Not content with holding title to one of the harshest anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the world, Uganda’s parliament is considering a bill that would outlaw identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer.
The country’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, passed in 2023, already provides a sentence of life in prison for gay men who have sexual relations, and in extenuating circumstances, even death.
The new measure would criminalize Ugandans for simply saying they’re anything but straight.
Among more than 30 African nations that ban same-sex relations, the proposed law would be the first to criminalize just identifying as LGBTQ+, according to Human Rights Watch.
The proposed law was introduced with the goal of combating “threats to the traditional, heterosexual family,” according to a copy shared with Reuters.
In an awkward mashup of identifying prohibitions, language in the bill echoes executive orders issued by the U.S. president in his crusade against the transgender community.
The measure mandates punishment of up to 10 years in prison for any person who “holds out as a lesbian, gay, transgender, a queer or any other sexual or gender identity that is contrary to the binary categories of male and female.”
The bill also criminalizes the “promotion” of homosexuality and “abetting” and “conspiring” to engage in same-sex relations.
Much of the bill’s content is revived from the original “Kill the Gays” law, passed in 2013 but overturned by Uganda’s high court on technical grounds.
That law criminalized lesbianism.
“One of the most extreme features of this new bill is that it criminalizes people simply for being who they are as well as further infringing on the rights to privacy, and freedoms of expression and association that are already compromised in Uganda,” said Oryem Nyeko, Uganda researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Speaker of the Parliament Anita Among, the rabidly homophobic lawmaker who helped usher the Anti-Homosexuality Act into law, sent the new bill to committee for debate and public hearings after it was read to legislators.
Among urged fellow lawmakers to reject intimidation, referencing threats by Western countries to impose travel bans on those responsible for the legislation.
“This business of intimidating that ‘you will not go to America,’ what is America?” she asked.
Ugandan lawmakers, the speaker prominent among them, have for years warned of “degenerate Western values” threatening Ugandan families and sovereignty.
Among was urged on in her anti-Western pose by Russia’s ambassador to Uganda, who encouraged her to fast-track the “Kill the Gays” law through parliament in 2023. It passed overwhelmingly and was cheered by lawmakers.
“This is the time you are going to show us whether you’re a homo or you’re not,” Among told the packed chamber.
“When the sun rose on 1 Nov., 2025, Pride morning in Palapye, the open space where the march was scheduled to begin was empty. I stood there trying to look calm, but inside, my chest felt tight. I was worried that no one would come. It was the first-ever Pride in Palapye, a semi-urban village where cultural norms, religious beliefs, and tradition are deeply woven into everyday life.
I kept asking myself if we were being naive. Maybe people weren’t ready. Perhaps fear was going to win. For the first 30 minutes, it was me, a couple of religious leaders and a handful of parents. That was it. The silence was loud, and every second felt like it stretched into hours. I expected to see the queer community showing up in numbers, draped in color and excitement. Instead, only the wind was moving.
But slowly, gently, just like courage often arrives, people started to show up with a rainbow flag appearing from behind a tree and a hesitant wave from someone standing at a distance.
That’s when I understood that people weren’t late, just that they were afraid. And their fear made sense. Showing up openly in a small community like Palapye is a radical act. It disrupts silence. It challenges norms. It forces visibility. Visibility is powerful, but it is never easy. We marched with courage, pulling from the deepest parts of ourselves. We marched with laughter that cracked through the tension. We marched not because it was easy, but because it was necessary,” narrates activist Seipone Boitshwarelo from AGANG Community Network, which focuses on families and friends of LGBTIQ+ people in Botswana. She is also a BW PRIDE Awards nominee for the Healing and Justice Award, a category which acknowledges contributions to wellness, mental health, and healing for the LGBTIQ+ community across Botswana.
Queer Pride is Botswana Pride!
Pride is both a celebration and a political statement. It came about as a response to systemic oppression, particularly the criