is punishable by life in prison. So, when you’re caught, you’re arrested, you’re done all kinds of things that are inhuman and degrading. This situation is very, very bad. (Gay Man from Ivory Coast, 3 years in Canada [P12])

You never get to express yourself freely you never develop a free queer identity. It is always filtered due to the fear of violence. (Transman from Kenya, 6 years in Canada [P3])

You live like, you live like, it’s like, you live in hiding. You don’t want people to know who you are. You don’t want to show your character. You can’t live freely cause you don’t know what’s going to happen the next minute so you live in a closet. You never come out. And you suffer a lot cause you go through so many emotional things. Cause you need people to talk to, you need a family to talk to, but nobody is there for you. So, you live in a closed life. (Lesbian from Ethiopia, 1 year in Canada [P14])

The common understanding of violence in the lives of participants was that it is institutionalized, systemic, and directed at those who manifest behaviours that identify them as being queer. Cultural institutions, religious institutions, and social practices tolerated and perpetuated the enactment of violence against those perceived as queer group members.

Participants expressed a tacit day-to-day knowledge that one must be vigilant and fear unprovoked physical, sexual, psychological attacks on person or property for no reason other than being perceived as queer, which requires discipline, humiliation, and elimination from society:

The only thing I have known that is culturally oriented is something to do with heterosexual relationships. Nothing to do with homosexual. And if they realize you are

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one… Every, every culture has got its psalm, its norms and practice and all that, and they also have a huge book where they record the this and that’s. If they realize you are homosexual, they cross you out. So, you become a nobody. You have no roots. You are no longer a member of the family or the clan. You are erased from the family’s history. (Trans Woman from Nigeria, 4 years in Canada [P18])

…because anyone who was detected would have be outed and it’s happened before so um, just if anybody finds out you are named and shamed. And when I say named and shamed, being an African and being named and shamed it just takes it to another level, you cannot describe the humiliation you go through. I mean honestly, we have tribal courts back home they call them the Cokla* (phonetic spelling) and that’s where you take any of your issues, or your troubles, your whatever and if you live in the villages it’s even worse because they will flog you in front of people and there’s absolutely no consideration for the effect that it’s having on that person. And I mean, people never view you the same, they just can’t. (Gay Man from Uganda, 3 years in Canada [P10])

While physical violence is most often severe in nature, there is less-acknowledged psychological violence in the form of stigmatizing harassment, bullying, intimidation, bribery, and ridicule.

While psychological violence is often what makes staying in one’s country unbearable, it should be noted that these experiences of psychological abuse do not carry as much weight and are not viewed as equally egregious in the Canadian refugee determination process, which prioritizes physical injury and harm.

Ya like, they have insults, like maybe you pass through a place and people already know you oh they say, “There is another person who is sleeping with another person.” It’s like they have insults, you’re not safe, you don’t know what’s going to happen to you the next minute. (Lesbian from Kenya, 3 years in Canada [P5])

At a young age I had to deal with the death threats… ahhh… went through lots of suffering. This is from school and all that and then the fellas threatened to kill me, and so many things happened. First, they push me to the clay. Then they bring me back and spit in my hair. (Lesbian from Swaziland, 1 year in Canada [P9])

He wanted me to tell him the names of all the politicians and all of the celebrities who were homosexual, or he would go to the paper publish the article. He wanted me to pay him the equivalent to $50,000 US as an option. I did not have any money and the next week I was on the cover of the local tabloid identified as a homosexual. Money started to flow from anyone who thought they would be next. (Gay Man from Senegal, 1 year in Canada [P2])

The egregious nature of the violence experienced by participants is difficult to fathom as day-today normality. However, they were able to articulate the conditions that made these occurrences possible, acceptable, and sustained as a social practice within the African communities they

151 inhabited. Homophobia and transphobia were felt to be stirred up by conservative governments as a way to secure bigoted voters and support from the churches. When the top echelons of your society and governments sanction homophobia, it is taken as approval for the open abuse of queers. State-sponsored homophobia and transphobia were ultimately identified as heightening the climate and culture of fear. This resulted in increased targeted discrimination and vigilante or mob justice as a cultural norm. This was an expectation considered necessary for the discipline and elimination of queer citizens.

In my country when foreign aid was cut because of the President’s anti-gay speeches and people began to suffer, the backlash against gays in the country was severe. We were seen as the cause of all of the country’s problems and were blamed for everything from hunger to mudslides. (Gay Man from Uganda, 3 years in Canada [P10])

Yeah, I am escaping to the Gambia for one days, two days, three days. The president in Gambia have do a big meeting outside in the stadium and he said he call the people, all people in Gambia coming and he said, “I know the gays who did the gay marriage in Senegal is in my country.” The president have talk that. He said, “I know the Senegalese people, the gay Senegalese people is in my country, so I want you to go outside of my country before 24 hours, I give them 24 hours for leaving in my country. If I see any gay, I’m going to kill him like a lamb.” (Gay Man from Senegal, 1 year in Canada [P2])

In Cameroon actually um, they, they, they have the like, they have a Gay and Lesbian Association, but they also have Homophobic Association. Homophobic People’s Association, which is supported by the government. Because they have a law there that criminalize homosexuality, that is the supported organization and the Gay and Lesbian Association is illegal. (Lesbian from Botswana, 1 year in Canada [P4])

According to the ILGA’s 2019 State-Sponsored Homophobia Report, there are currently three African UN member states that impose the death penalty on consensual same-sex sexual acts—Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia—and a further five states where such a punishment is technically possible. Chad’s new penal code went into effect in 2017, criminalizing male and female same- sex sexual activity (Ramon Mendos, 2019). On the other hand, legislation that protects lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons from discrimination and violence has slowly expanded in recent years, with the latest being the Botswana government, who decriminalized homosexuality in a landmark decision of its high court in June 2019. However, as Botswana overturned its federal ban on homosexuality, several weeks prior to this historic decision, Kenyan courts voted to

152 uphold their laws. These two judicial judgments underscore vast differences across the African

Continent when it comes to queer citizens and the contested terrain that develops when colonial histories and present-day world views collide.

Although decriminalization is happening at a slower pace than one would hope, legislative changes are crucial in the struggle to change public perceptions and attitudes, and they serve to concretely signal to queer citizens that they are equally worthy of rights. Without such rights in legislation, we see situations for queer Africans such as those in Tanzania.

Tanzania’s most recent government actions raised alarm for the Canadian government and international relations, as Tanzania is our sixth-largest donor-recipient at $125 million as of

2018. Things took a step backwards when the Regional Commissioner of Dar es Salaam,

Tanzania’s largest city, requested that members of the public supply the government with names of suspected queer citizens, in keeping wtih a new government mandate that any homosexual be reported to authorities. Teams were deployed, consisting of police officers, military personnel, communication agents, and media practitioners, to scour social media accounts in search of any homosexual behaviour. It was estimated that they received over 5,000 tips on the first day, and the search continues at a relentless pace. The Canadian government’s hands were tied when the

President of Tanzania declared that he would prefer to anger Western countries than anger God

(Dyer, 2018).

Such statements and plans serve one purpose, which is to incite hatred among members of the public. Queer Africans in Tanzania were already facing discrimination, threats, and attacks without the necessity of statements of this kind from the President and high-ranking members of society. It can only be interpreted as providing the authorities and general public with a license to carry out violence, intimidation, bullying, harassment, and discrimination against those perceived to be queer. We see similar tactics in other African nations such as Uganda, which has a long history of state-sanctioned homophobic rhetoric. The Uganda security minister has expressed

153 that the public must be warned about the opposition party because of its association with the

LGBT community, who are terrorists and must be rooted out and eliminated (Englander, 2011).

Many study participants articulated graphic examples of how state-sanctioned law enforcement carried out exposure and torture:

So 5 o’clock in the morning the police come in my apartment. The police come with 15 cars. My one friend has seen the police coming because my one friend is in the balcony and he sees the police coming and he come open the door and he said, “Hey the police is here.” And me I no go, I stay in the apartment. And my other friends were scared, and he go up in the building. And the police go up for take him. And the police have bring the pistol, you know the gun and he said, “Stop”. When the police officer pulled out their guns and told them to stop, he was scared, and he jumped off the roof. Four other people have jumping from the fourth floor. Where they jumped off there were rocks on the bottom. One person, both his leg got broken and his face was disfigured. Another friend lost his teeth because his face landed on rocks. And another friend a bone came out of his ankle. Another friend was impaled to the neck. (Gay Man from Senegal, 1 year in Canada [P2])

So, when you’re caught, you’re arrested, you’re done all kinds of things that are inhuman and degrading. This situation is very, very bad. So, there’s no legal protection. There’s no police protection. There is no police protection because it’s a law that was passed by the constitution of my country. The police are enforcing the law when they arrest and torture you. (Gay Man from Ivory Coast, 3 years in Canada [P12])

With my tortures it was the military. Military because this is... they wear uniforms that identifies them, that they are military. They take me to the cells. There is what we call safe houses... these are private places where they take criminals. They are tortured there. They can kill them without the public knowing. They can get lost. They can do whatever they want. It was not only one time that I was detained. It was almost four times. (Gay Man from Nigeria, 4 years in Canada [P20])

I was arrested and put into forced labor, which happened to me. I was put into a forced labor. Some people have been beaten. I know some people who’ve been killed. I’ve got a real good friend I had been arrested with me who got killed. (Gay Man from Uganda, 1 year in Canada [P16])

The insidiousness of homophobic violence is not only about direct victimization but also about coping with the knowledge that you will be subjected to this violence and it will be continually repeated. It is the daily reality that your chances of experiencing this violence are high, and the pressure of living under this threat for yourself, your associated family, friends and lovers, deprives one of the dignities of living freely, expressing oneself freely, and loving freely.

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What should be noted is the amount of energy that is expended in constructing a life maneuvering around the avoidance of this daily violence.

I have done everything to keep my life and my relationship very secret and private. So, I was at work and then I receive a phone call from my landlady that my girlfriend got arrested and was forced also. Because they tortured her so bad, she was forced to mention my name. So that’s how the police showed up at my parents’ home and come and arrest me too. (Lesbian from Botswana, 1 year in Canada [P4])

Unless you have a secretive relationship. Cause at the end of the day if they come to know what’s happening anything can happen to you, cause where I was, I was living with my mom but when people started knowing what happened to me, I moved to another village. And I had a girlfriend, I used to see her, but we used to see each other secretly. And what happened that September 2007, I don’t know what happened to her, somebody killed her. She was found on the way lying down. She was stabbed. We don’t know what happened to her up to now I don’t know what happened to her. Because what they do if they know truly this is your character or this is who you are, chances of you getting killed, they are very high. If I didn’t come to Canada, I don’t think now I would be alive. (Lesbian from Uganda, 2 years in Canada [P6])

Figure 4. Types of Persecution Experienced Prior to Migration29

Gender-Based Violence

For many queer African women, transwomen, and those who identify as gender non- conforming, gender-based violence forms a part of their lived experience and represents a form

29 Note: All participants (40) reported some form of psychological abuse, including bullying, intimidation, humiliation, and bribery.

155 of discipline and erasure that is attributed to what is seen as their audacity to transgress long- standing, culturally imposed norms of gender and sex. Those participants who identified their gender as female discussed being a victim of specific forms of sexual violence that are often termed “corrective” or “curative” rape:

Corrective rapes are, are one thing that is also over... young women’s heads in terms of if you’re suspected to be a lesbian, that threat of rape and sexual violence is always seen. People being thrown out of their, their families and communities after they organize for you to be raped. And so those are the stories that you hear, those are the only messages that you get about being a lesbian in an African context, and so that doesn’t leave one much room for any kind of exploration, leaves one quite isolated, it causes one to make choices that they would not otherwise make. Being forced to be in situations such as marriage, or... other situations that they would not normally choose for themselves just to avoid sexual violence. I did not want to have that kind of life. I wanted to choose freedom instead of obligation. (Lesbian from Swaziland, 1 year in Canada [P8])

Queer women are specifically targeted because of the intersection of sexual orientation, gender expression, and identity, which disrupts the dominant sexual and gender order of traditional

African cultures (Gontek, 2009; Gunkel, 2010). The term “corrective/curative rape” was coined by South African activists and first makes an academic appearance in the work of South African

Black lesbian photographer Zanele Muholi (2004). Corrective/curative rape has been defined as the sexual assault of a woman perceived to be lesbian, perpetrated by a cis-gender man, as an ostensible cure for her deviant sexuality (Matebeni, 2013). Muholi often visually depicts and writes about how the lives of queer subjects are made hyper-visible through their persecution while their sexual violence is rendered invisible and un-grievable. It is culturally believed that lesbians become normalized by a violent sexual act in which the rapist teaches her how to be a

“normal woman.”

There was so much pressure within the community to date boys, and if I didn’t accept offers... there was physical violence and sexual harassment… And so, a lot of verbal abuse, and sexual violence, or threat of sexual violence I experienced growing up and pressure within the community with no remorse or apology from my family or friends. (Lesbian from Ethiopia, 1 year in Canada [P14])

One time, some people who would be telling you, “Yeah, let people to be raping you so that you can stop doing this.” And I said, “Raping me is something else that will only worsen the situation.” (Lesbian from Nigeria, 2 years in Canada [P34])

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It should be noted that very few participants reported their sexual assaults to family members or authorities. When they did, the results involved further abuse. Justice or restitution was not a possibility, and they were often forced to live with and among their perpetrators. The fear of reprisal from the authorities, and exposure of their sexual orientation, was too great a risk. The fear of stigma and shame upon the family also ensured silence from the women, who also grappled with the reality that their rapists were often known assailants, family members, community members, and/or friends who assisted in the sexual assault.

…Because my brothers organized the rape. They were soldiers and held me at gun point while the men in the community raped me. They said I behaved too much like a man and I needed to be taught a lesson. (Lesbian from Uganda, I year in Canada [P27])

Ok, one day I went to the police. I told her, “I can’t... I’m having a problem with my husband.” Said, “No, no, no, no, no. This is not a family court. So, go to your family elders and tell them your family thing. This is a family issue; we can’t help you. Anyways, what is it?” And I told them that he was violent, he’s actually raping me because and didn’t sleep with me with consent. “He can’t rape you; you are his wife. So, whenever he wants sex, just give him the sex and that’s it. That’s why you are his wife. And he pay for, for your bride price, so he can do anything on you. Are you a lesbian? If you don’t want to sleep with your husband, you must be a lesbian. He needs to teach you how to be a wife. And that is a family thing. So, go home. He’s trying to make you a good woman.” Instead of them helping me they supported him, and they were like calling me names, and I regretted why did I come there. And I went back home. (Lesbian from Swaziland, 1 year in Canada [P9])

Compulsory Heterosexuality and Forced Marriage

Reid (2010) argues that the invocation of African tradition undergirds many kinds of objections to the repealing of anti-sodomy laws. Of primary concern is the notion that homosexual coupling does not promote kinship ties that are culturally understood to be the purpose of marriage. One’s children are the embodiment and confirmation of family wealth and alliances, and same-sex unions cannot bring two families together. The same-sex union, due to its dissident nature, will produce no wealth or status for the family. Same-sex sexuality also challenges gender roles due to the institutionalized notion that marriage is between a man and woman, and that the subsequent production of children by a woman is necessary to the definition

157 of these roles. Countries that impose a strict rule of compulsory heterosexuality expect this heteronormativity to be expressed and enacted through marriage and reproduction.

Obviously, it’s difficult and we face a lot of discrimination. There are very hard and fast rules culturally, traditionally and legally that prohibit us from being together or being seen together or just being yourself, you know? And being a homosexual and choosing a sexual orientation anything apart from being a heterosexual it’s just a no no. So, it makes life difficult and uncomfortable and unfair, so I think that’s kind of the status is right now. It’s just very difficult and challenging and if anybody tries to challenge it, some do, some are brave enough to, then it backfires, and the repercussions are always negative. (Gay Man from Burundi, 6 years in Canada [P19])

The only time you can escape persecution is if they know that you’ve got a son, a child, then you’re safe. (Gay Man from Uganda, 3 years in Canada [P10])

You have to live a double life like, like me, I started being bi. Because I wasn’t going to be a, a lesbian full-time because they want to see you with guys. Even if you are young, but then your parents like see you with guys, even if they would beat you because you were dating at a tender age it’s fine for them... that at least you are normal than to be always with girls. I didn’t know how to talk to my mom. ’Cause now I knew that she knew. She still is in denial. She’s still onto me that at least try and have some children. That seems to be the biggest problem. She wants me to have one or two children. That’s all she wants from me. And then I can continue with my own business. (Lesbian from Swaziland, 1 year in Canada [P8])

Except some few, very few families, most of the family all the families ask to the children even if they know, even if they have been talking about his homosexuality for so many years but they still have in their mind that okay one day my son will get married and you know have some children. That’s how they think, for them it’s just like a, it’s. it’s um it’s a I don’t know how to say that in English but it’s like a some… it’s just the moment he’s living his homosexuality for the moment. (Gay Man from Ivory Coast, 1 year in Canada [P31])

Not only that, but even your friends, they see you as maybe somebody who is incapable, maybe of having a wife. So, all that to us is mean that you must show your family that you are a man. You have to take responsibilities like... be a leader of people. You must have a wife. If you don’t have a wife, you are somebody who cannot lead. If you cannot lead, you are on your own. You will not get a good job. So, this is why in Africa, the moment you have any abilities the mothers and the fathers or sisters or whatever they contribute for you to get married. (Gay Man from Uganda, 2 years in Canada [P29])

The result for both male and female participants who challenged heteronormativity or attempted to live a non-heteronormative alternative lifestyle was often forced marriage. Forced marriage was defined by the participants as a marriage that they could not freely and wholly consent to and occurred under duress due to both familial and community pressure.

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So, when I was twenty-seven, my friends threw a party for me. And then in that party, they actually had a man. It was a family friend with six wives. So, my parents wanted me to marry that person. How, how can I marry a man who doesn’t really know who I am? And as much as I’m crying and saying sorry that I’m bringing bad luck to the family, I’m old now, I should give you grandchildren and stuff like that it didn’t matter… My gift was a marriage. You are old and we want to have grandchildren before we die, and you know that we’re not working anymore, so really we don’t have money in the house and if we, if, if this man marries you, he is going to pay, pay for, for your bride price, right? And we’ll be eating. And I’m like ok. “So, in short you are selling me?” “I’m not selling you, but then you know it’s culture because you can’t be staying like this forever. You need to move on and get married. And before you know it, you’ll be old.” So, what do I say? My parents said people that visit telling, saying, creating the stories that you are into women. That’s not good. It’s time to prove them wrong. And I said, “And as much as we are going to prove them wrong, but what about my well-being because you know that I, I don’t love men, I don’t like men.” My mom said, “Just do it for the family.” “But how can I do it for the family if, when I’m the one who’ll be staying with the man, and what about my girlfriend?” “You’re not allowed to see your girlfriend, so it’s going to be a breakthrough. I mean, you will learn to love him. And when you stay with him you will learn to love him.” But you know what? I had to marry that man. (Lesbian from Kenya, 1 year in Canada [P26])

You may ask how we can have the husband, or the wife and family that’s society pressure, that’s the societal relationship. And then the other one is the love relationship. Because back home, if we were fully accepted to be without a wife, and I could be with a man, I don’t think I would take a wife. So, the best thing is to get married and hide in that relationship. Then things will be normal... But my marriage was always in chaos. (Gay Man from Uganda, 2 years in Canada [P29])

Yeah, you don’t live your life, you do as the others, you hide, cause like I have many friends and I know for sure they’re gay, but now you find they are married with kids but you know they’re not happy, because of the pressure of the family at a certain age you have to get married, you have to be like everyone else. (Gay Man from Rwanda, 3 years in Canada [P23])

Many participants were compelled to flee their countries of origin due to the prospect of this life; for those who were unable to avoid the marriage, they were fleeing the abuse that often occurred within the marriage, which was wrongly blamed on the inability of the participant to fulfil a traditional role or function of husband or wife. While forced marriage is widely recognized internationally as a violation of women’s rights and a distinct form of gender-based violence, it is not often considered in the realm of violence that occurs in the lives of queer people. From this perspective, forced marriages endured by participants could easily fall into the category of honour-based violence, defined by participants as an act carried out by the family in trying to preserve its honour after it is understood publicly that their child is queer.

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In spite it being a matter that they prefer people not to know about, it’s almost like a blame culture where you want to name and shame this person, so the blame is not on you, or the onus is not on you as parents or a family to say, “You have done this. Look at what your child has become,” type of thing. So, your own family will out you and they will let everybody know that they are against it and show in measures that they see fit, through measures that they see fit that they are against it. And for ladies, it’s a lot more difficult because as a man you can stand up for yourself but then again there aren’t as many men who do stand up for themselves… it’s just gotten to a point where you know it’s time to stand up for ourselves or die. And that’s what it is and it’s a slow and painful death because you’ll get married off to the highest bidder and be made to have children and it’s just like you know, well, I’d rather, in my personal opinion is that I’d rather be quote, “shamed” then have to live in that prison all my life. (Lesbian from Ethiopia, 8 months in Canada [P28])

…my father told them that “My daughter doesn’t want to marry this guy.” They ask why. He said, “Because... she claims she’s in love with women.” “Oh. That is disgusting.” They started calling me names. And the elders of the village called me, and said, “So you say you’re in love with women. So, are you a virgin? Take off your clothes so we can... examine, examine your virginity because you think you, you don’t sleep with men, so are you pure?” I thought they were joking. I stood and looked at them and... “Take off your clothes in front of those people.” I took my... I, I was wearing a cap. I take off my cap, my t-shirt, and a jean skirt. “Your panties. We want to examine, like, examine your, your, your virginity because you claim you are, you are pure. You don’t, you don’t sleep with men. You sleep with women. We, we want to see what is it that is there that, that no man can, can satisfy, can satisfy you with.” I took off my clothes… They start calling me names. (Lesbian from Uganda, 1 year in Canada [P27])

While this form of violence is perceived to be a corrective or curative measure to erase the queer tendencies of the child, it also was felt by some participants that it could be seen as a misinformed and misguided loving act to protect the child from a society which will not allow the transgressive identity to survive. For those who were able to avoid the marital contract, the violence of the forced marriage process was no less traumatic, particularly the betrayal by family members and, most often, the role of the participant’s mother in a patriarchal context as the one upholding family, kinship, and cultural values of marriage and participating in the forced marriage to preserve the honour of the family (Aplin, 2017).

I had a girlfriend when I was still in school and we were caught kissing. Her mother pulled from school and forced her into marrying some, some guy, and she had two kids. (Lesbian from Nigeria, 2 years in Canada [P34])

My mom came to me one day and said, “This man has been good to the family. He was the one who was responsible for you... for your, for your education.” “Mom, you never told me that. You are telling me now because you want me to do you a favour and marry this man. How can I believe this?” “But you know that I, I was working, and I was

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working, I was making a small amount of money, and I had other kids to take care of, to take care of. What did you think I, I got the money from? He was helping me because he, he knew that you will be his wife.” And true, when I was growing up, when I meet him like when he come into the home, he said, “Hi, my wife.” But then when you’re a kid you think... it’s only joke. I mean, you don’t even argue that point. Then I said to my mom, “Whatever you do, you think, I am not going to marry this man. So, go tell dad that I am not interested in marrying this man.” She said, “You know your dad will freak out.” And I said, “Even if he, he freaks out, but then maybe it’s for the better. Maybe he will tell the person to go look for someone else.” And then my mother says, “What if he says he wants his money back?” I’m like, “If he wants his money back, how do you, how much do you think that money is?” And I, she started counting. “When you were in form one, he, was the one who was paying the fees until you reached form five.” I knew then I had to run away. (Lesbian from Swaziland, 1 year in Canada [P8])

The factors of compulsory herteronomativity, strong normative expectations of marriage and reproduction, state-sanctioned homophobia/transphobia, traditionally prescribed gender roles, and a system which provides no support for those who deviate outside of these expectations all support contexts that condone the violence experienced by participants. For many, the ability to avoid this form of abuse and violence became impossible. Fleeing was the only option.

Prior to fleeing, however, there were many examples and strategies of resistance through delay and avoidance, which were commonplace as participants navigated their survival in cultures where the ability to avoid cultural expectations was seen as next to impossible.

You reach a certain age, “when are you getting married?” They even start mentioning stuff to you that, “Oh, I think this girl will suit you. Are you going to do this?” And stuff like that, you know? And... it, it’s not even for only guys, even for the girls. Girls at a certain stage already, “you must be thinking of marriage. Why aren’t you getting married? Why don’t you have a baby? Why don’t you have this?” Already... however much you... somebody may try to sidestep through education and say you’re studying, studying, and studying and you don’t have time for such things. But still... they will always ask the question, “why aren’t you married? Why are you still single? You’re so old. You’re so this, that, and that.” There is no way you can escape things like that. (Gay Man from Nigeria, 4 years in Canada [P20])

I had to be able to explain why I did not have a girlfriend. One of the things I did was I, I went to church and that’s like, because I never had like female partners and so it kind of explained, like sort of helped me to explain why I didn’t have a lot of female partners. because I was a Christian I could hide. (Gay Man from Uganda, 1 year in Canada [P16])

Persecuted, Persecutors and Protectors: Family Complexities

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Several African countries have not only criminalized homosexuality but also aimed to cleanse their countries of queer citizens, either through death or flight. Nigeria and Uganda, for example, have both tightened their anti-sodomy laws further, so that now it is illegal to have knowledge that someone is queer and not report it to authorities, or to show any support for queer citizens. The government and state have now weaponized the family members of queer individuals against them, demanding they secure their own safety through upholding these laws.

Participants were not only grappling with the loss of family support, which is not an uncommon exercise for queer citizens worldwide, but they also had to come to terms with the fact that their family members were forced to become their persecutors in order to protect themselves from abuse, violence, and imprisonment.

Family members were not given the choice or freedom to protect their children.

Participants grappled with the guilt of becoming a threat and the real possibility of their family’s imprisonment. Many participants lived in communities where mob justice and vigilante justice were legal in terms of the disciplining of queer citizens, and where this form of violence was initiated by family members.

When they find out, first thing they organize are the beatings. They are beating you and then they enlist neighbors, church friends, family members to all take turns beating you sometimes to near death. (Gay Man from Uganda, 7 years in Canada [P11])

I was secretive all my entire life until in 2005 when my girlfriend was arrested and, and until the police showed up at my parents’ home because I was staying with my parents, and my girlfriend was residing by herself, so whatever we used to do, we would do it at her place. When we want to meet, we meet at her place. And when my parents found out about it, they, especially my father, he disowned me. He called the clan, we have, like, clan heads and all that. They held a meeting and they said he would disown me; I was a disgrace for the family. Right now, as I’m speaking, I don’t have a family. I’m on my own. (Lesbian from Uganda, 1 year in Canada [P27])

Because a couple of years ago. My father threatened to kill me… He had threatened to disown me. He said he was not going to jail because of my evil ways. I have gone through a lot of suffering. (Gay Man from Nigeria, 3 years in Canada [P39])

...you suffer risk. Now, if you’ve got children, and somehow, they know that you are gay, the first person who’s going to betray you to the authorities is your wife. That’s if she does not try and blackmail you first. (Gay Man from Ghana, 3 years in Canada [P30])

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So, it would be difficult for a family to support the child even if they accepted the child’s sexuality, it’s the rest of the community, the government and the church. Because they are also judged, they get judged also. For people like my parents, it’s the issue of when they die the church might refuse to bury them. You put them in a position where they have to choose between you, whether they think they’ll go to heaven or not, whether they go to jail or not and it’s just not worth it, I don’t know. (Gay Man from Uganda, 2 years in Canada [P29])

’Cause here it, it’s like, “Well, you need to come out, you need to tell everybody.” And I, I always say, “No, we’re African people. We, we have to approach it differently. We totally have a different approach we have to think about our safety, and the safety of our families.” (Lesbian from Senegal, 1 year in Canada [P35])

The familial rejection that participants experienced was painful and traumatic, but there was a clear understanding that family members were exposed to the same homophobic/transphobic messages and threat of violence that queer Africans themselves had to endure. The misinformation about sin, illness, and reactions of fear fueled by state and church-sanctioned propaganda facilitated the rejecting behaviours, even if family members wanted to help their queer relatives. What was ultimately created was the amplification of real and potential harm and a solid understanding that nowhere would be safe for the queer individual, neither inside nor outside of the home.

However, despite rejection being commonplace for participants, there were instances where participants received support and protection from family members. Unfortunately, this support was unable to be sustained, and often the inability of family members to continue to support the queer relative created yet another condition that facilitated forced flight.

My family is a source of strength for me. I was arrested 5 times and each time I was released from custody I knew I had a home to go to until they ransacked my parents’ home and beat them. (Gay Man from Nigeria, 6 years in Canada [P24])

The only place like I can speak on my case the only person who supports me is my mom. Cause my mom told me, “Whether you are what or you are what you are still my child.” But anybody else they disown you. They don’t want to be associated with evil cause they say, “This is evil.” This is not good, this is not fair. “You don’t belong in our family. (Lesbian from Kenya, 3 years in Canada [P5])

Obviously, initially she was very disappointed, and I hate that word. When your parent says they are disappointed with you it’s worse than them just shouting at you or giving you a spanking and sending you to bed, you know? So yeah, me being the only daughter that she has kind of impacted that and life in general and society back home. And she’s

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lovely regardless and I’m so thankful for that. I’m really lucky. I am, I am. So, no matter what anybody else says I really don’t care. (Lesbian from Botswana, 1 year in Canada [P4])

…my parents were more open you know, I had one time my dad asked me and then he was fine with it. The only thing, the only comment he told me like, he asked me if I was gay and I didn’t know how to answer, and I was shocked, surprised that he asked me that and I was like why you asking me that? And he just told me that if you are, just be prepared it won’t be easy for you, but you’re still my son. But my parents like they were brought up outside like in Europe, so he did his studies there so that’s why he had this open mind, yeah. (Gay Man from Rwanda, 3 years in Canada [P23])

It is also important to note that a unique form of familial protection was to help the child escape or support the queer flight. While some participants had decided on their own to flee the country, others were forced to flee by family members who wanted to protect the participant and/or other family members. Intolerable levels of abuse and violence, limited avenues to pursue justice, high levels of impunity, and lack of protection created the conditions that caused families to decide to support, and sometimes force, flight.

And this... I know that a good friend of mine, he came from our, our social group, his family abandoned him. He was fortunate to have had an uncle who helped him cope. He was one of those good uncles who came and visited him and brought him some food. And he had the excuse, “I can’t abandon the child.” He is the one who bribed the police to get him out – this uncle. But when he left the prison... he didn’t want him to come to his house. He’d rather look after him... away from the family to reduce the suspicion, and not to go around that he’s helping a sinful child. He had to send him abroad. (Gay Man from Uganda, 1 year in Canada [P16])

My older sister won a scholarship to come to Canada to go to school and married a Canadian and stayed there. One year she come home for Christmas and I think she could see I was struggling. She kept saying Canada will be better for someone like you. You will have more freedom in Canada. My sister helped me come to Canada. (Gay Man from Burundi, 6 years in Canada [P19])

She had a high-ranking job. My mother was able to pay for an agent to help me get out of the country. My mother knew that I could not stay here, and I would be killed. She paid a large amount of money for the passports and documents and the travel fees. This is the only way I was going to survive. There would be no future for me if I stayed… I miss my family, my country, but this was the only way. My mother sacrificed for my safety. (Lesbian from Sierra Leone, 9 months in Canada [P22])

Disruption of African Queer Zones

Queer African activism has created highly politicized spaces of resistance and defiance, which generate both subjective and social transformation. These politicized spaces emerge from

164 and are the consequences of cultural rejection and resistance to African heteronationalism and heteronormative agendas. They are the spaces of creation for a new politics of queer identity practiced in African contexts. The following findings relate directly to the dissertation research question of who queer Africans are, based on the spaces they are allowed to occupy. These findings also address my anchoring research question of how research participants negotiated security in their countries of origin and the research objective of how participants use these spaces to subvert oppression in their countries of origin (see Figure 2, p. 13). These spaces reflect the reality of the limited resources available to guarantee one’s protection and serve as evidence of the need for an urgent call to action. In this case, political creativity is identified as the need to create the conditions for a new “sexual disorientation” that upsets African conceptions of homosexuality and compulsory heterosexuality (Baril, 2012). Participants discussed the subversive ways that queer space was often created despite the conditions created by heteronationalism and heteronormative agendas:

I think what I need to bring up is a case that I read just the other day actually, it’s the Pride day back home, god bless. It was, in my view when I compare it to the Pride parade in Toronto it was a little gathering of friends, of close friends. 20 of your closest friends and they had it at I think it was a hotel room or somebody’s house and that’s how small it was, and it was strictly by invitation only and there was no press at all allowed. They had to have serious, serious security measures to make sure that they weren’t detected. (Lesbian from Botswana, 1 year in Canada [P4])

In my country? They have no space. They have no place to live. No place to stay. Not even within the family settings. We give it to you once they know that you are, you are gay. So, there is no place where you can hide. Even the laws within the system within the villages don’t allow it. The only way to be gay is to be in a relationship with a foreigner in your country. They are not policed and where they live are safe spaces to be gay. (Lesbian from Kenya, 3 years in Canada [P5])

I am a queer African researcher who originates from a country with one of the harshest penalties for homosexuality in the world, life imprisonment. For this reason, I am familiar with the practice of creating spaces to protect oneself from real risks to personal safety in an African context. These “queer zones” are defined as private spaces created first as social and sexual territories, which then, out of necessity, become spaces to obtain basic needs such as shelter,

165 food, healthcare, safety, and family connection. These queer zones take form, in my experience and in the experiences of participants, in people’s homes, supportive individual offices, university dorm rooms, foreign embassies, and makeshift bars or nightclubs, to name a few examples provided by participants.

When the borders of queer zones become compromised and the queer body can no longer be kept safe, the resulting forms of persecution, such as torture, arrest, imprisonment, extortion, rape, and death specifically because of one’s sexual orientation or gender identity, means that living with dignity is very difficult, if not impossible. As the borders of these zones are made insecure by the threat of sexual, physical, and psychological violence from agents or associates of the state, it is difficult for these zones to survive within unsupportive societal settings. When people are unable to fight against mainstream ideas of right and wrong, moral and immoral, legal and illegal, which place queer Africans against a supposed status quo, they grow exhausted. For many participants, fleeing is understood to be a deliberate strategy of survival (Massaquoi, 2019;

Ossome, 2013).

I was the president of the student union in my university, so I had the only key to the office. My partner and I could go there to be alone. (Gay Man from Uganda, 3 years in Canada [P10])

Every Fridays from 5pm we went to X’s house after work. You can buy drinks, food and dance to great music. His house basically became a gay club on Fridays, and he paid the neighbours to keep quiet and not call the police. If you got thrown out of your house you could stay there or if you did not have money someone would always buy your food, if you were sad someone would talk to you. It was a night club and social agency all in one. (Lesbian from Sierra Leone, 9 months in Canada [P22])

We have places where transvestites live and where they can get money by, cause most of them are the sex workers or hairdressers or tailors. They feel they can make good money, but they always have to live in the place which has been chosen for them. So sometimes, when straight homophobic people find out who they are and find out the place where the transvestites live, they just you know, appear the one day to beat them; to put fire on the place where they live. The same thing happened it Senegal, in Gambia, in wherever. (Gay Man from Ivory Coast, 3 years in Canada [P12])

Participants often discussed the reality that finances and access to finances could create safe zones for them to live, though not necessarily to live freely. For some families, it was expected

166 that the queer relative would financially support them as payment for the shame brought to the family. If this financial support was not available, participants were often cast out of the family.

There was consistent agreement among participants that the ability to contribute financially to the family created a queer safe zone of survival. Financial independence also facilitated the ability to move to more affluent communities where sexual orientation was not policed.

Well it’s the same thing um like in another African country but um in Ivory Coast, homosexuality and safety it’s a very complex situation, because it depends on where you live, on what you do, what kind of relationship you build with people; your neighbors, your friends, your colleague, your family, it depends. And when I say it depends, it’s always based on the financial situation. If you are gay and financially you can help your family, even if they don’t agree with the fact that you are gay, but the fact that you can help them you know financially, they don’t talk about your sexual orientation. (Gay Man from Ivory Coast, 1 year in Canada [P31])

When they, they like they are in a relationship with somebody who has a lot of money who can help them, help their family, then everything is okay; nobody talked about that. But if they can’t do anything for their family financially, then they just throw them out. So, most of the, the relationship would be it’s based on money. Being able to solve people’s problems financially it’s very important for a gay, an African, a gay African person, yeah. (Gay Man from Nigeria, 6 years in Canada [P24])

Um, in Nairobi, the cities, I would say Nairobi, Mombasa, um there are areas where it’s kind of accepted but there’s always uh, people still not that much for it. It’s uh, there are those who will live somewhat openly but, in those sections, but uh it depends. Yeah money helps, because um people see it more as uh rich persons thing because it comes from, it’s as if it comes from outside. So, you think maybe it’s the white man who’s bringing it and ah… I don’t know it looks more like I would say like a tourist kind of thing, so people who associate with that kind of, that way of life: tourism or where the foreign people are, uh people with money can live safely. Yeah, it’s more acceptable there and then if you have money you don’t have to think in terms of, what will people say at work? What will…? I mean you can do without them; you can choose how to live your life. (Lesbian from Kenya, 6 years in Canada [P17])

Like suburb like here, like in the Beaches, we have places like that in, in Ivory Coast. If you live in that place, in those kinds of place, it’s okay people won’t talk about that. But if you live in the place where like the middle class or the the lower class yes where the poorer class live, oh my god, people think they have the right to say and do everything they want to, you know? (Gay Man from Ivory Coast, 3 years in Canada [P12])

Before their forced migration, participants were negotiating the shrinking number of queer zones or safe spaces in their countries for queer citizens geographically and institutionally to exist. The situation was becoming more alarming, with the increasing of harsher penalties enshrined in legislation. For example, the Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Bill, signed into law on January

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7, 2014, by President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria is a sweeping and dangerous piece of legislation that criminalizes public displays of affection between same-sex couples and restricts the work of organizations defending gay people and their rights. It imposed a 10-year prison sentence on those who “directly or indirectly made [a] public show of [a] same-sex amorous relationship,” and anyone who “registers, operates, or participates in gay clubs, societies, and organizations,” including supporters of those groups (Human Rights Watch, 2016).

The imposition of such legislation had an immediate and direct impact on participants and their senses of safety and well-being:

We are hearing a lot of cases of people in the community feeling depressed and suicidal and not feeling safe using public facilities or even going out in public spaces. (Gay Man from Nigeria, 6 years in Canada [P24])

It’s um, It’s Lesbians and Gays and Bis of Nigeria. So, their work doesn’t go undetected, but it goes unnoticed, and I don’t know it’s just really unfair and mean to not even allow them to register their organization because they say it will be encouraging criminals together or criminal behaviour. So yeah, there’s no backing from the government at all because they feel like we’re criminals and they will not support criminals. And that’s fine, don’t support criminals but we’re human beings and there’s no crime in choosing who you love and how you love them. (Lesbian from Nigeria, 2 years in Canada [P34])

Due to these harsh penalties, a queer African life is less centered around specific neighbourhoods, buildings, clubs, and organizations. It is a life that, out of necessity and survival, becomes more abstract, subtle, and relational, and less tied to concrete geographical locations and spaces and public expression. This has to be negotiated even in death for the participants:

In my country you can’t even get a cemetery plot to be buried in if you are known to be gay. (Gay Man from Uganda, 3 years in Canada [P1])

Ayebazibwe (2020) asks us to consider queer death and the denial of burial in Africa as matters of unequal land rights, which are also critical to queer African life and economic well- being. It is connected to the discussion of African queer zones as we consider the loss of space within which to engage in acts of freedom. Land and economics are correlated with zones of intimacy for reciprocal care and belonging that should be important to the concerns of queer

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African life. The refusal to bury known queer citizens also creates a level of intimidation and fear with the highlighting of queer bodies as not worthy of respect or rights even in death. All aspects of queer African lives, from birth to death, have been stripped of dignity.

We now have to think about the marking of queer African moments wherever and however they can occur as opposed to relying on longstanding tangible spaces and events to support queer citizens. In the wake of extreme oppression and violence, queer Africans are often catapulted into a space of homelessness, both physical and psychological, in their countries of origin and become exiled refugees prior to flight from this persecution. In attempts to preserve selfhood, participants began the process of moving away from spaces of trauma in order to search for spaces of freedom and belonging long before making the flight to Canada.

Chapter 6 Flight and Becoming a Refugee

“Yeah it was worth coming because if I didn’t come, I would be dead by now. That’s for sure. Cause you don’t want to live a place where everybody hates you. You wanna feel like you sleep comfortable. At least you have hope like you are going to see tomorrow. That’s the thing. Canada is a good cause like it cares a lot about human rights regardless of where you came from or whatever, they’re just there for you.” — Gay Man from Burundi, 9 years in Canada (P15)

This chapter interrogates the conditions under which forced mobility occurs for queer

Africans and looks at the contradictions found in the spaces of forced immobility in which many

Africans find themselves. Participants discuss, with frankness, the myriad of ways in which they fled the oppressive conditions they were experiencing and offer reflections on how and why

Canada became their destination of choice. Kumsa’s (2006) concept of “dispersal-affinity” is deployed to give meaning to participants’ struggles with balancing the search for a new home and feelings of dislocation and displacement as they try to create a new subjectivity based on mobility towards refugee status in Canada. The findings point to the idea that the development of refugee status and resulting subjectivity disrupts the rigidness of “the refugee,” understanding that a person can feel both exiled at home and at home in exile.

This chapter, thus, also details how queer Africans define the concept of the refugee and when they chose to take on this identity. Given that queer African refugees making up a large percentage of SOGI claimants in Canada, this chapter offers a vital understanding of their unique experiences with the Canadian refugee process. The data in this chapter details tensions experienced through such an identity while one is trying to navigate the Canadian refugee apparatus successfully and construct an “authentic queer refugee” subjectivity that will be considered recognizable and credible by decision-makers.

My foundational research question—how do queer African refugees come to know themselves and negotiate their identities and security between nations?—is directly addressed in the findings of Chapter Six, as are the following sub-questions: How do queer African identities

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170 develop, shift, and transform as they cross geographic borders? And how are these queer identities realigned and reimagined in relation to geographic positioning and the immigration apparatus? I argue that the detailed accounts offered by research participants, in explaining how they became refugees and how they embody refugee subjectivity through the Canadian refugee apparatus, provide a deeper understanding of queer African refugees by adding to understandings of who they were before forced migration, which was detailed in the previous chapter.

Queer African Flight

In her 2019 exhibit “What Does Forced Immobility Look and Feel Like: Being Young and Defiant in Eritrea,” sociologist Laura Bisaillon problematized how cultural, political, and spatial boundaries produce tensions for would-be emigrants and their families when state- sanctioned immobility is the order of the day. She asks us to reflect critically on the lived experiences of forced migrants and on what social violence and suffering the situation produces.

I reflect on these questions when I view this reality through an intersectional lens, with sexual orientation and gender identity centralized. The queer African refugee occupies a space where forced immobility, mobility, and exile collide (Bisaillon, Montange, Zambenedetti, Frasca, El-

Shamy, & Arviv, 2019; Stock, 2016).

The ability to leave African countries when one desires is a luxury not experienced by many. The curtailment of movement and flight due to lack of financial resources, government restrictions, challenges in obtaining visas, and lack of foreign embassies in some African countries make mobility further unobtainable. There are also the actions of countries such as

Canada, which has joined the global trend of tightening restrictions on movement across borders and increasing the criminalization of asylum-seekers through detention and deportation. This makes flight almost impossible for those who are in a position where personal safety has been compromised. The participants were very candid in our conversations when they recalled how they used any means available to them to flee their circumstances, including assistance from foreign NGOs, family, underground networks, and sheer ingenuity.

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Human Rights Watch was able to help me get travel documents to flee Senegal. After my home was ransacked by the police, they took all of my ID, so I was unable to apply for a visa to leave the country. Human Rights Watch petitioned government leaders of embassies in my country on my behalf until someone came forward to help which was Canada. (Gay Man from Senegal, 1 year in Canada [P2])

But many Africans can’t get here without visas and to get a visa you have, you have to have money... you have to have a certain amount of money; Your family needs to be able to help you with money and letter, you have to show that you have a reason to go back otherwise you won’t get a visa. You either had to bribe or buy your stuff, but even then, that means that you need to have money to be able to bribe somebody, right? (Lesbian from Swaziland, 1 year in Canada [P8])

So, we looked into it, but because in Uganda, it’s hard to get visas, I said, “Oh, I have my money. But my bank statement is not strong to convince the consular.” That’s when I pretended to be a nun. It will help me to get the visa. Because they can’t ask me anything because nuns don’t own anything. But before I got the visa, I had to wear like a nun you know you have to cover over the head. Even I had to change the way I walk. Even I used to change the way I had to talk. I was stressed and depressed, but I forced myself to smile because nuns smile to everyone. So, I took my forms, application forms for the visa, and my passport to Canadian consulate in Uganda. And they welcome me, and they said, “Ok, give us your (??).” Check everything. Forms, everything was perfect. And then they said, “Ok, come back after two weeks, then they, they gonna send it to Nairobi. They will get your information after... after one month.” And then... in one month, I got the visa. (Lesbian from Uganda, 2 years in Canada [P6])

Why Canada?

The latest UN global trends report on forced displacement highlights that Canada admitted the largest number of refugees for resettlement and had the second-highest rate of refugees who became Canadian citizens in 2018 (United Nations High Commissioner for

Refugees, 2019). Both statistics refer to those individuals who were declared refugees before arriving at Canadian borders. The granting of citizenship is an ultimate marker of refugee integration and success within a nation-state. Canada’s approach to refugee integration is said to work since it is one of few Western countries which offers citizenship and welcomes refugees to become fully protected and full participants in Canadian society. The possibility of permanent security makes Canada an appealing destination for queer African refugees who are searching for both safety and home. While some participants were unable to personally choose the country they were fleeing to, for those who actively chose Canada, they were asked to reflect on why.

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Well, I mean it’s kinda clear, Canada is one of the very few countries that have very clearly outspoken policies around queer rights, LGBT rights. The fact that they have same-sex marriage, everybody knows it in the world now and it makes a big difference. The fact that Canada takes refugees and immigrants and they have a clear refugee process and one of the criteria to claim refugee, although it’s not pronounced literally but it is a LGBT issues, sexual orientation is one of the criteria that is considered, so and people know that. So, I guess that’s, that’s it. I mean the other options in the world are the US, which is much more difficult to go into, Europe, which is almost closed and treatment of refugees is not as much, is not as great... I mean Canada despite all the shortfalls the system and the way refugees are treated and what they get when they come into that is, is much better than most... most countries in the world. (Lesbian from Kenya, 3 years in Canada [P5])

On a personal level... I would say that I chose Canada because it gives me distance from where I come from and a degree of distance that would create a sense of safety. I think we have to, for the Africans that are coming now voluntarily, the distance is a safety measure. (Lesbian from Swaziland, 1 year in Canada [P9])

The internet and all these other things have allowed us to come together. People who live in isolated places and spaces can see the Pride Parades in Toronto, in Paris, in San Francisco they can see how as gay and lesbians and bi and trans and as queer people in the developed world can live. And so what I see is that our sisters and brothers in Africa are seeing the potential as queer people by looking at examples outside of Africa and saying why not us? (Transman from Kenya, 6 years in Canada [P28])

I had cousins who are here… And then they used to come to Burundi for holidays and they talk about how it nice it is how like the way they were living and then uh when my dad passed away in ninety-nine, I needed a change, I needed to come out and live my life that’s when I decided to come here. (Gay Man from Burundi, 6 years in Canada [P15])

Well, I choose Canada because Canada is a multicultured country, and... in Canada, I, I thought before that that’s the country where I can enjoy my rights as a lesbian. Yeah, because I knew that in Europe, and in North America... there are rights for homosexuals. And then I wanted Canada because Canada is a... mm... multicultured country. They never... had war in Canada that Canada is fighting against another country. And Canada allows good people. I’m a good person, I’m a professional beautician I did hairdressing and cosmetology, and I did exterior and interior designing, so... Yeah. I thought that if I come to Canada, at least when I have my rights as a lesbian, it’s not going to be hard for me to... to do my profession. And it’s an English-speaking country. I can speak English, so I won’t find it hard like... going to Sweden... going to Norway. (Lesbian from Uganda, 2 years in Canada [P6])

There is also a growing narrative that holds up those refugees who enter Canada through the private sponsorship program, which accounts for two-thirds of Canada’s resettled refugees. It is felt that the offering of community-based supports that come directly from citizens and charitable organizations will ensure that refugees who arrive through this program achieve better outcomes and become better-integrated into their communities over the traditional government-

173 sponsored refugees. A hierarchy is created, where the “good, obedient” refugee is one who waits patiently in a refugee camp for approval to enter Canada, once they are supported by “good”

Canadian citizens. In contrast, the “problematic, bad” refugee is one who shows up at our borders unannounced and unexpected, demanding their rights before they are entitled. The latter is portrayed by conservatives as a threat to our sovereignty while the former is someone seen to be deserving and in need of our benevolence.

In the post-9/11 era, nation-states such as Canada have exhibited increasing suspicion toward racialized subjects, particularly refugees. This is evidenced by increased regulation, securitization, and policing at Canadian borders (Fernando & Rinaldi, 2017; Puar, 2007). The queer African refugee often does not have the luxury of playing the role of “good, obedient” refugee in the struggle for survival, and some participants thus turned to black and grey markets to assist them in securing an opportunity to cross the Canadian border.

My mother and father bought the ticket to come to Canada because they thought it would be a safe place. I did not have any choice in the matter. I came with everything I needed to make the refugee claim. Mmhmm. My medical, police records, my Basis of Claim Form for my country. Mmhmm. So, they took that at the airport. I came with everything. Written. Yeah. The, the agent prepared all of that... help us buy the tickets and stuff like that... they tell us about Canada, and how to get protection there. But they don’t talk about homosexuality... homosexuality is forbidden in my country. They do everything for you. All the papers. (Lesbian from Swaziland, 1 year in Canada [P8])

So, I was really, really struggling. So, I started saving up. And then in April, I went to, to see this guy, and I told him, “Ok, I have the money now. So... can we start the process?” We started the process. Then in... in late August, I travelled to South Africa. To... to see some guy who was going to give me... a letter, a passport and a visitor visa that... I’ll go to Canada as, as a... as for a conference. But then he said, “It’s, it’s very tricky though. They might turn me back...if, if you don’t have a strong reason why you want to go there.” When I arrived here, I actually had papers like I’m going to a meeting. Where I stayed two weeks then go back. So this guy, this guy he is actually helping people come here and then he would make... papers like... you come into a function that is here in Toronto. And those papers are real papers, like the function is there. He’ll book in the hotel. And... those papers were real. Like going to the... conference, and then the bed’s being paid for and everything. When I reached the airport, they asked, “Where are you going?” I had mastered everything because they gave me a copy of it. So they asked me and I told them I’m going there for a seminar blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they said, “Oh ok. How much money do you have?” And, yeah I had pocket money, so I had... two thousand dollars. And they said, “Oh ok. Because you will be staying for two weeks and your hotel has been paid for, and you are going to a seminar where food is served. So, it’s

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ok. You can have it.” And I came in. (Lesbian from Swaziland, 1 year in Canada [P9])

According to de Haas (2014), mobility is a person’s freedom to choose where they would like to build their lives and existence. The ability to seek out and chose this space is a fundamental human right. When one is deprived of this right, they lose an essential component of their subjectivity and autonomy. This inability to not only move freely but also move to safety had direct consequences on participants’ socioeconomic, physical, and mental well-being (Fasetta et al., 2017).

I went to the best schools in my country, I come from a good family, I had access to everything good in my country, then why was I living on the streets, homeless with no job, no family, no friends just because I am gay. (Gay Man from Ghana, 3 years in Canada [P13])

I did not try to choose to come to Canada. I was faced with a lot of stress. I had been identified as a target and um… it had become so risky… so risky for me. I was in hiding. For long time. From a… for about three months. Four months… In my country. Because… lots of things happened and I… had to leave the village where I was. And I was targeted. And I lived under cover going back home late in the night. Wake up very early in the morning before anybody can wake up to see you. things like that. For a long time, I never use to sleep. So, I was... I had become so depressed before I finally left. (Gay Man from Uganda, 2 years in Canada [P29])

Disruption, Dislocation and Displacement

The dislocation and displacement of queer African refugees in Canada is first precipitated by the violent disruption of social ties, followed by a violent expulsion and hurling of the queer

African body into global space. To make sense of this, I borrow from Kumsa’s (2006) concept of dispersal-affinity, where queer African refugees are simultaneously balancing flight and the search for home while resisting disruption, dislocation, and displacement. Participants expressed not just searching for safety but also trying to rebuild broken social ties, create a sense of belonging, and form a new subjectivity based on mobility towards something new and unknown.

When my brother betrayed me, and mother did not accept me, and my father rejected me I thought I had lost everything but being forced to come Canada has been hard because I have now physically lost them all completely. I don’t know who I am or who I will become. (Lesbian from Ethiopia, 1 year in Canada [P14])

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According to Kumsa (2006), the participants’ experiences of oppression and violence within their countries of origin challenge fundamental assumptions of how “the refugee” is defined and when one takes on this identity. Queer African refugees are often citizens who have been excised from their own families, communities, and countries as unwanted, and it is in this environment that participants struggled to create a sense of security, reality, and subjectivity within the context of insecurity and fear.

Hmm. Uganda is a hell. It’s a hell Notisha. Can you imagine suffering in your own country? As if you are not a citizen there. Sometime your regret the day where you’re born. Sometimes I think that’s why some people like... if you are not a strong person, I think that’s how people commit suicide. Yeah. You can be depressed, depressed and then, you know, you don’t know today, today you are living, but tomorrow, you don’t know what can happen. I said I’m not going to kill myself. If the government wants to kill me, it will kill me and die like a hero. Like a lesbian. Always. I want to be buried somewhere. And if I’m announced that I’m a lesbian, who was killed. I want to be somewhere so that other people, generations, can remember that a woman, [participant’s name] was a lesbian, and she was killed, and she was buried there. (Lesbian from Uganda, 2 years in Canada [P6])

The refugee experience is an intricate process involving both loss and rebuilding, with the loss occurring throughout most aspects of the refugee’s life. There is a continuous adjustment to losses endured and traumas suffered, including upheaval, flight, temporary living situations, and resettlement. Suarez (2016) asks us to be mindful of the labels we attribute to normal responses to such extraordinary experiences and emphasizes they require further exploration of local definitions, explanations, and practices. Diasporic marginalization further amplifies what many refugees experience while settling in Canada. There is a sense of alienation and liminality upon arrival; however, these feelings of marginalization and liminality do not merely begin upon entry into the new country but, rather, are associated with turmoil experienced in countries of origin before arrival and are ongoing during the process of seeking refugee status and settlement.

Winmark (2019) describes queer refugee liminality as the timeframe between losing one’s home

(country) and creating a new home (country), since queer refugees find it difficult to find belonging that fully embraces them in either location.

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I was reading in the newspaper that a a boy was being teased at school for being gay and hung himself, he was 12 years old. I was shocked to read that it happened here with all of the laws. I thought I left that in Africa, but maybe it explains why I still feel depressed about being gay now that I am here. (Lesbian from Ethiopia, 8 months in Canada [P28])

You don’t just start living a gay life because you moved to another country. You have to unlearn everything you have experienced at home and learn a new way of living in a new country. (Gay Man from Ghana, 3 years in Canada [P13])

Oh dear. Oh dear. First and foremost, you lose everything that you have back home… you start from scratch. Number two. After being traumatized from the experience back home, there’s this trauma that comes in when you’re here, when you get frustrated. They send you here, they send you there, they send you here, they send you there. They keep asking the same questions, everywhere, somehow it affects you psychologically. I never used to sleep for almost six months… I had sleepless nights since I go through this. What am I into? I was like maybe, probably if I was dead from home I would not even experience this. It hurt me… disorganize me a lot when I was here for the first, I think six months. (Gay Man from Kenya, 1 year in Canada [P32])

When I Think of Place, I Think of Home

Very often, as diasporic subjects, we feel so dissatisfied and disillusioned by the injustices we face in our new locales and the challenges of the settlement process, that we turn our diasporic gaze back to the country of origin. This gaze is most often romanticized and uncritical, and the concept of home is cultivated with a vengeance (Okpewho, 2009). We cultivate Africa, for example, in total ignorance of the realities of the queer subjects living there, or we cultivate an idealized home that has absolutely nothing to do with history, or we visualize home as one that has not changed since we left, which could be either good or bad, depending on our circumstances of departure. It is this hunger for romanticized knowledge and intimacy with the home country that leaves the lives of queer Africans in an unstable position. Their lives disrupt romantic notions of home and the possibility of return, and they also force one to consider the inhospitable environment of the new host country to be home. Their lives point to the reality that feeling disenfranchised in the diaspora can be painful, but the politics of dreaming of home, which has been a core coping mechanism for diasporic subjects, can no longer be a remedy for grief and loss without a commitment to challenging current conditions for queer citizens.

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So I had a very bad feeling about myself, thinking that I left all my friends to save myself but I had the feeling that I did something wrong. Yeah and I was worried about that how I was questioning myself every day. Is it a good decision you took? Is it? I mean I was so it was a mixture of feelings actually and I remember one day that okay I think I should go back. (Gay Man from Senegal, 1 year in Canada [P2])

But you know the thing is, the thing is taking so so long cause like, I don’t think the separation helps a lot cause of lately I’ve been so stressed out because like sometime I talk to my daughter on the phone, she’s like, “Why are doing this to me?” But it’s not my wish, what am I going to do? Some days a really miss home and just want to go back there? I know I can’t. (Lesbian from Uganda, 2 years in Canada [P7])

I am sure everyone loves their country as much as I do. I want to live in my country. I was trying to do something to make to make it the kind of place that would accept people like me. Maybe I won’t enjoy it here and I will go back. (Lesbian from Senegal, 1 year in Canada [P35])

I borrow from Said (2000) when I say that an exploration of queer African refugees must look at the notion of always feeling “out of place” in both the old home and the new one. Ahmed

(2011) reiterates this idea through the notion that everyday and institutional spaces are saturated by racism, which affectively renders an ethnic minority “out of place.” Queer African refugees are regarded and treated as not properly queer or Canadian—they are “out of place” insofar as they do not yet belong to Canadian queer communities upon arrival. Ong (2006) also explores the idea that adjusting to a new life in North America is not about mastering the domains of employment, housing, education, and so forth, but rather, it is about figuring out the rules of coping, navigating, and surviving. Queer African refugees challenge fundamental assumptions of how “the refugee” is defined and disrupt the rigidness of the definition of “the refugee,” understanding that a person can feel both exiled at home and at home in exile (Kumsa, 2006).

Africans Matter

According to Rehaag (2017), there were 2,371 refugee claims based on sexual orientation between 2013 and 2015 in Canada, comprising over 12 percent of all claims during that period.

This is a significant proportion of the cases in the Canadian refugee determination process. This study is one of few which have been able to put a statistical skeleton onto the poignant individual stories of queer Africans struggling to escape violence using any means necessary to reach

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Canadian borders. Of total claims, 1,102 (46%) originated from African source countries. Of these, 67 percent of queer African refugee cases werre successful, with those from Burundi having the highest granting rate (81%) and those from Guinea having the lowest (48.5%).

Nigeria produced the highest number of cases at 469, with a 62.9 percent success rate.

Statistically speaking, Africa and Africans matter significantly in the discussion of queer refugees and the Canadian refugee determination process. In a refugee system where decision- makers impose the burden of proof onto the refugee claimant, who must present themselves as being recognizably queer according to homonationalist30 interpretations of queerness (Fernando

& Rinaldi, 2017), there is an urgency to develop a clear understanding of what that burden entails for queer African refugees who make up a significant portion of claimants in Canada.

It is commonly agreed that SOGI refugee asylum claims are hard to verify and validate, as queer claimants are an invisible minority, having no formal membership or specific physical appearance to prove their identity. This presents a challenge for decision-makers and results in an unpredictable experience for queer refugee claimants. SOGI refugee claims are among the most challenging cases the Immigration and Refugee Board is called upon to decide (Jordan &

Morrissey, 2013; Kinsman & Gentile, 2010). There is a long history of decision-makers drawing on problematic stereotypes to make such decisions, especially in determining whether claimants are “really” queer. Homonationalism complicates constructions of refugeeness,31 with constructs of queer African refugees considerably distanced from the reality of that experience, often due to the post-9/11 environment where they are seen not as refugees in need of help but rather as foreigners to be feared (Puar, 2007).

30 The term “homonationalist,” coined by Jasbir Puar, refers to a nationally recognized version of homosexuality, predicated on “the segregation and disqualification of racial and sexual others from the national imaginary” (2007, p. 2). 31 “Refugeeness,” or the construction and experience of the refugee, is a term coined by Marie Lacroix (2004) to capture the moment of crisis that is the refugee’s experience of being in legal limbo in terms of work, family, and the state.

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The prevailing discourse of the Canadian refugee apparatus is one of “authentic queer refugeeness,” an attribute attached to persons who are socially, politically, and legally organized in ways that conform to white Western ideals, steeped in settler colonial interpretations of what belonging to a Canadian queer community means. With queer African refugees making up a large percentage of claimants, we see the need to understand tensions experienced by such an identity trying to navigate the Canadian refugee apparatus successfully. This tension is most evident for the queer African refugee, one of the most invisible categories of refugees.

Gay African refugees are both the easiest cases and the hardest at the same time. In terms of proving that their life will be in danger if returned home and that they are in need of protection in Canada – that’s easy. The laws, public statements by Presidents, governments and religious leaders are quite easy to obtain. Human rights organizations have also compiled enormous amounts of support info to help us… Proving that they belong to an oppressed group, i.e., that they are in fact gay, is the difficult part. They have spent their entire lives carefully hiding their identity so they come with no pictures, letters, evidence of living with partners, no friends, family or lovers who are willing to testify or send statements on their behalf, they do not belong to gay groups or associations publicly... there is no evidence. They of all my clients have effectively erased this whole part of their lives from public view. (Canadian Immigration Lawyer [Key Informant 4])

So that that’s explained, so definitely when you get for example, I get a claim from Mexico let’s say, a lesbian-Mexican claim it’s much more better documented. It’s you know she’s got pictures, when she comes here she joins the, the Latin-American you know lesbian group and she’s like being a part of HOLA and gets a letter from HOLA and she’s got photographs of going to gay Pride day and it’s a lot easier for her to be able to prove. She can basically walk in and have it determined that she is a lesbian. Whereas, refugees coming from Continental Africa are so used to hiding their sexuality and they’re so good at it that it works against them. And their lack, their inability to come out and the fact that they are monitoring their own life to make sure that they are not revealing any signs of their sexuality actually works against them when it comes to proving that they are, who they are? (Canadian Immigration Lawyer [Key Informant 1])

Say It Loud: The Claiming of Refugee Identities

A queer African can reach a Canadian border and file a refugee claim upon arrival, but they do not become a protected refugee until they support that claim at a hearing and receive a favorable ruling from the refugee board (Luker, 2015). It is estimated that the current wait time is between 21 and 24 months for a hearing, during which time the claimant’s life rests in limbo.

Queer Africans most often do not arrive at Canadian borders with a clear understanding of

180 themselves as refugees and all that identity entails, nor do they understand themselves or recognize and identify with sexual minority identities as they are defined and organized in

Canada for refugee protection purposes.

Then I tell him, Ok. I’m here, I’m new, and I have come to stay here. Then he said you can’t stay here. Except if you are a citizen or if you’ve entered the program either as a refugee, or as a landed immigrant. I told him what do you mean by refugee? I never thought of being a refugee in my life. I’m not here to become a refugee, because… In Africa… back home, being a refugee is something that you can’t associate with. So, he told me that, why did you come then I started explaining and all that. …that I was running from police and fearing to be killed and all that. Then he said, so you are a refugee. I didn’t tell him about my sexual orientation. All I told him was, I was running from police and the local authorities… they are hunting for me… They wanted to kill me. Then he said, so you are a refugee. Then he said, tomorrow morning, you’ll go and declare yourself and seek for protection. (Gay Man from Uganda, 3 years in Canada [P1])

Seeking protection behind Canadian borders, however, requires one to quickly occupy such an identity and role because the individual’s ability to remain within these borders is dependent on the ability to execute a performance deemed worthy of this title (Murray, 2016). Refugee identity is not a stable category that one inhabits, and it requires reflection on the political, cultural, and historical conditions one was exposed to in their country of origin and their subsequent relationship to Canada. It is the refugee claimant’s ability to perform this identity in a recognizable, credible manner that creates the refugee subject (Luker, 2015). As Murray (2016) argues, the refugee apparatus is contributing to the production of new permutations of queer refugee subjectivity. These permutations are based on a limiting and normative narrative of same-sex sexual citizenship and national belonging, which includes some migrant bodies but excludes many others. These permutations underscore the narratives queer African refugee claimants must enact in order to qualify for refugee protection.

So [pause] the only thing is with Canada, many African people who don’t understand. When people are writing... when people are writing their personal statements... Canada always wants I, I, I, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Persecution. People don’t seem to understand that. They write their statements in a reporting form. When you are going to write it in a reporting form, you don’t look credible. Straight away. Somebody will assume this is not your story ’cause you’re reporting. So that’s how I’m helping some of my friends prepare their cases. (Lesbian from Nigeria, 2 years in Canada [P34])

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The primary form of evidence in a refugee hearing is oral testimony based on previously submitted written narratives and supporting documents as further evidence. The primary form of direct evidence made available to decision-makers is what the queer African writes and says about their life and their persecution in their country of origin. The applicant’s written statements take the form of first-person life narratives, through which they must attempt to condense their life story from birth until flight, demonstrating why they fear persecution if they were to return to their country of origin. These narratives must be flawlessly performed, orally and without error, during the refugee hearing, which also includes the ability to answer questions publicly under duress during the hearing. The applicant must support the credibility of the refugee claim through the performance of refugeeness (Luker, 2015; Murray, 2016). It is not merely about the written truth contained in the claimant narrative but also about the ability of the claimant to perform this refugee truthfulness, embody this truthfulness in appearance, and represent this truthfulness through performance delivery in a manner that creates recognizable meaning for the decision-makers. These decision-makers are required to assess whether the applicant’s account is credible, sufficiently coherent, and consistent with their written narratives and other supporting documents.

The first written narrative is produced when the queer African successfully crosses a

Canadian border and makes the refugee claim. For participants, this has usually occurred before understanding that they have a right to access legal counsel. Participants in this study also explained that they had minimal supports to confidently assist them in presenting themselves to an Immigration office to make the refugee claim. Very few participants arrived at Canadian borders with sufficient knowledge to make a refugee claim. Most participants learned of the option to seek refugee protection only after living in Canada for some time on a visitor’s visa, seeking refugee options when the visa was close to or had already expired.

For participants, this first written narrative and interview was often the most unreliable statement produced for queer African refugees, since many were not aware of the refugee

182 process, and they were afraid to reveal the true stories of their persecution, not understanding how these documents from the beginning of their refugee process would be later utilized.

Participants still carried the same fear level as they did before fleeing their countries and, upon arrival, had received no indication that they were in the space of safety. In situations where participants had fled in the context of violence perpetrated by police, military, and government officials, this increased distress when participants were expected to reveal, often for the first time, the reason why they were seeking refugee status. “On what grounds?” was the question they were asked by an anonymous citizenship and immigration officer, who represented a feared government official for participants.

Going to the CIC office, um, it was, it was scary. It um, because um you know, it’s always scary dealing with government officials and stuff like that so I was kind of scared you know. Wondering okay are they going to detain me… (laugh)… cause of course they’re record… while I’m talking to, to the officer she’s there writing down everything I’m saying… you know, so I’m sure that at some point if I say something that is con… contradictory contradictory it could, it could come back. So that, that was kind of scary, so you are making sure everything… and you say everything cautiously. You are under a lot of pressure trying to decide, do I tell them or are they safe to talk to and will they tell my government. (Lesbian from Rwanda, 6 months in Canada [P21])

You’re here and you don’t know how you’re going to manage to stay. You may have a sense that you’re able to claim your asylum based on sexual orientation, but you are afraid. You know that Canada protects LGBTQ people from discrimination, but you are not sure that just by knocking at the door at Citizenship and Immigration Canada you’re going to be treated fairly. You are perhaps not used to saying I’m a... I’m a trans, gay or a lesbian person and so there’s all these barriers… you could certainly use some good counseling before that first appointment. (Transwoman from Nigeria, 4 years in Canada [P18])

Oh it, it was kind of scary when I was going. But when I reached there, they ask me for my name and then for my fingerprints, and that was it. It was not a, like a scary kind of interview, but when you are going, you get scared. You don’t know what to say or how to answer the questions. I could not say the words gay to a stranger I was scared. Because... now I have an interview there. So, it was kind of scary at the moment in the first place, but when I went there, I did what they told me, and I was calm afterwards. (Lesbian from Sierra Leone, 9 months in Canada [P22])

I was scared to death because I thought, now I’m here. What if I’m taken back on the next flight back to Uganda? I was very scared. Yeah. So of course, I was scared. I remember when the lady was interviewing me in the room, I almost felt like I wanted the ground to just swallow me. Because I’ve never been interrogated before. I’ve never been before somebody like interrogating me, testing me, why, what’s happening to you, and all that. Because in my country when new refugees they come, and then they just stay. But

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it’s not like, first come, and then you declare yourself like here. And then you have to go through a process. It’s not like a mandate. It’s not mandatory. Cause this is the first time you’re going to tell a stranger about who you are. I was shaking. Some, some of the things I said I don’t remember because some of the things I said, I said them because of fear. (Gay Man from Burundi, 9 years in Canada [P15])

Millbank (2002) contends that internalized shame and disgrace is particularly intense for queer refugees since their experiences of discrimination and stigmatization have persisted without opportunity for the development of coping mechanisms or assistance to deal with the emotional trauma. The ability to report on accounts of persecution they have faced will not be forthcoming if one is not sufficiently empowered to voice those abuses (Hersh, 2017). The homophobic or transphobic violence and complex trauma histories associated with SOGI persecution are the both reasons for the refugee claim and also precisely the same conditions that undermine the claimant’s ability to produce a coherent narrative. Jordan (2009) discusses the psychological barriers for queer refugees when attempting to produce narratives and successful refugee interviews. Emotional distancing and numbing are typical coping responses, and when coupled with ongoing depressed mood, they result in vague, overly general personal narrative statements that are not seen to be credible by decision-makers.

There’s the issue of trauma that you may have experience around this... lesbian woman who was forced into marriage and has been in marriage for a number of years undergoing marital rape for a number of years, imagine what this does to you as a person psychologically and emotionally and then you may have been discovered having the very first same-sex relationship and that’s the reason why you had to flee and then you come here traumatized and you are expected to repeat and share this story over and over so that you can get the services you need and prepare for your refugee claim. And because of your sexuality, because you grew up in an environment that constantly told you that you are unworthy, that you are... you know despicable you come here and file your claim in a way that minimizes your traumatic experience and this creates an issue of credibility. (Canadian Immigration Lawyer [Key Informant 1])

It is challenging to articulate queer persecution when lived experiences have been steeped in compulsory heteronormativity, which censors and renders homosexuality invisible in all of its manifestations. Under these conditions, one has primarily lived in a zone of shame and exclusion, learning not to manifest behaviours or speak in a manner that will attract unwanted attention to your sexual orientation or gender identity (Hersh, 2017). Those participants who

184 were made to feel safe and welcomed by the staff at CIC offices, legal counsel, or service agencies were the ones who were able to effectively begin the process of constructing the

“authentic queer refugee” subjectivity.

My lawyer, when he was making my statement, he saw something. He saw something. You see, only gay person can pick that up. And he said, “[participant’s name] what do you mean by that?” I was so shy; I didn’t even want to talk about it. People are quick to read those things here. And then, he assured me that, “Oh, [participant’s name], you don’t have to be shy for something like that. I’m gay myself. Take your time.” And stuff like that, and I said... now when he told me that, I opened up. He said, “[Participant’s name], this is the kind of information that can help your case.” “I didn’t want to kind of bring shame to the family.” Which he understood. And of course, by the time I was finished explaining things we had written the statement. I was like new in the country. I hadn’t met anybody to tell me what you can say. (Gay Man from Uganda, 3 years in Canada [P10])

And then I waited for my interview. At first, I didn’t tell the strangers that I’m a lesbian because I wasn’t sure that she would like me. What if it’s the homophobic? There are some homophobic people here. But I didn’t want to say that. Because if she’s a homophobic... maybe she won’t help me. Because you don’t know that. I don’t know them. But I gained my strength thinking that this is immigration offices. They accept all cases of immigrants, refugee claimants. So, I, I gained my strength. I said, “If they are professionals, they’re educated people, they’re going to listen to my case.” And I told them I’m a lesbian. Yes. I’m a lesbian. Because I have gained my strength as a lesbian. I have to live as a lesbian, and I don’t have to hide it anymore. But I want to find some help. If they want to help me, they will help me. If they don’t want to help me, then I have to find another solution. But they helped me. It was my first time telling anyone I was a lesbian. (Lesbian from Uganda, 1 years in Canada [P27])

Many refugees flee societies that have subjected them to severe and gruesome forms of state-sanctioned violence, but unlike most other types of refugee claimants, people experience sexual orientation or gender identity persecution individually, in relative isolation. To survive stigma and violence, people learn to deny, cover, or hide their sexuality or gender identity. These survival tactics, along with other impacts of trauma, do not disappear upon their departure from their country of origin. When this is coupled with a Canadian refugee system aiming to keep people out through queer exclusion, the former survival strategies undermine one’s ability to navigate the Canadian refugee system equitably and successfully.

You know you come from a country where they don’t talk about it at all and once you’re gay, you’re not normal and you’re scared of like the authorities. So, I wouldn’t even think about it or do anything to show it. I would stay very far away from anyone I thought was gay even though I myself was gay. (Gay Man from Uganda, 3 years in Canada [P1])

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…they are actually asking a lot of people making this claim, so for some people for the first time they’re going to put on paper and verbalize something that they have never been able to speak about before openly... just in my own experience with working with, with African gays and lesbians, they didn’t have the language when they came, the LGBT language and then... they... I want to say they weren’t anticipated and when I say that I mean no one is expecting this African person to say that they are gay, cause there’s such limited experience that people have with gay people who also claim to be Continental African. So, unless they speak up no one is going to ask them or make it comfortable for them to disclose this in the initial filing process. So, they don’t fit the Western stereotype and then they also don’t fit the immigrant stereotype. Immigrants from Africa aren’t gay. (Canadian Immigration Lawyer [Key Informant 4])

After the refugee claim is filed, claimants are required to complete a form—the Personal

Information Form (PIF) for those claimants who filed refugee claims before 2012, or the Basis of

Claim Form (BOC) for those who filed after. Both form names appear in my research findings, depending on when the participant’s refugee claim was filed. This document forms the basis of the narrative through which the queer African refugee is constructed. It is through the perfecting of refugee norms and documenting them in this format that the process of queer refugee recognition begins to be established. Viewed as a performative act, the creation of queer refugee subjectivity emerges as a result of the repetition of tropes about queer refugeeness that are based on the narrative contained in the Basis of Claim, which functions to legitimate and bring credibility to certain representations as evidence of the need for protection.

Oh lord. What a palaver. That was so… and the thing that made me super cautious was that they give you like 28 days to fill it out it’s like, right, this is my life story on a couple of pages and construct and deconstruct and reconstruct in 28 days. How am I going to do that? What’s important? What’s not important? Everything that you go through in your life is important to you know what I mean? And it’s just like figuring out what to say, what not to say, how to say it, you know, you got so many things to think about you know it’s like trying to drive, for me, that’s just such a mission. You got the brakes, and the controls and the steering wheel and the mirrors, all the 7 million mirrors and you have to look at… It just felt like that. It just felt like there was so much to do in such a little space and time. And everything was important. Everything was a number one priority. You have to get the dates right, you have to get the times right, you have to get the people’s names right, you have to get everything you did in the order that it happened. And I mean like come on, honestly… Life doesn’t work that way. Seriously, unless you write a diary of every second of everyday that’s not going to happen. And you know those forms are pretty complex and complicated and very, very, very detailed. I just think what purpose they serve. I know it’s about credibility, and you know, making sure they get all the facts right and all of that stuff but in the grand scheme of things if somebody’s life is in danger, somebody’s life is in danger, irrespective of whether or not they include

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minor details into their story. It’s like, okay send me back home and I will be put in prison, or I will die, or I’ll be beaten to death, choose either way but you know it’s not going to be nice. And is the date that something happened really that significant to have my life hanging in limbo or hanging in a thread just because of one date? (Lesbian from Botswana, 1 year in Canada [P4])

The Basis of Claim is the most effective way for claimants to substantiate their fears of persecution. Your testimony of persecution, if presumed to be accurate, may suffice to establish an objective basis to be grant refugee status. The decision-makers may also rely on information concerning the treatment of similarly situated persons to determine the seriousness of the harm alleged, but it is the strength of your testimony that makes your case (Hersh, 2017). Due to the importance of the Basis of Claim, Key Informant lawyers discussed having to be excessively firm with clients in order to guarantee success, while participants discussed the tensions that erupted when they felt pressured to construct and reconstruct their lives into a narrative that could hold its weight in the Canadian refugee process.

He told me to write the story and I wrote it. I wrote the first, it was just one page… and he looked at it and said, what is this?... is this your whole life? In one page… you know when you are summarizing your life… you know, I left a little… I did not know… I don’t know how to write about those things… and they only gave me I think twenty-eight days to submit that PIF and during that time, you are confused, you are sleepless. You are restless… so many things are happening, so… he told me, care about what you are writing, care about your life everything that you can remember about your life… Then I went back and started writing everything… everything. Up to the day I came here. It was a huge document and we started editing with him. He was asking so many questions. I respond, next question… I respond, next question… I respond. Qualifications here and there. Till finally when we had a final document. It difficult to write the PIF. Very difficult. Because you’re bringing back a lot of. So many things… memories so many things. (Transman from Nigeria, 2 years in Canada [P25])

I don’t know I almost end up being sort of like a counsellor or a therapist, sometimes with a whip. Sometimes people leave here going, “Oh my God, I can’t believe he,” you know “that he talked to me that way” but I also say to them sometimes, I may come across as being an ass or whatever you want to call me, I said but my job is to protect you. You can’t... you don’t seem to be doing it and if you think I’m difficult, I’m on your side. Wait till you get to the refugee board and you’re asked these questions. And then a lot of times I’ll hear my clients say things like... things to me like, “oh I haven’t slept in two days because I started writing this story and it was really depressing and I’ve been crying” and I’m like yeah but you’ve come to my country asking for... for protection here so what must have happened to you there should really be that shitty for you to leave to come over here, so it shouldn’t be something that’s easy for you to write. (Canadian Immigration Lawyer [Key Informant 1])

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Macklin (2011) argues that the asylum-seeking process and the production of narratives demand simplicity and clarity over nuance. You are compelled to whittle messy, complicated lives down to manageable fragments that can be plugged into a predetermined definition of refugee experience. The process of producing this narrative, and the decision-makers’ assessment, has a declarative function, where the underlying announcement is that if you can convince us this narrative is true, we will reward you with protection in Canada. It is not about if you are telling the truth. It is about how well you can convince decision-makers that you are credible, that your story is possible, and that you are recognizable to them as queer and in need of protection. The applicants must then attempt to deliver their evidence as a performance of queer refugeeness, becoming recognizable and understandable according to the norms of the

Canadian legal process. An inability of the narrative to construct recognizable forms of queer refugee subjectivity and oppression compromises its effectiveness, and it therefore fails to appear credible.

During my time spent with research participants in the support group, one of the most-discussed documents was the Personal Information Form (PIF) or the Basis of

Claim (BOC) that refugee claimants must produce. There was constant discussion about the difficulty producing the PIF/BOC, the emotional upheaval involved in writing about trauma for the first time, and the depression that often followed the exercise. There was also the constant need for many participants to carry their PIF/BOC with them everywhere. During any free time they had, they would pull out their PIF/BOC and study it, reciting every sentence word for word, memorizing it for their hearing. It was a script for the performance that they would need to execute perfectly for a decision-making audience. Many participants brought their PIF/BOC to interviews for me to review or so I could assist them with writing. After completion of an interview, we set up a separate session to work on PIF/BOCs if I received this request. I referred several participants for mental health counselling due to the triggering nature of writing the PIF/BOC.

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Participants expressed that the PIF/BOC was the most difficult part of the refugee process. It was not just the difficulty of recalling traumatic events but also the difficulty of narrating a queer life for the refugee board that made sense, using words that were never part of their written or spoken language before.

Challenges. One of the challenges is that was on my PIF Personal Information Form. That one because I had to match in my head that everything I was thinking about, everything that happened, but you have limited words that you can put in your PIF. So, there are some parts that you, you have to say that you were beaten. I was beaten, but I didn’t elaborate. So, I had to elaborate that I was beaten by a wooden baton. I burned so much that I could not walk. I struggled hard. I crawled. and then until I reached to the what? Main road. So, I didn’t elaborate that. So, and I think it was necessary to elaborate. And because of... I was depressed, depressed and then my memory. I lost my memory about back home. But now it’s coming up. It’s coming up because I’ve got some counsellors that are helping me to come out. But I used to forget. Like I forget the dates. So sometimes I forget the days, and sometimes I remembered. But it, it’s a challenge because you... it’s confusing but in Canada I am being helped because back home you just die from depression. (Transwoman from Nigeria, 4 years in Canada [P18])

...the language. You don’t want to say, like the rape. You know. In my culture, it’s terrible to be vulgar. So that’s what I had... You wanted to be subtle. And he said, “You know, you don’t have to be afraid with me... Then I said, “Well, I... it was a rape situation.” “[Participant’s name], you should say it’s rape.” “How do you mean?” “Do you mean this man raped you?” he told me, “No, no, no, no [participant’s name], you don’t have to be shy about this. So what happened? I understand about gay issues. Whatever. Blah, blah. By the way, are you gay yourself?” And I said, “Yes I am.” “Oh you shouldn’t have any difficulty to talk about these things. Is that what happened to you? Is that your reason to leave Uganda, and whatever?” And I said, “Yes. That’s what happened to me.” And then, you know, he, he realized that he was struggling asking me certain questions, and said, “[Participant’s name], you are in Canada. You are safe. You don’t have to be scarred. Feel free to talk about blah, blah, blah.” Now when he revealed that to me... I, I started to warm up. I started to brighten up. (Gay Man from Uganda, 2 years in Canada [P2])

Decision-makers have accepted the expectation that queer Africans must hide their sexuality by being “discreet” in order to avoid persecution in their countries of origin (Johnson,

2011). What our legal system does not account for is the tension that occurs when this strategy of survival must be dismantled within 28 days in order to produce a credible narrative that will be performed publicly at the refugee hearing. Perhaps more so than under any other type of claim,

SOGI claimants are being asked to recount events steeped in shame and humiliation that are intertwined with a stigmatized identity. Decision-makers may or may not have awareness and

189 sensitivity to the subtler impacts of mental state on a claimant’s capacity to produce a coherent narrative (Jordan, 2009). The queer performativity required of queer African refugees who are attempting to decipher the unpredictable permutations of the Canadian refugee apparatus contradicts the expectation that they must live closeted lives before fleeing to Canada in order to minimize the risk of persecution. The experience of hiding one’s sexuality is a mandatory story to make decision-makers feel that the queer African refugee has embodied a core characteristic of the queer refugee subject. This is the paradox that queer African refugees must grapple with as they complete their refugee application, after they submit their narratives, and as they wait for a refugee determination hearing date to be assigned.

Chapter 7 Post-Migration and Un/learning Queer

“Coming here was worth it. There’s no denial that coming to Canada the, the... I got embraced because I was cared for, I was fed, I was clothed. They give me everything. And they give me the start-up. I think that Canada’s one of the best countries to live in. And they welcomed me wholeheartedly. The only thing which is remaining to give me the permanent residence. Maybe the (??) citizenship. Yeah, but they embraced me. It was worth it because though I, I haven’t seen my people for a long period of time, but it was worth it because it wasn’t good, for me, to live in Uganda... being gay, it was not a good thing for me. Because I got this chance, other people don’t get that chance to, to go out of the country and, and they lose their lives. But for me, I’m here. I have the rest of my life; it was worth it.” — Lesbian from Kenya, 3 years in Canada (P5)

Chapter Seven interrogates the space and time between initiating a refugee claim and the actual hearing to determine one’s refugee status. As refugee claimants wait for the hearing date in which their status will be determined, they experience a spatial and temporal limbo that is an essential site of investigation. During this period, research participants of this study practiced civic engagement, belonging, and integration, all to perfect the performance of “good” refugeeness and queerness for decision-makers. Despite clear evidence to the contrary, as detailed in my research findings, decision-makers presumed that participants would be able to express familiar forms of queerness upon arrival at Canadian borders. However, an ingrained code of silence and internalized shame is what arrives with queer Africans, and participants articulated how this learned silence creates tension at every level of the settlement process, from finding a queer community and defining a queer life to navigating institutions.

Research findings show that participants engaged in the process of becoming a queer

Canadian only to succeed in the refugee determination process, and that natural integration into queer communities was challenging for participants, who often found the communities unwelcoming due to racism or isolating due to lack of understanding of refugee experiences. For queer African refugees, then, forced migration resulted in the forced realignment of identity through the refugee process; participants were able to reflect on the tensions created by this need to create a clearly articulated queer identity to secure safety. I use these findings to explore my

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191 initial sub-question, “how are queer identities realigned and reimagined in relation to geographic positioning and the immigration apparatus?”

According to participants, it was only after the refugee process was successful that they felt they could reveal their true queer identity, opinions, and personality. The gaining of refugee status provided a sense of confidence that allowed many participants to pursue their place within mainstream queer Canadian communities with a different sense of themselves than what had been evident when they were in the midst of the refugee process. It is only from this point that we can explore another sub-question, “who do we become when sexual orientation and gender identity can be freely expressed after a life of necessary suppression?” The findings outlined below also point to a reality addressed by exploring my third sub-question, “how do these identities develop, shift, and transform as we cross geographic borders?” We come to understand that identity formation is not a natural process for queer African refugees, but rather, is one mitigated and distorted by the refugee apparatus, interventions by lawyers, organizational support workers, and the external pressure to belong to the broader queer community in Canada.

The Re-formation and Integration of Identity

Forced migration severely alters an individual’s social and material circumstances, substantially impacting how queer refugee identity comes to be re-formed, reclaimed, and re- lived. This begs us to question how Canadian borders are defined in terms of queer African bodies and what strategies are used to regulate these bodies between the time they cross borders and when they are recognized as being worthy of protection. The spatial and temporal limbo experienced by refugee claimants during this time becomes an important site to understand.

Within this space, there are sites of inclusion and exclusion, emotional distress, and absolute joy.

These informal citizens, as defined by Sassen (2006), are simultaneously unauthorized and recognized. During this period, they practice civic engagement, belonging, and integration, all to perfect the performance of “good” refugeeness, Canadianess, and queerness for decision-makers.

Lengthy waits for refugee hearings define this state of limbo and accompanies forced immobility

192 where claimants are not free to leave the country, with internal movement within the country being financially curtailed.

….we’re not used to being given hands out at home, back home. We’re used to fending for ourselves and you know you can do something. …but because of the refugee system there’re so many barricades, you have to wait and wait and wait and the waiting time is so long. Frustrates a lot. I just want to work. So, in addition to already being traumatized you can get affected by this… waiting and waiting and waiting and chasing for this and that which doesn’t come forth. (Lesbian from Uganda, 2 years in Canada [P7])

So um, yeah, I’m happy, I’m happy to be here. I’m happy to be in Canada. Um. I, I, well what I didn’t expect, what, the hard part was just, just waiting. For me it’s the, just the unexpected you know, just not knowing what’s, what’s going to happen next. Ah you know like I, I like to, to travel, I like to, to be free and so while you’re here, while you’re doing your refugee claim you have to just be here. Yeah, you can’t leave the country. I don’t have any money anyway. I barely have money to travel downtown. You feel very confined because you can’t move around so easily. (Lesbian from Sierra Leone, 9 months in Canada [P22])

Oh boy, it took long for me because I wasn’t lucky. My uh, the judge they gave me for the immigration, like three days before I was going for the hearing, she passed away. Yeah so I had to wait again, they had to put me on the waiting list to get another one and it took me long for ah more than… a year. (Gay Man from Nigeria, 4 years in Canada [P20])

I look again at Bisaillon et al.’s (2019) notion of forced immobility as a form of social control that curtails movement and flight through government restrictions, alongside a lack of financial resources due to challenges obtaining work permits and finding employment. Upon making a refugee claim in Canada, a deportation order is immediately issued against you, conditioned upon your completion of the refugee process. The result is that one never becomes too comfortable or stable before final decisions have been made about one’s refugee status.

The waiting and waiting. If you tell someone you have an appointment but you will have to wait 5 hours I will come prepared, I will bring food, something to read, work to do but if you tell me 5 mins I will bring nothing and look around the office while I wait but then you tell me another 5 minutes and another 5 minutes and another 5 minutes and I have brought nothing to help occupy my mind and it becomes maddening. (Lesbian from Rwanda, 6 months in Canada [P21])

I think the refugee claim is, is is scarier than running from my country because um because when you make a refugee claim it, it seems like um it’s is is like a last resort like it’s it’s a more drastic thing… You are not just waiting to hear if you can stay you are also waiting to hear if you will be deported and sent back. (Lesbian from Ethiopia, 1 year in Canada [P14])

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Immigrant and refugee settlement are long processes, unfolding complexly over years. The experience of refugee settlement in particular is shaped not only by the experiences that preceded it but also by those within this limbo period of waiting for refugee status assignment.

Systematically, it has been shown that whatever the reason for an individual’s refugee claim and the need for protection, newcomers who deviate from prescriptive homonational, heteronormative models are guaranteed to face a range of systemic barriers in Canada, including challenges in both the refugee determination system and the settlement and integration experience (Miller, 2010; Murray, 2011).

So, when you come here and, you have to start everything, everything is new. Your life is like a baby life and you have to accept that first that okay I just came here; I am like a baby. I have to learn everything, to go back to learn everything. I need to understand the system, I need to be focussed on what is important for me. I need to build priorities to understand what is good for me right now, what is helpful for me right now and what is not. So, it’s actually about making a plan, of course not for the moment, for the present, only for the present. But at the same time, you have to keep in mind that the immigration has a process. So, you are in the middle and you have to understand everything at your right and everything at your left. And just because you are in the middle position, you have to get ready whenever, I mean whatever will happen, you have to get ready. So it’s a so many things to deal with in the same time yeah, it’s so many things to deal with in the same time and if you don’t have people to support you, if you don’t have people to help you, you know in that process, it’s not sure yeah. Because even since the beginning, starting by okay I came what should I do? That’s the first very important question. What should I do, where should I go to get the right information? Where should I start, those kinds of question. But it’s also about the personality that you built all your life, you know the years you have been hiding. All your experience you had in your life because it’s not everybody who asks to himself those kind of question. (Gay Man from Ivory Coast, 3 years in Canada [P12])

It is within the limbo period that queer African refugees are asked to begin the integration process into Canadian society by extending their social networks to a secondary level of activity that involves the wider mainstream society. Claimants’ ability to socialize and share cultural information and experiences with dominant society members serves as a crucial step towards queer Canadian learning and integration. It becomes necessary, then, that queer African refugees establish close and even intimate relationships with citizens of the new country who are willing and able to act as cultural brokers and, more importantly, critical witnesses for refugee hearings.

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Those who are introverted and insular in personality may inadvertently prevent themselves from negotiating key social situations and create additional barriers to successful refugee hearings.

It’s almost like saying, in order for you to be seen as a gay Canadian, this is what you need to do, here’s a prescription… it’s wrong for us to be doing that on so many levels, I mean professionally, but also, who are we to tell people how they should live their life and manifest their sexuality? But, but that’s the reality of what’s happening, so you do have you know lawyers who say to their African client “You’re gay? Okay well you should join this organization, go to the 519, you know register for this, here’s gay Pride day, go to it, make sure you take lots of pictures, document your sexuality.” Instead of changing the structure that forces you to do that, we’re changing the identity of people to accommodate the stereotypes and the ignorance of the (immigration) board members. (Canadian Immigration Lawyer [Key Informant 5])

But I’m Still an African

The queer African refugee is not only expected to learn about queer Canadian culture but must also embody it as their own and prepare to perform it for the refugee hearing. Queer community participation is often used by decision-makers as evidence in determining an authentic queer refugee identity. However, given the complexity of finding, comprehending, identifying with, integrating, and participating in local queer communities, it is questionable to use it as a defining criterion upon which to make a refugee determination assessment.

Expectations of community participation need to be understood within the social and material contexts of queer African refugee lives. In the view of Warner (2002), as queer people, we may very well express political solidarity with each other. However, in the day-to-day working out of the reality of lives, there must be a clear and active recognition of the extent and nature of the different contexts and different priorities that these contexts engender. Most participants expressed that identification with or urgency to connect with local queer communities was not a priority when they first arrived in Canada. Participants instead found that the everyday tasks of navigating a new country, including learning the culture and language, securing housing, and finding a job, left few resources for locating and participating in queer social spaces.

Because like I was confused, when I just got here… in my first year I never stepped into the gay village I wasn’t even interested in that. Because uh, the only stereotypes I had with gays was just partying and having fun all the time, and then I tried it once and it was fun. For the first time you go into a club, you know they’re accepting you as gay, you see

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people kissing, holding hands, there’s no problem. Of course, when you first see it it’s nice, it’s liberating? I don’t know if you have that word in English? And then I was like uh, I wasn’t like happy, fulfilled. I was like okay I just have to do this for my hearing. That’s when I started doing those activities. I used to say when I get my refugee status I will meet like “normal” gay people, but I don’t like that word “normal” (laughter). (Lesbian from Kenya, 6 years in Canada [P17])

I think the integration process is hard, it is. It’s hard to understand like how to, to manoeuvre yourself with uh, other trans-people. You’re coming thinking, feeling very isolated, you don’t know who to trust, who not to trust. I think that’s a big issue, the trust issue and also like this is so foreign to them it’s almost like another language right, if you can’t speak it really, really hmm, it’s kind of silent to you for a while until… ’cause you obviously need someone to be with you all the time to help you and that’s not reality. (Transwoman for Uganda, 2 years in Canada [P36])

Participants also struggled with the necessity to maintain strong ties with family members, faith groups, or ethnocultural groups as a means of survival in the alienating refugee process versus participating in local queer community events. They were navigating rejection within cultural communities in Canada as well as in mainstream queer communities, with limited support coming from either space. Some struggled with the need to value integrating into mainstream queer communities over being supported by friends and family within their ethnocultural communities, when both were necessary for their survival during the refugee claims process. There is a tendency for decision-makers to expect a complete disavowal and rejection of African culture, people, and communities, replaced easily with more progressive

Canadian mainstream and queer communities. This is part of the narrative expected from credible queer African refugees. However, this was at odds with the reality of participants.

I live with my aunt and she is very religious. Am I going to give up my family and my church to be openly gay? I think this will be different when I finish my refugee claim and I can find a job to support myself. (Lesbian from Ethiopia, 8 months in Canada [P28])

…it’s better than what I was, like the way I was living in Burundi. For example, let me see… here I’m gay, I came out, I live my life, I’m more free, I don’t have to think all the time oh I should hide, or oh I should do this. No I just be myself, you take me as I am and then it’s funny because you come here and you think uh, everything’s gonna be fine and you find people from your own community, from Burundi are discriminating you again like at home but you need them. So, it’s another struggle, you know? (Gay Man from Burundi, 6 years in Canada [P19])

I still spend a lot of time with people from Senegal. Some of the Senegalese people here try to bring me problems but for the most part a lot of them are accepting, accept me. So

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yeah, for the most part the Senegalese population here embraces me. There are some people who try to give me problems, but he tells them that, “This is not Senegal this Canada if you try to do anything, I’ll call 911.” (Gay Man from Senegal, 1 year in Canada [P2])

Participants discussed their lack of connection with local mainstream queer communities and spaces due to experiencing queer communities as unwelcoming because of racism, or isolating due to lack of understanding of refugee experiences. Browne and Ferreira (2015) discuss how experiences of exclusion not only remake a queer place as oppressive or racist but also remake the queer person who experiences such exclusions as unacceptable. This exclusionary practice was particularly challenging for participants when they had recently arrived in Canada with ideas of how accepted they would be in those queer spaces.

I don’t usually feel comfortable in those spaces because its mainly white and or people just... well, or the men who are attracted to black men would just fetishize us, right? They will look at us like objects of some kind, right? That can only be good for one thing not anything else. (Gay Man from Uganda, 3 years in Canada [P1])

…What’s your community? And I said well, it’s the queer community. But that’s a very white community. It’s absolutely a white community. Most of the queer communities in Canada are white. Walk down Church Street and any gay village and you can count how many people of colour are walking there. Why don’t we feel accepted in those spaces? (Gay Man from Ivory Coast, 3 years in Canada [P13])

In bath houses it becomes brutal because then what you see is a bunch of guys and they will be invisible if they’re not what the person is looking for and invariably the person is not looking for someone Black. So, they’ll look through an entire room and it’s like you don’t exist. So, eye contact is only made with specific individuals, but consistently it begins to be specific individuals of a certain preferable, desirable type. (Gay Man from Burundi, 9 years in Canada [P15])

The impression in the society around refugees is not that positive, you know a refugee is dirty and poor and all these things and we look down on them and you have to go with that label for all this time and refugee claimant so you’re not even as good as everybody else and they might decide on your fate... you’re waiting for them to judge you whether your good or bad, you’re okay... you’re acceptable or not that can’t be good for your self- esteem and how you feel. You move around the community the society knowing that you, like even small things like wanting to have relationships... I don’t want to tell them I’m a refugee claimant cause they won’t date me, they won’t do this with me, they won’t be my friend. And the reality is, I mean who wants, some do but most people want somebody that’s stable with profession and job and citizenship and all that, want to date somebody who’s poor, refugee claimant who’s not sure if they’re going to stay in the country or not, don’t have work, employment, the whole thing. You know, don’t have anything and do I want to take them and support them and be there... So that makes you feel like your lesser you’re not wanted you’re not as good as everybody else and that lasts for like, like

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months and months, if not year or two and, and when you come out of it, like you’ve lived all this like, the stress, oppression, humiliation for all this time, there’s tons of stuff... I mean there needs to be something that we have... rehabilitation, probably, after the refugee process. Instead of just pick-up, get on your feet, you know and move on. (Gay Man from Uganda, 3 years in Canada [P10])

Researcher Field Note (Taking Up Space on Church St.): One of the fun exercises we decided to do as a group was to go to bars on Church Street after our bi-weekly meeting. Members of the group discussed feeling intimidated or uncomfortable going to the bars and clubs by themselves but thought if we went as a large group, we could reclaim the space of discomfort and replace it with a sense of belonging. I personally rarely frequented the bars and clubs on Church Street but have to admit it was extremely empowering to walk down the street taking over the sidewalk and walking into Woody’s as a group of 30 Africans.

Due to the stereotyped and limiting nature of what constitutes queer activities and queer socializing, participants often felt compelled to navigate the dating and nightclub scene. Some participants narrated feeling overwhelmed as they tried to understand the codes and cues of this world. Others felt conflicted about partners they were not sharing the experience with, and still others felt in moral conflict with the activities associated with this form of socializing.

We stick on our promises, you know. Back home it’s not like here. Here, you can love any woman you want. Back home, you have your partner, she’s your life because you’re not going to easily find another partner. It’s not easy. You don’t know that person. So, you have to stick on your partner. But here, you can love any woman that you want. You can love weekly woman. Every week if you want. But I keep the promises. (Lesbian from Kenya, 1 year in Canada [P26])

I’m a refugee from Africa and I show up on Church St. like how does that play out? You need money. You need money and all of it’s about being, it’s all paid spaces, uh, church street, other than the 519, the other thing you may notice is that it’s highly culturally created. So, uh and then, so there you are, then you’re in this thing which is culturally created to not necessarily be of any other colour other than white, Caucasian. Um and very artificially created in terms of what is acceptable behaviour, what is not acceptable behaviour, what is the typical behaviour? And Church Street, because it’s the most obvious, unfortunately is also the Mecca for everybody coming out. So not the most mature bunch of people hanging around okay like you know (laughter). So, so, so, so then it starts sorting itself out by types and usually those types are around, desire. So, if your sexual desires are around leather then it would be the Black Eagle. If your sexual desires, if you’re a certain age group as well, like if you’re young you might go to Tango’s; You may look to see where the other Black people are, but those black people can look really, really different from you! And so, I just wouldn’t necessarily fit. (Gay Man from Nigeria, 4 years in Canada [P20])

Meeting people you don’t know is hard. You know. That in this place, there are a lot of women. Some of them are drug addicts. A lot of stuff is going on and it’s hard to figure

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out. (Lesbian and Swaziland, 1 year in Canada [P8])

Barriers and Facilitators

According to Yee, Marshall, & Vo (2014), crossing a Canadian border and claiming refugee status is not always enough to create the safety needed to participate in queer Canadian culture openly. Queer African refugees are searching for home, community, and what constitutes their visions of settlement. However, barriers to accessing supports and services are commonplace, and social service agencies and settlement services are ill-equipped to address the existing challenges that queer African refugees are facing.

Because when you go to umm. I find the difference is, when you go to a white only, well an organization that’s mainly geared towards white only or mostly run by white people it’s, even though they might be able to get help there, but sometimes it’s not the help your looking for because it’s not really geared towards you or people who are like you you, right? Because each person comes from a different well as you may know, either if your black person or you’re a white person depending on where you’re from the type of community is completely different and how they interact with each other, its completely different. Or some things you might find acceptable in one community is not acceptable in the other right? And I find a lot of the the Blacks or Africans from anywhere that are mostly from the Continent, that would go to an organization for instance like, I’ll give an example; like ACT. They would go to ACT and they would say okay we get help there but it’s not really, it’s not really sensitive towards Black people or Black culture, right? (Lesbian from Kenya, 6 years in Canada [P17])

It’s not always easy for people to get their stories, now there are some support workers and so on and so forth at... at places like Black Cap and other groups and organizations that do help or can help but again, you know Black Cap is not a queer organization, it’s a queer-friendly organization. (Gay Man from Uganda, 3 years in Canada [P1])

The moment we say “gay,” the moment we say “lesbian,” the moment they see us as trans, the service changes. And it is that change in behaviour, that change in the attitude of the service provider that really started to piss me off. I’m like, “Why? I’m just a person here. I need the service. You’re, you’re, you’re mandated by the organization you’re working with, by the government give me equal service and you’re still not doing it. What is all that about?” (Transman from Nigeria, 2 years in Canada [P25])

With challenges in receiving adequate support from organizations, participants often found themselves navigating settlement on their own or relying heavily on the limited information that is shared among members attending the bi-weekly support group. Each week, group discussion overwhelmingly focused on difficulties in finding affordable housing and employment, which left refugees with limited space and resources to consider developing a visible queer Canadian

199 identity for one’s refugee file. Anonymous survey data from the participants revealed that 60 percent of were earning below $10,000 annually. Refugee research also notes that finding affordable housing, after arrival, is a crucial factor in the success of a refugee claim (Rose,

2016). Asylum-seekers generally find it harder to secure housing than privately sponsored refugees and often find themselves couch surfing or in shelters, as was the case with many participants. The prevailing concern raised in meetings was choosing to pay for lawyers, rent, or food. Participants also discussed feeling shame when they had to reach out to family and friends in Africa to ask for financial assistance.

Let’s go ahead we’re going to Pride; we’re going to take you here were going to take you there and no one is thinking that the person is in a different process. Mm, maybe they’re having such basic problems. When you just say oh, we’ll meet here, we’ll meet there. How are you getting there how are you paying for that? Because somebody they don’t even have the money to catch a bus. Even wondering where your next job is coming from. You know, it’s a difficult country but it’s a world of opportunity. You know it can be difficult with no opportunity. so it’s difficult but with some hope and possibility. Yeah it’s difficult but you can see where you’re headed to it’s worth it. (Gay Man from Ghana, 3 years in Canada [P30])

So, landlords would not rent anything to you because, they look at your income even though you’re working full time but because you’re getting minimum wage, your wages are so low, right? And they are asking for so much pretty much because you are a black person and on top of that you’re... you’re not a permanent resident you’re not a citizen so they just assume that you know what you can’t afford, so they won’t rent to you or they come up with all these reasons as to why they can’t rent an apartment to you. (Gay Man from Nigeria, 6 years in Canada [P24])

It was alright, because what happens with family residence is when they are fully occupied in their facility, they actually move clients to motels, nearby motels. Which was an interesting experience for us being in a Canadian motel, one I will never forget, and I have traumatic bed bug scars to prove it. (Lesbian from Swaziland, 1 year in Canada [P9])

Yes, and I say okay, I am working I pay my taxes, I pay everything but when I want to do something, they ask me about my permanent resident or my refugee uh status and things like that. But when it comes to pay, they don’t ask me about my status. (Lesbian from Nigeria, 2 years in Canada [P34])

Oh the first month I was on social assistance, before the work permit came and then the work permit came and I couldn’t do my job so I had to go to work in retail, I had to go to the factories, I even forgot why I came here. (Laughter) It was that bad, it was now survival, I’m trying to survive, I’m trying to get jobs. I have no relatives here, nothing. So, for a while, by the time the call came to go for the interview, I was now depressed because of career, I had forgotten I should be scared also about the, the hearing. I don’t

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know I was getting five hundred dollars; I was paying rent three-hundred and eighty dollars… a month. I think that’s the hardest part for people, it’s harder than the hearing, the waiting. Yeah, you actually forget about the hearing just trying to survive, what will I eat, what will I… I had to keep writing to my sister, I need you to send me money. You’re asking people in the poor countries to send you money. Yeah because my savings totally disappeared, I had nothing left. Yeah for two years, but I kept getting jobs with agencies, they call, tell you go to a factory in some crazy place, Pickering, go to oh, it was a nightmare. So anyway, I worked those jobs until the day I went and got my permanent resident card, the following day I got my certificate for teaching in Ontario. (Lesbian from Kenya, 6 years in Canada [P17])

Informal Citizenship

In order to show evidence of their queer civic engagement, participants were counseled to begin volunteering at queer events and organizations. This not only helped to build their

Canadian resumes for future employment but also assisted in their integration into Canadian queer social life. A support letter from an organization that you volunteer with is seen to be a valuable addition to your queer refugee portfolio and also aids in supporting the narrative of the

“good’ queer African refugee. Despite participants reporting the feeling of being treated within mainstream queer spaces as invisible, refugee presence is undeniable in these spaces. Queer

African refugees experience inclusion and exclusion at the same time, without an acknowledgment of the contributions they make to queer civic and community life, particularly as we consider the unpredictability and insecurity queer refugee claimants face daily. Queer

African refugees are active social actors in voluntary capacities in local queer communities throughout Canada, and despite this reality, they are often portrayed as systemically dependent and potentially fraudulent refugees or, in the words of participants, as “Pretenders.”32

32 Study participants referred to those people suspected of claiming refugee status by pretending to be queer as “Pretenders.” I did not see evidence of false claims in my study sample, but stories often arose of people who were past members of the group. There were also incidents of bi- phobia when the title “Pretender” was attributed to those members of the group who identified as bi-sexual.

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Researcher Field Note (Volunteerism): As a member of the queer community, it is very difficult to ignore the number of queer African refugee volunteers serving, greeting, and cleaning in mainstream queer spaces. It is hard to ignore the racial divisions and the possible exploitation that I am highly suspicious of. Which bodies are volunteers and which bodies are paid workers? The question becomes why these volunteers are not eventually becoming paid employees in mainstream queer organizations when granted refugee status. So few move into paid positions, and a new group of queer African volunteers comes to replace them as each person’s status is granted or denied. It’s like a revolving door but always spinning around Black bodies.

And sometimes it was kind of weird with volunteer work, because you almost felt like they’re doing volunteer work to show that they can do a job, but we don’t get a job. You know, so it feels weird sometimes when you have people from a refugee community doing volunteer work in a country because they’re looking desperately to find a nice job. (Gay Man from Uganda, 3 years in Canada [P1])

I volunteered at the CFC Canadian Film Centre. So, when I went there. You’d be surprised how many gay people you’d meet there. (Gay Man from Kenya, 1 year in Canada [P32])

I am a social worker by training, for one year I volunteered at a daycare. When I finally got my refugee status, they offered me a job, but it was only part time for minimum wage. This is after working for free for over a year. When I asked for a higher salary, they said I needed more Canadian experience. (Lesbian from Uganda, 2 years in Canada [P7])

Risks and Tensions

It has been reported by the Ontario HIV Treatment Network (OHTN Rapid Response

Service, 2010) that refugees may be at a higher risk for HIV infection post-migration due to several compounding factors, including complex settlement challenges, pre- and post-migration trauma, limited employment opportunities, poverty, challenges accessing services, stigma, and discrimination. The refugee process inevitably increases levels of stress, and this elevation of stress, in turn, increases risky behaviour and reduces health prevention and health-seeking tendencies. While increased risk does not guarantee HIV infection, it is noted that a significant percentage of study participants reported their HIV status as positive. While some participants were very open about how they became infected during the waiting period for refugee determination, it is not clear how many participants knew of their HIV status prior to arrival in

Canada. What is clear, however, is that participants were forced to live precarious lives upon

202 arrival and were in vulnerable positions due to lack of power in sexual negotiations, cultural difference in communication styles, stigma associated with HIV and refugee status, and preoccupation with daily survival that did not lend itself to attention to healthcare needs.

As Figure 5 details, the determinants of health which heavily influence outcomes for queer African refugees include poverty, violence, isolation and discrimination but also noted is the risk incurred through the forced queer performance required in the refugee process as well as the forced heterosexual performance required in the countries of origin prior to migration. All of these factors constrained sexual health and HIV prevention choices which facilitated the increased HIV risk for research participants.

Figure 5: Queer African Refugee HIV Risk

And also when it comes to just accessing services and settling into the city I mean racism against black people is very evident everywhere now to add to it being refugee, being vulnerable that way, don’t have the empowerment money and work and education all these things make it much worse for people to get involved and put them in poverty situations and health risks and all that. (Gay Man from Burundi, 9 years in Canada [P15])

You’re gonna have sex with me and if I start putting up barriers or say you need to use a condom, you’re gonna say okay fine forget it! What, because I’m not exactly what you’re

203 looking for to begin with because of who I am ethnically or racially. Therefore, okay well, I’m getting lonely, okay so maybe I’m not gonna talk about the condoms. You know that sort of thing. (Gay Man from Ivory Coast, 3 years in Canada [P12])

Um and we’re also seeing the incidents of HIV rising in that population. So they’re not necessarily coming HIV positive but you get catapulted into a new culture, you know new sort of gay lifestyle; there’s a lot of issues around proving that you’re gay and people being sort of forced into, you know okay I’ve got to make sure I’m at Pride, I’ve got to make sure I’m at these clubs, I’ve got to make sure I’m at the bathhouse, I’ve got to get pictures of all these things, I’ve… you know and then of exposing people to um HIV risk as well. (HIV Outreach worker [Key Informant 6])

I needed a place to stay and this Canadian couple said I could stay with them in a nice house for free. They were both HIV positive and I knew the risk I was taking I was an HIV educator at home but when you are trying to survive you take risks. Imagine I came to this country to get HIV. (Gay Man from Ivory Coast, 3 years in Canada [P3])

I did not know I was at risk in Canada. I think, I think it was before Christmas. I submitted. Then January... the fifth, it was Monday. My doctor called me, and he said, “Oh, the reason why I called you because you... the reason why I called you here it’s because your blood came out with a problems.” “What problems?” “You are HIV positive.” Ah, that was my breaking point. That was my breaking point. “Oh boy.” But then instead of problem here, we have medication. And the government will be paying for your medication. “Yeah?” He started trying to, to make me feel strong because I was like crying... I go, “I want to go back home. I want to die home.” Now in Africa, when you have HIV, you know, you’re dying tomorrow. And there’s no life after that. (Gay Man from Nigeria, 4 years in Canada [P20])

Okay um, everybody knows that it’s very hard, um to be out as a gay, lesbian, transsexual, transgender in Africa, it is very hard and it’s also very hard when you know even if everybody knows that it’s very important, health is very important for everybody but as gay person it’s very hard to ask for, for health, which is the right for everybody. Especially when it comes to talk about HIV it’s very hard because people used to say that okay, the gay community is responsible for spreading HIV um so if they are dying, if HIV/AIDS is killing them, We don’t want to deal with them in terms of helping them. So, when we come here, we are used to not taking care of our health or getting information about HIV or even talking about practicing safe sex. (Transwoman from Uganda, 2 years in Canada [P36])

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Figure 6: Chronic Illness Currently Being Addressed by Participants

The emotional labour that participants must perform in order to navigate discrimination, racism, and social exclusion was evident in their rates of not only reported HIV but also self- reported depression (see Figure 6). The exclusionary moments navigated by participants as they searched for housing, employment, and queer social connections resulted in excessive emotional work as they also grappled with shifting cultural notions of queerness and how these processes produced new realities and identities (Stella, Flynn, & Gawlewicz, 2017). The uneven power dynamics that participants were navigating as refugees often took an emotional toll as they searched for normality and livable lives.

It’s difficult. It’s emotionally tormenting. You get so tormented, you know? But you got to be strong. But Canada is good. At least you meet other people with the same problem like you. And some even have faced worse things. You feel okay cause you got people you can talk to and you can comfort each other. Even when you’re alone when you talk to somebody, you’re feel okay. Yeah. (Lesbian from Kenya, 1 year in Canada [P26])

So, you can’t really think about the future for those two years? I couldn’t, I couldn’t and uh it’s uh, it’s something it effects all your life, it can affect your work, your relationship, if you, you want to be in a relationship with somebody and actually it’s really affected my relationship. It can even affect your, the energy level. Because sometimes you just say okay, why should I even keep going. It is exhausting. So it’s a so many things to deal with in the same time yeah, it’s so many things to deal with in the same time and if you don’t have people to support you, if you don’t have people to help you, it’s not sure yeah. Immigration is about surviving the process it has nothing to do with the hearing and

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evidence. (Gay Man from Uganda, 3 years in Canada [P10])

A Shameful Process

For participants, being open about their sexual orientation and gender identity was a strenuous exercise. Shame and fear-based cultures have an ingrained code of silence from birth that is carried with them when they arrive in Canada. This silence creates tension at every level of the settlement process and creates the challenging conditions seen in their first years, from finding a queer community and defining a queer life to navigating institutions. Participants often discussed difficulty finding friends due to barriers of language, culture, and degrees of comfort levels with sexual orientation.

Not at all, that was so risky because I mean, you know people are gay but no one they don’t show it, they don’t show it. So, it’s always secret if you ever find people. Even myself, I used to fear other gays (laughter) you know? They would see me with somebody, aha, these two people are going out together they are gay and then you would be like uh no no be scared to be associated with them, yet I am gay. To take that feeling away now is still very difficult. I find it hard to feel comfortable with a lot of gays. (Gay Man from Burundi, 9 years in Canada [P15])

Yeah when I first came here, I met with people with friends who identified themselves as gay people. I asked them how, how come? That they, they called themselves gay. I said what’s the meaning of that? It was back home in Uganda to be gay, or a homosexual is a real criminal. Very big criminal. You cannot even think about it. But here I am learning that there are things which can happen, things you do to show others that you are a gay. (Gay Man from Uganda, 1 year in Canada [P16])

Researcher Field Note (The Woman Outside the Door): I thought finding a support group for queer Africans would be exciting for anyone who has been isolated for most of their lives. I thought you would finally feel free and eager to participate in activities and talk to other people who shared a similar experience. I now understand that walking into a room filled with other queer Africans was a difficult exercise for some people. When Participant 21 first came to the group, she refused to come inside the room and sat outside on a chair with the door opened. She was positioned so we could not see her during the meeting. She just listened. We could hear her crying throughout the meeting. This went on for four meetings (two months), until she eventually was able to come inside and join the group.

According to Ahmed (2004), shame in the context of queer African lives is viewed as a group-based emotion that relates to histories of imperialism, colonization, and other institutionalized forms of structural inequality. The exclusionary moments experienced by

206 participants as they navigated the waiting period for their refugee hearings were moderated by shame and humiliation, which further reinforces the code of silence that participants were struggling to overcome. Their ability to manage feelings of shame is a determining factor in their ability to translate the “genuineness” of their sexual orientation and gender identity.

Canada’s current refugee system exacerbates the chasm between the acceptable queer subject and the fraudulent body. I assert that queer African refugees are especially vulnerable to the impacts of an aggressive anti-fraud refugee apparatus, given how credibility weighs so heavily in refugee determinations. The impacts have reverberated for queer African refugee claimants who may struggle to perform the queer expression thought to be typical in Canada and face refoulement as a result. Furthermore, the deployment of homonationalist mechanisms does not allow Canada to live up to its reputation as a queer-tolerant nation when queer African refugees are the subjects at hand.

No! Almost all the time it’s not and there’s lots of disappointment that come with the process but it’s like it’s okay we’ll live it, we’ll deal with it, we’ll accept it because it’s better than what we had back home. It’s not like I am going back and I can have a better life back home but the there’s discrimination in the system the system is broken but that’s fine... we’ll take it because going through this process that’s the only choice we have if we want to survive. (Lesbian from Uganda, 2 years in Canada [P6])

Your experience will depend so much on the board-member, which is a problem right because it, you should be looking at the institution and its ability to process claims as opposed to if this person’s good but that person’s not, if this one is telling the truth and that one is not. Because I think that speaks to the quality of their qualifications as well as the training that they’re receiving or not receiving on these issues. (Gay Man from Uganda, 7 years in Canada [P36])

The Canadian refugee system implicitly and explicitly evaluates refugee claimants against three main criteria: prescribed trajectories of refugee flight, Western homonational narratives of queer identity, and Eurocentric standards of the coming-out narrative (Jordan,

2009). However, for reasons explored in this dissertation, migration trajectories and identity accounts of queer African refugees often do not meet these expectations, and their potential for safety and belonging is jeopardized when they do not easily conform to these refugee conventions. Warner (2002) states that when a body carrying queer markings moves between

207 nations, intricate realignments of identity, politics, and desire take place. For queer African refugees, forced migration results in the forced realignment of identity through the refugee process.

Yeah, it’s funny because when you talked about being in Africa um, we have no label and then we come here and we have a label… you have to be something right? You have to call yourself something for the hearing. (Gay Man from Swaziland, 1 week in Canada [P40])

It’s a major component, to the point where people are catapulting themselves into a gay lifestyle like just forcing it, or forcing the coming out piece, or forcing themselves up on Church street to like have this gay lifestyle in time for the hearing and so yeah it’s, that’s been interesting. (Gay Man from Ghana, 3 years in Canada [P13])

I think it’s wrong of a lawyer instructing a client on well here are some examples of successful claims. You feel pressured to do whatever they tell you. It’s almost like saying, in order for you to be gay, this is what you need to do, here’s a formula, follow it. Join this club, volunteer for this organization, make sure you go to PRIDE make sure you take lots of pictures, document your sexuality. (Gay Man from Nigeria, 3 years in Canada [P39])

Due to the limited availability of documented evidence for both conditions in African countries for queer citizens and cultural expressions of queer African identity, a great deal of decision-makers’ assessments rests on the queer African refugee’s testimony. Legal scholars have long shown through the examination of decisions in SOGI cases that the assumptions decision-makers carry about sexual orientation and gender identity reflect only popular Canadian cultural understandings (Murray, 2016; Rehaag, 2008; Sajnani, 2014b). Claimants are then asked to give a narrative account of a sexuality or gender identity that they have had limited experience articulating. The impacts of a lifetime of disavowing this identity as deviant does not disappear once in Canada. Queer African refugees have minimal experience putting their understanding of their own sexuality or gender into language.

Right? because of course in Africa we don’t talk about sex, everybody has sex but nobody talks about it. I don’t know how I’m going to talk about sex at my hearing. It’s not something that you do in public. (Lesbian from Kenya, 3 years in Canada [P5])

The persecution I went through. It’s very hard to narrate. You always narrate it with difficulty. You just don’t want... you just can’t talk about it. Yeah. And just write it and give it to somebody. You just talk about... you know, the beating and those things... they make you cringe. You’re going back in time to remember that. You know. Also, some of

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the, some of the difficult things you you just want to forget. But those I cannot parcel with the things you don’t want to talk about. (Transman from Nigeria, 2 years in Canada [P25])

Yeah exactly for me. Because what’s been taught and what’s being thrown at me now does not co-relate with what I feel. There’s vast, vast clashes and I’m trying to see alright who’s “wrong,” and who’s right? And if what I feel is wrong then why hasn’t this loving God changed it? You know what I mean? Surely by now something would have happened, I’m mean I’m 24. It’s like a bit late in the year for me to be so confused before the hearing, oh well you know, I’m sure that it’s a phase. It will pass. (Lesbian from Botswana, 1 year in Canada [P4])

Decision-makers are drawing on their universal assumptions about queer sexualities and genders in their expectations for an individual to claim a stable identity that is supported by a coherent identity narrative from an autonomous, self-actualized person. The refugee hearing is also asking queer African refugees to be publicly known as queer without the guarantee of security. Being publicly known as heterosexual troubles nothing, while queer publicity troubles everything for the participants and carries visibility still cloaked in shame, fear, and humiliation.

Queer African refugees are being forced to make a definite claim to a particular identity that they still may inhabit reluctantly and uneasily. Arrival in Canada does not eliminate the impacts of discourses of their sexualities or genders as being immoral, illegal, predicated on erasure, and/or invisible. All queer claimants are working through and against culturally proscribed identity narratives in their hearings. For study participants, the struggle entailed making what they had successfully hidden visible to decision-makers. For the transgender participants in this study, the challenge was even greater as they were asked to make their inconsistencies in gender accounts coherent to cisgender decision-makers, who have limited understandings or trainings about transgender issues in general and African trans experiences specifically. These participants were working through and against limitations created by binary discourses employed by decision- makers to comprehend the daily realities of living transgender.

How they’re getting through the refugee process as a trans claimant it is they have to be sort of start their living in their gender before the hearing; they have to show the barriers that they face in their home country and also the barriers that they’re also facing here. Um, they’re talking about also access, some of them not getting hormones or surgeries through their home country, that it would be, you know Canada would be a better place

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for them. I think it’s a bit of a mix that the claims are overlapping so there is some stuff around sexual orientation and identity and gender identity that’s sort of interwoven into each other. And they’re mixing the two and assuming people are gay who are trans, the judges don’t have the language or the you know the education around trans stuff to even start to articulate how to you know deal with a you know trans-related case. Some of the trans from Africa come already taking hormones or with surgeries they got in other countries. Sometimes the judges say if you can get hormones over there then it can’t be that bad for you. (Trans Support Worker [Key Informant 3])

Despite clear evidence to the contrary, decision-makers presumed that participants could express familiar forms of Canadian queerness after coming to Canada. The presumption was that Canada is a safe place for queer expression—recognizable, Canadian kinds of queer expression. In the minds of decision-makers, there was no longer a reason to conceal identity, opinions, or characteristics, and therefore it should not be a challenge for participants to do so in a refugee hearing.

…so she now has to explain that sexual relationship to you. How, how would you work with her to do that, because she has to put it on paper and she also has to stand up in front of um, the refugee board and and talk, about this relationship. I mean, emotionally how is she gonna do that? What I try to do is I try to insulate my clients from having to do that to complete strangers in forms such as courts. What I do is I send them to a therapist where, or a councillor, uh for a psychological assessment and it’s in the context of that psychological assessment where everything gets documented and then, if there are any concerns at the court or in the board, I’ll say “You have written details about their sex life right here.” Do you know what I mean? She does not have to repeat it. (Canadian Immigration Lawyer [Key Informant 5])

Researcher Field Note (The Straight Not-So-Straight Party): The support group decided to host its own Pride party “African style,” meaning in private. We were able to secure a party room in someone’s friends’ condo. This was considered quite upscale by group members. Everyone brought what they could share, and one group member who was a DJ from back home was in charge of the music. The music was a great mix from across Africa. One of the men asked me to dance, which I thought was just out of courtesy. But as the night progressed, dancing only occurred between opposite sex couples. There was no same-sex engagement for the entire evening; no flirting, no dancing together. It was either opposite-sex or large groups dancing to popular songs from back home. I am not sure if this was because of trust, fear, or just not used to being public.

In order to accommodate decision-makers’ narrow definitions of queer liberation, gender aesthetics, participation in queer culture, and disavowal of cultural values from one’s country of origin, participants cooperated without resistance in order to secure a favorable decision. Identity can be viewed as the folding of the outside into oneself, a folding that changes the aesthetic of

210 the self (Venn, 2007). Participants were required to fold Canadian notions of queer identity into themselves in order to create narratives of credibility in exchange for positive assessments. The proper, acceptable queer refugee will express queerness in ways that uphold homonational

Canadian values, such as supporting same-sex marriage, queer adoption, mainstream queer culture such as Pride or the Inside Out film festival, while avoiding other, “unacceptable,” queer activities such as bathhouses, blood donations, HIV transmission, and rejection of corporate sponsorship.

Astonishing Claims Require Outstanding Evidence

Despite increased attention to the challenges faced by queer African refugees in providing oral testimony and documented evidence, Canadian decision-makers remain reluctant to accept claims based on sexual orientation if independent documentation on the persecution that claimants allegedly fear is unavailable, and if significant documentation is not provided to verify queer identity (Hersh, 2017; Jordan, 2009; Murray, 2016). The Canadian Federal Court has repeatedly held that decision-makers can reasonably expect documented accounts of criminally punishing sexual minorities without any reflection on why evidence of enforcement would be unavailable or unnecessary (Macklin, 2011). Many participants expressed the challenge of securing acceptable, Canadian government-approved documents.

My embassy can’t even issuing passports, they don’t even have passports. They don’t have paper, it’s political situations they don’t have the paper to print your passport. Sorry, you know. I can’t get the government documents requested for my hearing. (Lesbian from Sierra Leone, 9 months in Canada [P22])

The summons was written on a piece of paper with spelling mistakes because those people don’t speak English or write English as their first language. So, their, their writing African English (laughter) which may not be Canadian English or British English, right? So, if someone’s name is Aziz and on the document is says Azzizi, well yeah, its Swahili so you know... the person’s name is Zanab they’ll write down Zanabu. I actually had to explain that in the hearing to the board member, like you can’t go by the spelling over here. First of all, my name is an Arabic origin name, you know there’s fifteen different ways of spelling it in English, you know. Look at my name (laughter), you know. (Lesbian from Kenya, 6 years in Canada [P17])

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After spending only a short time in Canada, they were told, participants were expected to find and participate actively and visibly in a queer community so that they could get letters of support from a queer organization. They could hopefully find a worker or a credible witness to go to court with them to verify their queerness. They would also need to make relationships and friendships through the groups they join, so they would have something to bring to the hearing.

Despite having a short history of a few months of being involved in these queer communities, they would need to produce pictures, relationships, stories, organizational support in order to prove they are genuinely queer. Those who did not have this would have to rely on what the decision-maker sees and hears from the participant and how they perceive participant’s sexuality.

The gathering of evidence comes with issues of humiliation and insecurity. Mental health issues were reported as rising from the pressure and stress due to what participants go through in this period of preparing for the hearing to bring all this evidence to fruition.

They actually are the people who would get into arranged marriages, right? Not arranged, I wouldn’t say arranged... maybe that’s not the right term but they would get into marriage of convenience... just to prove. With men, right? Like if they’re gay men and then because their, their refugee claim is very, it’s not going very well and the only way they can stay here is because they, they don’t really have proof to show from the country that this is what’s happening to them, right? Sometimes it would be another African person but most of the time it would be a person who’s not African, non-African, right? But I think because, well the non-African part is mainly because I guess it makes it legitimate that your actually gay because if you’re a black person and you get married to a white person and that white person is gay obviously the immigration probably think, you know what? Yeah. He must be gay too because we don’t think this man would have married him if he wasn’t. (Gay Man from Nigeria, 6 years in Canada [P24])

Researcher Field Note (A picture is worth 1000 words): Every week at each meeting group members took so many picture of me and with me. I did not understand at first, but it eventually became clear that as a queer refugee claimant it was important to be seen with known members of the Canadian queer communities. In a hearing it was seen as evidence that you must be queer if you associate with highly visible queer individuals. Everything thing we did and everywhere we went my picture was being taken and submitted in evidence packages. Usually after each individual interview the participant would pull out a cell phone to take a picture of us. I was cooperative.

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In order to prove queerness, participants spend considerable time meticulously collecting pictures, documents, support letters, and/or love letters, all to have enough documented evidence to satisfy decision-makers who, for the most part, carry heterosexist views of queer deviance.

Participants must sift through obscure local newspapers and online documents as well as try to recover medical and police records from uncooperative African systems and unwilling family members. All this to prove the validity of their claims of persecution. In the refugee application, process claimants are asked to provide detailed accounts in the eligibility interview, in their

Basis of Claim Form (BOC), and again in their hearing, which requires this additional evidence to corroborate claims to a highly stigmatized identity. Claimants’ safety and survival rely on their documents to intelligibly support the recognition of them as queer by decision-makers.

I’m supposed to provide, photographs… If any… letters, if any from my partner… I was supposed to provide cards, if he… If my boyfriend ever get me any cards… But I came with nothing. That was very hard it is still hard to get different things all together. Then he also asked me about… work documents like, appointment letters, because I had mentioned about my work and all that, and he asked me if I have any medical records… from being beaten and all of that… I have to contact people at home to try and send these things for me? Very difficult, very difficult because everybody is negative about me… It’s just about, just to… my little brother, my younger brother who is a bit friendly. He’s liberal but the rest… no. (Gay Man from Kenya, 1 year in Canada [P32])

Yeah the same day, the same day when she went through all of the documents and uh she said well actually the reason why uh I am giving you the… you know, refugee status is because you know you did a lot of work as an activist first. Um there is you know no way to say that you are not gay, because I went through Google and I saw your name, everything you did and everything. And the second point, it’s very important, it’s because you have your picture on the top of a newspaper. Even if you live in a country that is not homophobic, but the fact that you have your picture on the top of a newspaper, can affect your life. Yes even in Canada, that’s what she said, so based on that I give you the status refugee. Yeah and then we had a party and we drank some champagne, some wine (laughter) yeah. I know am one of the few who has that kind of evidence, but I was lucky that someone was able to send me the newspaper with my picture. (Gay Man from Ivory Coast, 3 years in Canada [P12])

They would require things like newspaper articles around prosecution, um stuff that’s happening, anything around media stuff that would be helpful. Um pictures of you know a person living in this gender, the letters from an agency stating this person is, you know a transgender person, this is the name they’re going by in brackets so and so. Um, so that is the kind of stuff they would need. (Transwoman from Nigeria, 4 years in Canada [P18])

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Which is basically you need to be out and about, you need to go to gay Pride day, you need to have pictures of you know, um, dancing in the street. You need to have, you know pictures at gay bars, you need to have, um you know, love letters to each other and a whole community of lesbian and gay friends and family. How does someone who is not even out to any other person, even out to themselves, like how do you have someone like that document their relationship and meet those standards? You can testify all you want but there needs to be something to corroborate what you are saying. (Gay Man from Uganda, 3 years in Canada [P1])

But you know once you start to understand that you need a lot of evidence you go join a group, make sure you have evidence, get out there for pride and, and people are still struggling with, they’re doing it, so they’re physically doing these things but emotionally still really struggling with I’m not comfortable with who I am and being in this space and it caused a lot of disconnect for some people and… (Gay Man from Ghana, 3 years in Canada [P13])

Because they would say, oh you have to prove that you’re gay. Which I find ridiculous because (laughter) how can you prove that, other than just having sex with somebody, right? But, which is kind of discriminating because you don’t, they don’t usually ask you those kinds of questions if you are a straight person. (Lesbian from Swaziland, 1 year in Canada [P9])

Claimants may substantiate their fears of persecution in several ways. Their testimonies of feared harm, which are presumed to be valid unless there is evidence of serious doubt, may suffice to establish an objective basis to fear persecution. The decision-makers may also rely on information concerning the treatment of similarly situated persons to determine the seriousness of the harm alleged. Typically, this evidence is taken from independent human rights reports released by governmental and non-governmental agencies, and by media outlets. These reports often do not tell the story from the perspective of on-the-ground local experts with lived experience. They are also often government-sponsored documents that lack political neutrality.

And actually, in my hearing during my hearing, that’s one of the questions the judge asked me. He said here is the, the report uh I received I received from the human rights commission um, um uh, after the study they did to find out what the countries, African countries where homosexuality is criminalized, but Ivory Coast is not on the list. How can you, what kind of argument can you give to, to, to deny that? If you are not very strong, you can just give up. Yeah, yeah, after the first part of my hearing, I thought I said to myself you know what? Start, plan another thing, plan another thing. I was actually crying and my lawyer came over and he said well, it’s not time to cry, it’s not time to cry but you have to remember that when he asks you a question, just give him the answer, but give him the answer and be very firm. Otherwise, you will be confused, and you know say you know different things on the same question and that’s not helpful for you. I was not accepted that time. So, when we went back for the second appeal hearing and my lawyer took the, the lead and start asking me questions, it you know based on what he

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told me, and that was really, really helpful. I was accepted the second time. (Gay Man from Ivory Coast, 3 years in Canada [P12])

Although it is the refugee’s membership in a persecuted social group—queer Africans— that is the basis for the refugee claim, participants grappled with the need to provide evidence of their sexual practices for the refugee hearing. It was believed that decision-makers often made critical decisions about the participant’s sexual orientation based on evidence of sexual practices.

This requirement created a great deal of anxiety before and during hearings for participants. The hearing process often implicitly fuses a queer sexual identity with sexual behaviour and places undue emphasis on the sexual behaviour of claimants. This sexualization of queer identities is attributable in part to the impact of heterosexist discourses. Claimants with limited queer sexual experience were at a disadvantage, and the emphasis placed on sexual relationships in hearings often worked against queer African refugees.

So... and I’ve seen it often where, you know, the judge would say; you don’t look gay enough I don’t trust that you are too butch, too masculine, your too fem if you are a girl or saying you know what I don’t need you to prove that your queer I can see that your gay, so let’s move to the other part. That happens quite a lot and there’s, not to say that there isn’t any board members that are good that way and who are fair and who are rational but there’s plenty of them who are not and the requirements to prove your sexuality is kind of, puts people in a situation where they have to, you know, come up with things that are out of their everyday normal life to just prove it by say taking group pictures, trying to get letters from people saying I slept with this guy or I done this or that, like things that are very intimate and personal that you don’t share usually out in public. (LGBT Youth Program Coordinator [Key Informant 9])

They have to actively go out and meet other people or maybe having certain relationships that they’re not... they wouldn’t have done otherwise as having sex that they wouldn’t have otherwise because they feel that the more I do it the more chances I have with somebody coming and writing a letter for me or testifying in the hearing. (Gay Man from Nigeria, 4 years in Canada [P20])

Now of course we all understand how, how what’s the health risks that come behind that when you need to do that, when you need to have sex to prove your situation, I mean it’s a joke that they say, oh you know what am I going to to do at the judge am I going to have sex in front of them? Actually, not in front of them but, but in some what that’s what you’re doing the last three months preparing for it, because you need somebody to write a letter saying I had sex with that person; sometimes taking pictures, you know? Maybe I haven’t seen the very explicit pictures, but I know that this, this happens, people do try to take these pictures and I knew people took pictures in sexual situations just to take them and prove something. (Gay Man from Uganda, 7 years in Canada [P11])

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Some friends of mine had to register themselves on these, what do they call it? Adam for Adam? You know, the... the gay... dating. Dating whatever, yes. Some people have to register themselves. That is evidence as well. I didn’t do it. (Gay Man from Uganda, 1 year in Canada [P16])

When the Worst Fear is Realized

The gravity of the refugee process is that it is primarily a decision about whether a person lives or dies. When such crucial decisions are being made, we need to guarantee that a fair, objective process is in place that will guarantee the necessary protection an independent expert tribunal can offer. In order to strengthen this process, the Immigration and Refugee Board of

Canada issued guidelines in 2017 to help decision-makers handle proceedings involving SOGI refugee claimants, in order to address stereotypes associated with diverse SOGI refugee claimants.33 The purpose of these guidelines is to promote greater understanding of cases involving SOGI refugee claimants and the harm individuals may face due to their nonconformity with regard to socially accepted SOGI norms. An intersectional analysis is also applied to the new guidelines, with a recognition that the harms experienced by diverse SOGI refugees may be compounded and unique as the result of the confluence of racial or ethnic identities. The guidelines caution decision-makers to be aware of their biases.

Queer African refugees have fled from relentless persecution, where many have spent a lifetime hiding their identity. They require Canadian decision-makers to not only respect their queer African narrative but also ensure a level of compassion in hearing their past and current trauma. Despite the efforts being put forward by new guidelines, participants discussed struggling in a refugee process that did not accommodate their life experiences.

It’s not a judicial system and that’s the biggest thing... this bureaucratic system. The fact that there is no appeal process, if you lose... you lose, you’re gone. I mean there’s a review process something like that but it’s not treated like an appeal process. The fact that you don’t really know timeframes and you have only this once chance, so you sit... you apply and you sit and you don’t know if they are going to call you tomorrow or in a

33 Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. Guideline 9—Proceedings before the IRB Involving Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression. Guidelines issued by the chairperson pursuant to paragraph 159(1)(h) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act [Chairperson’s Guidelines].

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year and your life is stuck and you don’t know how to proceed with your life because you’re living one month after another. The fact that you only get this one hearing, with one person and their own issues, biases and all these things so, so there is all that. (Gay Man from Burundi, 9 years in Canada [P15])

It wasn’t easy. I’d never done it before. It was not easy. Yeah. It was tough. And you had to tell this story to the, the to the judge. Because at this point you’ve kept everything pretty secret in your home country and then you come here, and you have to tell this story in front of a stranger. Yeah. Especially when she said like, she doesn’t believe I was in a, in a genuine relationship because how could you be in a relationship and your girlfriend is in prison, right? And then you don’t... [Pause – participant begins to cry] [Pause] But she’s like, “Do you not care enough in a relationship if a person really needs (??).” I said... she doesn’t believe that I was telling the truth because I did not do anything to help (??), my girlfriend. But I tried... I tried. I tried my best, you know. She couldn’t believe it. Because there was nothing to show that at least I tried. It’s hard to hear something so negative from a stranger. It’s not easy. But it hurts because if you try and then somebody’s not believing you... it really hurts. (Lesbian from Nigeria, 2 years in Canada [P34])

Researcher Field Note (Support at a Refugee Hearing): I will never forget supporting a participant in my first refugee hearing. I did not breathe until the decision was announced. If it had been a negative ruling, I am not sure how I could have provided any support. I was scared from the time we entered the building, dealing with security, waiting for the hearing to start, hoping that the participant remembered everything we practiced, hoping the lawyer showed up on time. When it was my turn to provide testimony in support of the sexual orientation of the participant, my head was spinning. It was an overwhelming and disorienting feeling knowing that today might be the participant’s last legal day in Canada. I only got a small taste of understanding what life is like for the participants as they navigate the refugee process.

In negative queer African refugee determinations, decision-makers, in part, denied the claims based on credibility. In a substantial proportion of these cases, the decision-makers disbelieved the claimant’s assertions about their sexual orientation (Rehaag, 2017). Bisexuals were the most likely to have their asserted sexual orientation disbelieved (Rehaag, 2008).

Refugee legal experts note that the main tools decision-makers use to make credibility findings are all unreliable, and, despite the new guidelines in place, queer African refugees must still prove their queerness against decision-makers’ heterosexist or even homophobic worldviews that have not been unlearned or challenged (Fairbairn, 2005; Lidstone, 2006; Rehaag, 2017; Sajnani,

2014b).

I am appealing. My claim was denied. I was told that I was not believed to be gay since I have 6 children. How can an African man of 46 years not have children? My father had

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10 children by the time he was my age. A man with no children will not be taken seriously... It has nothing to do with being gay. (Gay Man from Uganda, 7 years in Canada [P11])

They use stereotypes that are presented to them by the media and, you know, general media presentations like the TV shows and what they see in the mainstream, kind of gay culture and the gay village kind of thing so a gay guy has to be femmy, have to wear colours that are femmy or gay you have to wear pink if you have some make-up if you are doing the hairdos and I also saw and heard lawyers advising their clients to gay it up a little bit in the hearing, you know? Don’t dress, don’t wear what you usually dress, you’re too butch, too masculine if you’re a man. Like wear a pink shirt, wear something like what you would wear to go to a club, dancing, you know. Do you use make-up? Maybe you can add a little bit mascara to your eyes... all these things that, you know is just... really silly and they are very cosmetic, they’re very image oriented and don’t really prove anything but unfortunately the system is very immature that way and unreasonable in lots of ways. (Trans Refugee Support Worker [Key Informant 3])

The first hearing, I did my first hearing. And then it turned out that it was a couple, a couple of things that were, some issues that were raised. And then like, I did not have enough evidence to support my claim because whatever my lawyer requested of me, that is what I submitted. But the evidence still was not good enough, right? So when, when my claim was denied. At the first hearing, I did not have anything from my girlfriend back home because since they arrested her, I lost contact with her and I didn’t have anything to present. (Lesbian from Uganda, 2 years in Canada [P7])

My claim was rejected. The judge said he did not understand how I could claim that I was a lesbian and be presently pregnant. My lawyer says we will appeal the decision. (Lesbian from Kenya, 1 year in Canada [P26])

Through the refugee claims process, queer refugees are negotiating culturally prescribed identity narratives that shift before, during, and after forced migration, and when these shifting narratives come into direct contact with the state apparatus that requires definitive proof of sexual identity and lived experience in order to grant refugee protection, the potential for inaccurate assessments and misguided decisions is high.

Joy, Hope, and Activism

Queer African refugees restricted within the refugee process have learned to tell their stories in ways that translate their subjectivity, their culture, and the world the left behind in a manner that is comprehensible to the Canadian listener. In order to be seen and heard, they must learn to construct their narratives the Canadian way. Their narratives become curated and rehearsed, lacking in complexity and nuance. It is understood very quickly upon crossing the

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Canadian border that complexity and nuance will get you sent back to the life you were fleeing.

Participants expressed being aware at all times of the judgmental Canadian eyes fixed on them, requiring simple narratives that do not include joy or hope during the refugee process. Only grief, despair, and gratitude can be expressed. Nyeri (2019) notes that there is no greater indignity than the daily humiliation of waiting to be granted your life, but even within that reality, refugees can find joy and dignity in shared strength. They are just restricted in showing it. It is only after the refugee hearing, when final decisions have been rendered and declared, that participants discussed their settlement and experience in Canada with hope or optimism. They felt that they had attained a sense of queer normalcy and dignity through the process and were happy to shed the political and legal sense of powerlessness, rightlessness, and “placelessness” that they were required to maintain while waiting for refugee hearing decisions.

If I, I can tell the Canadian government about my sexual orientation, I can do anything. And I think that sums up a lot of, of what refugees are going through. The mere fact that you can put your... the thing that you fear people finding out the most on paper or look at a government official and tell them without fear, you have nothing left to fear if that’s your greatest fear. (Lesbian from Botswana, 1 year in Canada [P4])

I know yeah, one year, yeah. My gosh! I can’t believe it! So much has happened. I’ve done more growing in the past 8 months to a year then in my entire life. Restraints and restrictions hinder so much more than just your ability or your capability or one area of your life, you know, it overshadows everything. You just have this massive huge, gloomy cloud hanging over you and the chain effect you don’t realize it until you’re actually out of the situation. And my mom kept on telling me, “(Participants name), this situation is not good for you at all.” And I was like, “Oh you know I’ve come here, I need to be here.” But having come to Canada and just having that burden released and removed from your shoulders you forget how good it is to breathe again until you can breathe well. You know, so yeah, coming to Canada was amazing. (Lesbian from Senegal, 1 year in Canada [P35])

Participant narratives of social, political, and familial suffering represent the complex fields of meaning from which participants interpret their painful pasts and difficult presents. I will not attempt to discern a strategy from which we might learn the “best” way to come to terms with suffering or to build hope. During the refugee process, participants drew on the past for strength and survival before their flight to Canada, but they then set this aside as no longer being relevant once being granted refugee status in Canada—they explained that they could now draw

219 on the strength they attained by surviving the arduous experience of seeking refugee protection in Canada instead.

Um, I think it made me, probably makes me stronger and I’m, I’m happier. I came, I came, um I felt, I feel like in a way I’ve been sort of like in a prison like I’ve I haven’t been free and so being here it’s, it’s good because I feel like I can, It’s a country where there’s so much liberty… and, and um and I, yeah and so I feel happy being here cause I knew I, I can be (name) I can be myself, I can be who I am, so. (Transman from Nigeria, 2 years in Canada [P25])

Oh, for sure! I’d go through those bed bugs again in a heartbeat to be here, no word of a lie. And I’m just like at the point right now where I’m just really, I’m conscious of the repercussion that there could and will be should certain people find out that I am gay. I really don’t care. I can deal with it when I deal with it, and when I have to deal with it. I really don’t care. Honestly. Yeah and Toronto has given me that freedom. Canada has given me the ability to breathe easy and to sleep at night and just to be myself. (Gay Man from Uganda, 3 years in Canada [P10])

To live you have to grow up. So, you have now to become more responsible... which I was not to, you know? At home you have everything provided for. But here you have to pay all the bills, you have to work, you have to be responsible. It’s sometimes good because you have to grow up. You have to be responsible. You have to, you know, make your life. You can’t be gay if you don’t make your own life. ’Cause you’re by yourself. So you’re ready to do that. Yeah. It all makes you better and stronger. (Gay Man from Ivory Coast, 3 years in Canada [P12])

Study participants were willing and able to articulate the social and political dynamics that actively attempted to push them out of place in their African countries and were very clear about their refusal to accept this sense of not belonging and rejection within the Canadian context. After their hearings, a new narrative about life in Canada was mixed with narratives from their countries of origin, reflecting the nexus between the queer African refugees and their broader social contexts, which span two Continents. This renewed sense of confidence allowed many participants to pursue their place within the mainstream queer Canadian community with a different sense of themselves that was not evident when they were in the midst of the refugee process.

I finally went to the 519. And when I went to the 519, that’s when I said Church Street, it was, it was like going into a sweet shop. [laughs] The sweet shop. So much to choose from I just wanted to know who all these gay people are. You know. ’Cause you tend to think you’re alone. That’s what I thought. I thought I was alone in that situation. But then to hear that there were others like me... Then I went to there, I saw some faces they were

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all pretty anyway. heh heh heh. Then I said, “Oh my goodness. What about this one...” you know. (Transwoman from Nigeria, 4 years in Canada [P18])

But there was a way to I don’t know how to call it, like a second chance at life after going through the hearings, and you to give you your residency permit. I did believe about it then, cause as I accepted my homosexuality like late. I always had this feeling like why me, I, you know I wanted to be like others. ’Cause all the time when people talk about you like you’re not normal, you’re not whatever and I was in denial, so I didn’t want to do anything about gay people. So, it took me time after the hearing, and I started going out. That’s when like oh this is nice; I can be myself. That’s when I contacted Alexi, he told me about his association A’Council D’Afrique, then I joined it, we started doing meetings and then after it was like oh, why not. That’s when I, I’m like okay fine, now I can do it. (Gay Man from Burundi, 6 years in Canada [P19])

How did it feel... Heh heh... to march in the Pride parade? I feel like I have all the rights... Mm.... for lesbians. Mmhmm. I feel like, ah, I wish my girlfriend was here. I would show the Toronto that we are lovers. Heh. Yeah. Yeah. It was great! (Lesbian from Kenya, 6 years in Canada [P17])

On the surface, participants’ narratives of joy and hope may be attached to the process of forgetting the past, but I firmly believe the narratives are more tied to commitments to help others who have been left behind or find themselves in similar refugee processes. These narratives of hope were framed often at the macro-level of political change or societal change.

The participants’ reflective narratives of surviving difficult times speak to a sense of internal strength and a strong sense of resilience, one not only connected to personal survival but also to a desire to end queer suffering and promote queer hope. It is a resilience that gives the participants coherence to past, present, and future experiences and relies on hope for community, political acceptance, government, and cultural respect.

That’s what does it. And I came... my confidence was brought about... I want to fight for employment now, for gay rights, community rights. I mean we’re talking about human rights like housing, social benefits... health care, immigration. You know. So, you find yourself you want to just get all those things. Racism is another thing. I, Mmhmm. I think that’s what empowered my confidence. (Gay Man from Kenya, 4 years in Canada [P33])

First of all, I’d like to finish off my business degree. I’d also like to get into teaching because I just love working with young people and kids, and people who are impressionable I like having a positive impact and influence on their lives and I think it’s something that I do well. And I relate with everybody because I just try to make room for people to be themselves and just to grow and help that process in anyways that I can. (Lesbian from Senegal, 1 year in Canada [P35])

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I found employment at the 519, which I love because I can be queer in a queer space and give back by supporting other refugees. But not a lot of us have that opportunity. Not a lot of us poor immigrants have the opportunity of working in a place where we can be gay or be trans without any problem. So that’s a privilege that I’ve gotten, and it’s because of this privilege that now I speak. I don’t speak... I speak for those who are to come, and for those who are here in Canada, still struggling. In hopes that we can actually do something to see change. (Transwoman from Nigeria, 4 years in Canada [P18])

The participant narratives in this chapter emphasize the need for a more reflexive and expansive account of not only suffering but also hope within queer African refugee narratives. These narratives need to be placed within a conceptual framework that acknowledges the importance of the connections between individual experiences and the socio-political context of pre-migration life, flight, and refugee settlement. This is a matter of moving beyond our Canadian sensibilities and listening to the voices of those who know most about the relationship between the macro forces of human rights violations and their impact on individual trajectories.

It’s been glorious. (laughs) It’s been absolutely beautiful. Oh my gosh. It’s like living in a smog filled city for years and then you go out into the country and you smell fresh air, oh god! Or like living in the desert for 6 months and then you take and then you take a dip in the pool. I don’t know. It’s been liberating. It has been freeing. It’s been trying though, challenging, very challenging. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all peaches and cream. It’s just peaches, I’m still working on the cream but it’s really, really interesting. Coupled with the fact that you know, okay you know, I’m in gay Toronto right now, which rocks. If I run into somebody I know then it doesn’t rock so much but at least I have the opportunity or the chance to be in a place where there is a social space, or a safe space to the most extent, for the most part, a safe space, where I can go and be me and walk down the street and hold hands with my girlfriend or my partner or whatever I want to call her and not feel like, “Oh my gosh Aunty so and so is going to see me. Or oh my gosh my cousin is going to kick my butt when they hear I did this.” You know what I mean? “Oh my gosh, what will my mom and dad think?” You don’t have to live in fear of being found out in a space. And I know right now I’m not at liberty to be totally free everywhere and anywhere I go, but I’m a lot more liberated than I was a year ago. And it’s a beautiful, it’s an amazing feeling. (Transwoman from Uganda, 2 years in Canada [P36])

Chapter 8 Conclusion

Queer African refugees are courageous and resilient, as the findings and analyses in this dissertation demonstrate. If I could meet the Ph.D. requirements of my academic institution with this conclusion, I would end my dissertation here. My research, however, also addresses a larger liberatory goal of initiating dialogue and creating a foundation to theorize, and understand in greater depth, queer African identity. This occurs while addressing the objectives of identifying how queer African identity is shaped on the Continent as well as in the Diaspora, how we fight our oppression in these two spaces, and how our queer African identities are reshaped when we leave our countries of origin through forced migration and are left to navigate the Canadian refugee process.

I have come to understand that advocating for and researching the lives of queer African refugees, in the context of both the Canadian refugee system and Continental queer African rights movements, entails inherent tensions. Although we now see increasingly persistent patterns of forced migration and a resulting rise in queer African refugee claims in Canada, relatively few Canadian studies have focused on the lives and experiences of these individuals specifically. We are also at a time in Canadian history where refugee rights are in jeopardy internationally, and our immigration restrictions are producing more non-status individuals behind our borders than ever before (Fête, Aho, Benoit, Cloos, & Ridde, 2019; Marsden, 2018;

Villegas & Aberman, 2019). My project, then, fills a research gap and emphasizes the need to explore what it means to extend refugee protection to queer Africans facing sexual orientation or gender identity-based persecution. I acknowledge that my exploration of these tensions was focused on the micro-level experiences of participants as they navigated everyday life. I hope that my future research will explore these tensions more fully at the systemic level and in relation to processes on the African Continent.

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My research has however, provided the impetus and opened pathways for more comprehensive analysis, which explores the lives of queer Africans not only in Toronto and other metropolitan areas in Canada but globally. I have produced relevant reference material that provides vivid evidence and informs our knowledge of the unique experiences of queer African refugees in

Canada. My study has also successfully submitted perspectives on a community whose histories, geographies, cultures, and sexual identities clash with the refugee system they are trying to navigate and the country they are trying to integrate into.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first study in Canadian social research that explores specifically the experiences of queer African refugees in Canada. It, therefore, contributes significantly to expanding knowledge of queer migration within Canadian immigrant and refugee studies. By providing such foundational information, I aim to move beyond solely academic relevance and significantly influence the areas of legal scholarship and social policy.

Government departments concerned with immigration and settlement, immigrant-serving, settlement agencies, and front line social service workers will find the research useful.

I would also extend the reach of relevance to community activists and queer African refugees themselves who have the highest stake in the welfare of queer refugees in Canada. With queer

African refugees constituting over 40% of all SOGI refugee claims in Canada, a full understanding of this community, their needs, and their path to integration into Canadian society is necessary and required research. A unique strength of my research and original contribution is that it has brought together the domains of sexual identity, migration, and social policy from an

African perspective and will have relevance in the fields of African studies and Diaspora and

Transnational studies. Canada is internationally known for its commitment to supporting the humanitarian needs and welfare of queer refugees. The need for more empirical research on the structural integration of this population is evident. I feel my research has contributed to filling this gap and addresses the need for more robust insight into diverse refugee experiences in

Canada. Finally, my work has made a significant contribution to queer migration literature,

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African queer studies, and Black queer studies, which are all growing fields of inquiry. My research will help expand these fields by fostering a more critical understanding of queer African refugees' experiences which are missing currently, as part of this growing scholarship.

Post-colonial critiques of queer liberation and homonationalism question the availability of rights to access safety and the compromised survival of queer refugees in general, and the survival of queer African refugees in particular. By virtue of the bodies they inhabit, queer

African refugees are the hardest hit by underlying racial tensions in the Canadian homonational agenda. While I focus on two discourses within the refugee determination process—evidence of genuine queer identity and evidence of compromised safety—these are just a small part of a much larger series of tensions that must be interrogated in the research and advocacy for queer

African refugees.

My research enabled a means to capture queer Africans’ perceptions of belonging and to place them in the context of everyday identity negotiated both in Canada and in their African countries of origin. Due to the small sample size, the findings cannot be generalized, but the method did give access to detailed knowledge about individual experiences. The study provides a touchstone for further research and encourages researchers to step outside of conventional frameworks. I insist that my research supports a queer African praxis framework, providing the supportive scaffolding to move us progressively toward a more robust understanding of queer

Africans and answer the research question of “how do queer African refugees come to know themselves and negotiate their identities and security between nations?” This framework outlines the theoretical perspectives, knowledge, values, ethics, and critical concepts that are necessary to understand queer Africans regardless of their location. For the queer African praxis framework, I present, I take a praxis approach where theory and knowledge production are inherently linked to action, which then feeds back into knowledge production. Hence, this praxis framework integrates theory and practice, enabling those working in the broader human services to enhance

225 both their theoretical understandings and their intervention skills for their work with queer

African refugees (Maiter & Joseph, 2016).

My queer African praxis framework further theorizes action and, at the same time, actions theorizing to incorporate practice, theoretical knowledge, and experiential knowledge to be used in everyday situations (Baines, 2017; Benjamin, 2017; Massaquoi, 2017). In order to raise awareness of the issues and experiences faced by queer African refugees, as detailed in my research findings, practitioners need a new analytical framework that can help them resist practices of surveillance of refugees and eliminate racial and homophobic/transphobic bias

(Robinson & Masocha, 2016). There is also the need for a praxis framework that can help them identify the complexity of and nuances in queer African refugee lives (Maiter & Joseph, 2016).

This notion is grounded by research participants, who poignantly articulated the question of what individual practitioners can do to assist in the processes of belonging for queer Africans. What emerged in response was the need for practitioners to take time to understand the aspirations of queer African refugees, learn the values that these refugees arrive with and how their choices are shaped by these values, support refugees in navigating racism in the Canadian context, help mitigate the tensions experienced in the refugee process, and facilitate active participation in civil society. Broadening the concept of belonging has significant practical and theoretical consequences for both those providing services and those receiving them.

Throughout this dissertation, I argue that a queer African praxis framework requires building an understanding of the nexus between identity, intimacy, belonging, and security. My research provides access to queer African identity processes that would remain hidden if we focused on queer refugees as a monolithic category, without looking at the specificity of queer

African identity. The queer African praxis framework I outline requires us to begin by connecting to the lived experiences of queer Africans before forced migration. This praxis framework draws attention to the importance of understanding the world visions of queer

African refugees through insights into individuals’ personal histories (Hernandez & Garcia-

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Moreno, 2014), shared colonial and imperial histories (Ahmed, 2011), concepts of belonging and security (Hernandez & Garcia-Moreno, 2014), and queer Africans and queer African refugees as shapers of just societies (Allan, 2015; Cox & Geisen, 2014).

Returning to my key research question—How do queer African refugees come to know themselves and negotiate their identities and security between nations?—my findings highlight that security and social freedom are defining factors in belonging. Everyone who lives in a society is always a part of it, whether they are accepted or not, and refugees make no exception

(hooks, 2009). Paradoxically, my findings show that restrictions on individual social freedoms may diminish one’s sense of security but do not necessarily diminish a sense of belonging or the desire to fight for belonging. The participants in this study have developed careful and often successful strategies aimed at those who challenge their senses of belonging, and these strategies have often included flight towards a perceived safer geography.

The queer African praxis framework I have developed through this project contends first with how to document queer African refugee persecution without perpetuating the essentializing of Africa as a monolithic, anti-queer Continent. To achieve this, the context of imperialism and colonizing histories is made visible in my discussion, since they are not always directly present in the narratives of participants. The illumination of the primary forces of oppression has provided context for the existence of an overwhelming anti-queer culture across the Continent.

The discussion of family support, love, and protection in responding to queer family members was a dynamic that was crucial to explore in an effort to reduce stigmatizing narratives.

Understanding the context and impact of colonial anti-sodomy laws, which mirror the not-so- distant Canadian reformed legislation, is also crucial for producing non-stigmatizing discussions.

Participants’ narratives trouble the perception of their persecution and challenge Western binaries of the repressed/liberated refugee. My conversations with participants revealed powerful forces of oppression, such as racism, ethnocentrism, classism, homonormativity, cisnormativity,

227 heteropatriarchy, colonialism, and imperialism, all of which are entangled with issues of sex, gender, sexuality, and forced migration.

We must also document the seismic shifts and realignment of queer identity that occurs through forced migration, even without inscribing the transnational coming out story. This is a story that perpetuates the notion that movement from an African context to a Canadian one for queer African refugees is movement from the primitive to the civilized. Within this praxis framework, we must be cautious about how we present the need to support queer African refugees’ escape from trauma and avoid Western saviour narratives. Canadian, homonational discourses trigger the narrative of the saviour state, where the emphasis in refugee determinations is, deceptively, not on how queer African refugees are at high risk for exclusion but rather on how they should be grateful to be allowed in at all and provided with an opportunity to prove themselves worthy of protection. The proposed praxis framework also must grapple with the creation of diverse queer identities that are not viewed through the lens of oppression and sit comfortably outside of Western-defined categories.

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Figure 7: A Queer African Praxis Framework

Attending to the needs of this framework requires coalition-building with queer African communities, both here in Canada and on the African Continent. It requires interdisciplinary scholarship through which the rigidity of the single-discipline silo is exchanged for the expansiveness of collaboration, which aims to understand multiple perspectives to develop best practices, working methods, and models for working with queer Africans. Interdisciplinary scholarship allows us to attend to the full scope of queer African lives and experiences, understanding that it is not sufficient to approach our pressing issues from just one perspective. I also emphasize the thinking of Kleinman (2012), who outlines interdisciplinary collaboration as a relationship between academics, practitioners, and their constituents to transcend the academy and transform the definition of professional care.

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Finally, critical reflexivity, when situated within transformative research practices, as I have outlined in Chapter One, will be critical for the successful implementation of this praxis framework. I believe that if we cannot use theoretical analysis and interventions to produce practical and strategic solutions, we need to rethink our focus (Kleinman, 2012). Theory and practice must work in coalition with one another on this matter, where we not only want to think about conditions and imagine possibilities but also experience these possibilities. With this, I am suggesting that questions of fighting to belong in one’s home country or choosing to flee to a new country are complicated for queer African refugees, who must continually think about how same-sex desire and identity intersect with new identities while continuing to fight against their persecution in two locales. This experience cannot be reduced to my analysis. The participants unequivocally demonstrate living with paradoxes but not contradictions. In their narratives, they expressed being torn between their desire to escape repressive societies for the West, abandoning

“home,” friends, and families, while struggling to embrace a new “home” that continues to ostracize them. As I have stated previously, a queer African praxis framework, then, becomes one that must clearly articulate the formation of a queer African identity that cannot be separated from the theorization of resistance, revolution, and change. In a transnational world where cultural asymmetries and linkages continue to be mystified by economic and political interests at multiple levels, we need detailed, historicized, geopolitical mappings of circuits of power concerning sexual orientation. A queer African praxis framework that speaks to the refugee experience is a project that not only affirms and celebrates complex representations of

Africanness, which are privately accentuated by sexual and political consciousness, but one that also challenges representations that are publicly regulated by those who define queer African cultural expression by prioritized heteronormativity, both on the Continent and through Canada’s refugee apparatus.

As for my solidarity with research participants, my primary responsibility is to employ an anti-colonial, anti-oppressive method of discourse and narrative analysis that searches for and

230 interprets what is hidden, unspoken, normalized, and shaped by shame, fear, violence, resistance, and liberation. It is a responsibility that makes visible the queer African subject and affirms the presence of often-silenced voices rather than illuminating difference which then becomes positioned as an interruption into Western queer identity. In this dissertation, I have developed a queer African critique that facilitates the ability to interrogate the nexus of racial, sexual, colonial, imperial, and gendered identities that situate queer African refugee subjectivities in both post-colonial societies and settler nations. As we are situated in a Canadian context, I must explore further how this critique might find shared solidarity in the expansive field of Critical

Indigenous Studies, so that we might collectively devise work that meets scholarly theorizing and daily activism that struggles through the lived realities of post-colonial work that both deconstructs and liberates.

My project asserts African agency and problematizes notions of sexual identity and sexual orientation from an African perspective. I am making a case for including heterogeneous experiences of the African diaspora in the ongoing construction of African sexual subjectivity, thus developing a queer approach that allows me to deconstruct sexual orientation, identity, and

Africa. While queering Africa is essential to some, and Africanizing queer studies is vital to others, I straddle these two positions while reflecting the ongoing struggles between sites of inclusion and sites of transformation that are premised upon two different paths to achieve queer

African embodiment and subjectivity.

Research participants make visible their ongoing transformation and resistance, as well as their inventiveness, as they negotiate belonging in the Canadian nation. It is a process that continuously places participants at the intersections of political, cultural, sexual, and socioeconomic realities, where the lives of queer Africans are not just defined by ideology but also by their, and resilience (Nyeck, 2020). As Nyanzi (2013 has argued, discussions of queer theory run the risk foreclosing who or what a queer African person can be. This creates an imperative to do research that is attentive to and generates conditions of livability for queer

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African refugees. As the participant narratives highlight, the Canadian refugee system is not about who is queer but rather about who is queer enough. Our research, therefore, must aim to destabilize sexuality and identity as analytical categories and resist the urge for universalizing queer frameworks. Puar (2007) warns that, regardless of intersectional intentions in our frameworks of subjectivity, and regardless of how attuned they are to locational politics of space and place, these formulations may still limit us if they presume the automatic primacy and singularity of the disciplinary subject. This urges us to question further the locational politics of queer African refugees, who live and strategize in liminal spaces at the intersections of visibility and invisibility.

It is clear, then, that queer African refugees navigating the Canadian refugee system are navigating a space where their cultural and sexual identities are questioned and made blurry.

They are also navigating a space where they are forming new cultural and social norms alongside a renewed sense of belonging and identity. Their presence disorganizes how the Canadian nation has thusfar organized homonational space, and my challenge has been to represent this experience without subjecting participants to the controlling nature of the Western gaze. A gaze that, more often than not, misrepresents and marginalizes.

The queer African praxis framework I developed in this dissertation is attuned to concrete bodily realities and accounts for the subtle subject positions of queer Africans whose erasure, as I have shown, is particularly painful and unnecessary. This framework also simultaneously reflects global discourses, mobility, and the transnational realities and specificities of queer African refugee lives. As one reads this dissertation, one may be inclined to take an Afro-pessimist perspective and regard the Continent and its people as unredeemable, in crisis, and lagging behind “progressive” Western nations (Mudimbe, 1988). Instead, I take an Afro-optimist approach that is fueled by the hope gifted to me by the participants I had the honour of learning from. I refuse to bring forward a new static category of how best to understand queer African refugee life experience. Rather, I am making a more compelling proposition of a lifelong

232 commitment to the work of reflexivity and transformation, in which I am prepared to question, challenge, disrupt, and overturn dominant forms of oppression as they were understood and narrated by participants. This practice is a matter of both ethical principle and a desire to build a stronger understanding of how the nature of hope born out of suffering requires an in-depth recognition of how culture, history, political economy, and sexuality act on queer African refugee bodies. This knowledge only comes from listening to the voices of those who know best how macro forces violate human rights and change life trajectories. In exploring narratives of the queer African refugee journey to Canada, I have attempted to provide a forum for these voices to be heard. I recognize that this is a dialogue of humility on my part in which my learning will continue to be dynamic.

Epilogue The Final Word (In Memory of Kamau)

It did not seem appropriate to end my dissertation with my own words and comments, since the purpose of this project was to elaborate and amplify the lives of queer African refugees fully. It also did not seem appropriate to gloss over the reality that the Canadian refugee process is arduous and does not end neatly and nicely for all who attempt to seek asylum. I would be remiss to not acknowledge that some of my research participants did not mentally and physically survive the process of becoming a protected citizen behind Canadian borders. I, therefore, have chosen to end my project by honouring the memory of research participant Kamau.

I have chosen to disclose his pseudonym as opposed to just the code number in the manner in which I have been identifying all other participants. Kamau made the bold decision to not continue life in either Canada or his country of origin on the African Continent. The death of

Kamau was a sobering reminder to all of us who knew and supported him. Kamau’s words illuminate how refugee life is complicated, and sometimes, too much so:

I think despite the positive potential outcomes its draining, it’s exhausting. You have to go from an individual who understands that your safety is no longer tenable in your country to have the skills of being a lawyer, an advocate, a social worker, a writer, a highly-skilled verbal communicator and someone familiar with Canadian immigration law. You have to learn very quickly how a whole political and bureaucratic immigration system works. You are emotionally and physically taxed as you struggle to sustain your shelter, food and find employment. If you’re lucky to know anyone when you arrive you must rely on serendipity to ensure that you find kind people to assist you in navigating the Canadian system.

You can’t open a bank account when you first come and so you hope that the person you just gave your money to will actually not steal it. When you finally make your refugee claim you are not prepared for the challenge you will have around the authenticity of your life story. You must also contend with large gaps, waiting periods where you are left in limbo and don’t know what happens next. Its uncertainty. When you look at how much human beings, we try to control our lives about where we’re going, what we’re doing, who can’t do what. And now we have a whole group of people who... who don’t get to have basic control over their lives. Who doesn’t get to say that I can rent this apartment cause I’m sure of where my job is or at least I know I can apply for one. It’s a hard going process and you know when you’re fighting for your life you’ll... you’ll... you will man up, you will come up, you will step up to the plate but we can’t forget these people... individuals we are still struggling as survivors of trauma and social dislocation.

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234

Cause it’s not like most refugees who can say their families are supporting them. Other refugees know their families are rooting for them. Most refugees that are not queer refugees and they’re here because of civil unrest or war or even domestic violence or whatever, their people are rooting for them, they’re like we hope so-and-so gets through, right? Somebody back home is hoping that you get through. For many queer refugees, their families are like we don’t care if you live or die and if you come back here, I will kill you. It’s not like we can call home and say this is what happened or think that when they see somebody from their country they should be glad. So I think that’s a very different place to be in, then for those of us that, you know, you want to see another countryman cause you know you haven’t seen another one, seeing that next countryman isn’t necessarily a good thing for a queer black African refugee, it’s actually probably, maybe not the best thing... because if they’re not open to the full rights and civil liberties of a queer African this small community that your trying to have is also going to be against you here so you, you now have to exist in social exile even your new country of quote status. So, I think that people miss out these things and I think that because I’ve had a chance to witness them, living them observing others living them. I think like, wow, life is deep!

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Appendix A Descriptive Summary of Service Providers

1. Immigration Lawyer who has practiced for over 20 years specializing in QLGBT refugee

cases and domestic violence. Openly identifies as a queer.

2. Immigration Lawyer who has practiced for 10 years. QLGBT refugee cases were not a

specialty but had a number of cases to speak about.

3. Immigration legal scholar who had expertise in the Canadian immigration system.

4. Staff of a large AIDS service organization who was responsible for the QLGBT HIV

prevention outreach.

5. Staff of a small ethnocultural AIDS service organization responsible for the gay men’s

HIV prevention outreach.

6. Manager of a large settlement service agency. The agency housed a QLGBT settlement

program.

7. Staff of a large provincial serving settlement organization. The staff identified as a queer

refugee.

8. Queer program staff of a QLGBT settlement program housed within a large mainstream

settlement agency.

9. Queer program staff who identified as a queer refugee. They were managing a QLGBT

settlement program in a health organization.

10. Community Health Centre social worker with a large immigrant refugee case load.

11. Community Health Centre support worker for a trans support program.

12. Community Health Centre health promoter for a QLGBT refugee program.

13. A volunteer with a large ethno-cultural organization who was running a peer support

group for QLBGT Africans.

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Appendix B Sample Letter for Service Provider Recruitment

Dear Key Informant:

RE: QLGBT African Refugee Study

My name is Notisha Massaquoi, and I am a Doctoral student in the Department of Sociology and

Equity Studies in Education at the University of Toronto working under the supervision of Dr. X.

I am currently conducting research as part of my PhD dissertation on queer (Lesbian, Gay

Bisexual, Transgender) African identity and how it is impacted by forced migration and the refugee claimant process. I am specifically looking at the experiences of queer African refugees who have made claims in Canada based on sexual orientation/gender identity persecution in their countries of origin.

The reason I would like to speak with you is that you are currently working or have worked in the past in the areas of settlement, immigration law and/or immigrant service provision and may have provided these services to members of queer African communities.

I would like to invite you to participate in an interview that will explore issues faced by queer refugee claimants in Canada and how they navigate the Canadian immigration system. I will be interviewing 5 key informants such as yourself and 20 members of queer African communities who are in the process of or have had successful refugee claims.

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Participation in this study will involve answering/addressing the following topics, you may of course decline to answer any question during the course of the interview:

1. Overview of the Canadian refugee process

2. Experiences of QLGBT refugee claimants in general

3. Reasons why QLGBT refugee claims are made/prevalence rates

4. Specific situation of QLGBT African refugee claimants

5. Information of the situation in African countries which make these claims possible

6. Successful and failed claims (examples)

7. Systemic barriers in making claims

8. Services and organizations available to support QLGBT refugee claims

9. Impact of navigating the immigration system on refugee claimants.

Your participation in this study is voluntary and your estimated participation time will be about one hour, at a time and place to be decided at your convenience. Prior to each interview I will ask you for your permission to tape the interview. If you are uncomfortable with being taped, I will take written notes of the interview. All information derived from the interviews will be used for research publication, conference presentations and teaching purposes only. Your identity will be concealed at all times in the dissemination of the research results. You will be asked to complete a consent form prior to your participation in this study. A copy will be provided for your own reference as well as for the researcher.

The only people who will have access to the data are my supervisor and myself. Your identity will be kept completely confidential and I will use pseudonyms when directly quoting you. Of course, please feel free to say if you are not interested in participating or are unable to participate at this time. You may choose to withdraw from the study at any time, and any information you

267 provide upon withdrawal will be destroyed and not be used in the research project. If you have any questions throughout the study, you may discuss your concerns with me.

All materials pertaining to data will be stored in a locked cabinet. Audio files will be destroyed after one year and transcripts will be kept secure for up to 5 years and then destroyed. A summary of the research findings will be made available to all study participants upon completion of the study.

I understand that you may need to confer with other organization members before making a decision. If you do not want to make a decision at this time, please let me know when I should contact you again. You may also reach me at the telephone number/email below at a convenient time. Should you wish to speak to my supervisor, Dr. X, you may contact them by phone at 416-

XXX- XXXX or e-mail: [email protected].

If you have any questions regarding your rights as a study participant you may contact the Ethics

Review Office as [email protected] or call 416-946-3273.

Yours sincerely, Notisha Massaquoi MSW Doctoral Candidate

Appendix C Sample Information Letter for Individual Refugee Key Informant

Title of Project:

QLGBT African Refugee Study

My name is Notisha Massaquoi, and I am a Doctoral student in the Department of Sociology and

Equity Studies in Education at the University of Toronto working under the supervision of Dr. X.

I am currently conducting research as part of my PhD dissertation on queer (Lesbian, Gay

Bisexual, Transgender) African identity. I am specifically looking at the experiences of queer

African refugees who have made claims in Canada based on sexual orientation/gender identity persecution in their countries of origin and how LGBT identity is impacted by forced migration and the refugee claimant process.

The reason I would like to speak with you is that you are currently in the process of completing a refugee claim or have successfully completed a refugee claim in Canada.

I would like to invite you to participate in an interview that will explore issues faced by queer refugee claimants in Canada and how they navigate the Canadian immigration system as well as your experience identifying as QLGBT in Africa. I will be interviewing 5 key informants who provide services in this area and 20 members of the queer African community who are in the process of or have had successful refugee claims. At no time will you be required to reveal your name or any other things that you feel will reveal your identity.

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Participation in this study will involve answering/addressing the following topics, you may of course decline to answer any question during the course of the interview:

1. Your experience with the Canadian refugee process

2. You experience as a queer African in Canada

3. Reasons why you made a refugee claim in Canada

4. Specific situation of queer Africans in your country of origin

5. Barriers and enablers, you experienced in making your claim

6. Services and organizations, you have been able to access during your refugee process

and settlement in Canada

Your participation in this study is voluntary and your estimated participation time will be about one hour, at a time and place to be decided at your convenience. Prior to each interview I will ask you for your permission to tape the interview. If you are uncomfortable with being taped I will take written notes of the interview. All information derived from the interviews will be used for research publication, conference presentations and teaching purposes only. Your identity will be concealed at all times in the dissemination of the research results. You will be asked to complete a consent form prior to your participation in this study. A copy will be provided for your own reference as well as for the researcher.

The only people who will have access to the data are my supervisor Dr. X and myself. Your identity will be kept completely confidential and I will use pseudonyms when directly quoting you. Of course, please feel free to say if you are not interested in participating or are unable to participate at this time. You may choose to withdraw from the study at any time, and any information you provide upon withdrawal will be destroyed and not be used in the research project. If you have any questions throughout the study you may discuss your concerns with me.

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If you do not want to make a decision at this time, please let me know when I should contact you again. You may also reach me at the telephone number/email below at a convenient time. Should you wish to speak to my supervisor, Dr. X, you may contact them by phone at 416-XXX-XXXX or e-mail: [email protected].

If you have any questions regarding your rights as a study participant you may contact the Ethics

Review Office as [email protected] or call 416-946-3273.

Yours sincerely, Notisha Massaquoi MSW Doctoral Candidate

Appendix D Sample Recruitment Flyer

AFRICAN QLGBT PHD STUDY

Would you be willing to talk about your experience as an QLGBT African Refugee in Canada?

If you are from Continental Africa, over 18 years of age, identify as Queer, Lesbian, Gay,

Bisexual and/or transgendered and are in the process of or completed the process of claiming refugee status in Canada because of your sexual orientation or gender identity you may be eligible to participate in an interview about experiences that other Africans like you have had.

Information from these interviews will be used to help develop better ways of helping refugees and QLGBT Africans with settlement in Canada.

If you are interested ….

Please contact Notisha Massaquoi (Student Researcher) at 416-XXX-XXXX or [email protected].

Join other QLGBT Africans in trying to improve services for our communities!

All information remains confidential. Names and/or identifiers are not required to participate in this study.

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Appendix E Interview Guide for Service Providers

In this interview I will be asking you about your professional understanding of the Canadian refugee process as well as your experience working with QLGBT Africans. I will start by asking you some more general questions about your thoughts and opinions and then I’ll be asking you about details of the specific experiences you have had with the refugee process in Canada working with QLGBT Africans.

1. Provide an overview of your professional understanding of the Canadian refugee

process (what works and what does not).

2. Describe your experience with QLGBT refugee claimants in general.

3. Explore reasons why QLGBT refugee claims are made/prevalence rates.

4. What are specific unique features of QLGBT African refugee claimants?

5. Information on the situation in African countries for QLGBT citizens.

6. Successful and failed claims (examples).

7. Systemic barriers in making claims.

8. What services and organizations are available to support QLGBT refugee claims?

9. Describe the impact of navigating the immigration system on refugee claimants.

10. What does settlement look like for QLGBT African refugees?

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Appendix E Interview Guide for Queer African Refugees

In this interview I will be asking you about your personal experience as a QLGBT African prior to migrating to Canada and life after migrating. I will ask you to describe your experience with the Canadian refugee process as well your experience settling in in Canada as a refugee. I will start by asking you some more general questions about your thoughts and opinions and then I will be asking you for more specific details about you experience with the refugee process in Canada and navigating this process as a QLGBT African. 1. In your opinion what is the current situation for QLGBT people in Africa/ In your country specifically? 2. How is Homosexuality/Bisexuality/Transgender/Queer identity viewed in your country of origin. How has this impacted you? 3. Sexual Expression: How is Homosexuality/Bisexuality/Transgender/Queer Identity expressed in your country of origin. How has this impacted you? Disclosure of sexual orientation/identity Internalized homophobia/transphobia Social isolation Access to support systems and services 4. Cultural Expectations: How have cultural expectations impacted your decisions with regards to your sexuality/sexual orientation/sexual identity? Family expectations Pressure to marry/have children Gender roles 5. Religion: How much does religion/ spiritual beliefs impact you? Disclosure of sexual orientation/identity Internalized homophobia/transphobia Social isolation Access to support systems and services 6. What laws or informal avenues did you have for protection in your country of origin? Constitutions/Human rights 7. Were you involved in QLGBT advocacy/activism in your country of origin? 8. How did you navigate your QLGBT identity in your country of origin? /Describe day to day life. 9. What did you know about Canada before arriving? Had you lived or visited other western countries before coming to Canada? 10. Why did you choose Canada to make your refugee claim? 11. Please describe what life has been like for you since arriving in Canada? 12. Please describe your experience with the Canadian refugee process.

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13. When did you start the process? Where are you in the process? Were there any surprises? Who assisted you? 14. What things worked during your refugee process? What things are not working? 15. What services and organizations were available to support you in your refugee claim? 16. Describe what impact becoming a refugee has had on your life? 17. What support systems would be helpful for QLGBT Africans in order to navigate the refugee system effectively?

Appendix F Confidential Information Form

The purpose of this research is to develop a greater understanding of the experience of queer Africans refugee claimants. The following questions include questions about yourself such as your sexual orientation; your family; your ethno-cultural background; You may skip any question in the survey that you do not want to answer. The answers to the following questions will be kept confidential.

1. What is your year/month of birth? ______

2. What country were you born in/grow up in? ______

3. What year/month did you arrive in Canada? ______

4. What is your current immigration/citizenship status in Canada? Non-status  Refugee claimant  Visitor, work or student visa  Permanent resident  Canadian citizen  Humanitarian and Compassionate  Application Other______

5a. Have you lived in any other countries before you migrated to Canada? Yes  No 

5b. If yes, which ones? ______

6. What is your mother tongue? ______

7. Which do you speak? Select all that apply English  French  Other 

8.What is the highest level of education you have completed to date?

High school complete  Community college completed  Bachelor’s degree completed  Master’s degree completed  Ph.D.  Other ______

8a. What is your current individual income level? $0- $15,000 

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$15,000-$20,000  $20,000-$25,000  $25,000-$30,000  $30,000-$35,000  $35,000-$40,000  Over $40,000 

8b. How many people are supported by this income? ______(living in Canada) ______(living outside Canada)

9. What was your profession prior to migrating? ______

9b. Can you tell me your current employment status? Full time (paid work)  Part time (paid work)  Temporary/Casual worker  Caring for my children at home  Not employed  Student  Retired  Self-employed  On short-term disability  On long-term disability  Other ______

10. How do you describe your gender?

Male  Female  Intersex  Trans male to female  Trans female to male  Other ______

11. How do you describe your sexual orientation?

Gay  Lesbian  Bisexual  Homosexual  Heterosexual  Queer  Other ______

12. Who knows about your sexual orientation? Please check all which apply.  Family  Friends

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 Employer  Clergy  Service provider  Lawyer  Other______

14. Have you experienced any of the following prior to migrating to Canada (Check all that apply)  Disability or chronic illness (please identity ______)  Homelessness/unstable housing  Struggles around emotional well-being (i.e. depression)  Struggles around drugs or alcohol  Incarceration (including jail or detention)  Physical violence due to your sexual orientation/identity  Sexual violence

15. Have you experienced any of the following after to migrating to Canada (Check all that apply)  Disability or chronic illness (please identity ______)  Homelessness/unstable housing  Struggles around emotional well-being (i.e. depression)  Struggles around drugs or alcohol  Incarceration (including jail or detention)  Physical violence due to your sexual orientation/identity  Sexual violence

16.Please describe your relationship status.  Single  Dating (Same Sex)  Dating (Opposite Sex)  Married (Same Sex)  Married (Opposite Sex)  Divorced (Same Sex)  Divorced (Opposite Sex)

Appendix G Consent to Participate in Research

Purpose of the Study

You have been asked to be a part of a study that will help us learn about the experiences of queer African (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) refugee claimants in Canada

If you volunteer to participate in this study, I will ask you to do the following things:

1. You will be asked to participate in a one –hour interview. The focus of the interview will be your experiences working with queer African refugee claimants or the experience of being a queer African refugee claimant.

2. In order to ensure your confidentiality you will be asked not to your mention name in this interview.

The interview will be audio taped and the tape will be transcribed. Any mention of your name or anything else that may identify you on the tape will be removed from the interview transcript.

Potential Risks and Discomforts

Talking about experiences of discrimination because of your sexual orientation or your experience with the refugee process may make you feel uncomfortable. You may skip any question that you do not wish to answer, or you may end your participation in the study at any time without any negative consequences.

Confidentiality

Confidentiality will be maintained during the interview in that your name is never revealed. Any personal identifying information that may be revealed in the interview will be deleted from the interview transcript. You are only required to initial this consent form if this is comfortable for you. Verbal consent will also be accepted

You also have the right to review, edit or erase part or the entire research tape of your participation. The researcher will review tapes and transcript with participants and delete data from audiotape/transcripts as requested. Participants can receive the entire audio transcript if that is their preference.

Participation and Withdrawal

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You are free to choose whether to be in the study or not. If you volunteer to be in this study you may withdraw at any time without consequences of any kind. You may also refuse to answer any question you don’t want to answer and still remain in the study. The researcher may withdraw you from the research if circumstances arise which warrant doing so.

Publication of Research Findings

Research findings from this study may be published in professional journals, presented at professional conferences or community forums; only overall results about all participants will be presented, nothing that might identify you as an individual.

Dissemination of Findings

As a research participant you may request a copy of the final research findings by contacting the researcher.

Rights of Participants

You waive no legal rights by participating in this research study and your participation or decision not to participate will not affect you in any way.

If you have further question about this study or would like follow-up information about the study, you can contact the researcher Notisha Massaquoi at (416) XXX-XXXX or [email protected]

Should you wish to speak to my supervisor, Dr. X, you may contact them by phone at 416-XXX- XXXX or e-mail: [email protected].

If you have any questions regarding your rights as a study participant you may contact the Ethics Review Office as [email protected] or call 46-946-3273.

Initial/Signature of Research participant I understand the procedures described above. My questions have been answered to my satisfaction and I agree to participate in this study. I have been given a copy of this form.

OPTION 1: I AM ABLE TO PROVIDE WRITTEN CONSENT ______Initial/Signature of Participant Date

OPTION 2: I have given verbal consent for my participation in the study. I do not wish to provide written consent VERBAL CONSENT

Signature of the Researcher In my judgment the participant is voluntarily and knowingly giving informed consent and possesses the capacity to give informed consent to participate in this research study. ______Signature of Researcher Date

Appendix H Central Coding List

1. Accessing Services • Accessing African Settlement Services • Accessing Legal Services • Accessing Mainstream Settlement Services • Lack of Services 2. Expression of Queerness • In Africa • In Canada • Personal Feelings • Proving Queerness 3. Homophobia in Africa • Church-religion • Cultural • Family • Politicians • Protection • Violence 4. Refugee Hearing • Collection of Evidence • How Assessments are made • PIF/BOC • Preparing for hearing • Problems with Process • Successful claims • What happens during • What is not working • What is working • When Claims fail 5. Situation for Queer Africans 6. Why Canada • Arrival • Expectations • Making the claim • What is working • What is not 7. Activism 8. Trans Issues 9. Services Provider Issues

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Appendix I Key Themes for Analysis

Chapter Five

• Queer African Identity • Types of Persecution • Gender Based Violence • Compulsory Heterosexuality • Forced Marriage • Family Relationships and Complexities • African Queer Zones

Chapter Six

• Forced Migration (Flight) • Why was Canada the Chosen Destination • Dislocation • Concept of Home • Significance of Queer African Refugees • Becoming a Refugee • Preparing for the Refugee Process

Chapter Seven

• Identity Integration • Barriers and Facilitators through the Refugee Process • Informal Citizenship • Chronic Illness Risk • Shame • Preparing for the Refugee Hearing • Failed Refugee Claims • Life After the Refugee Process

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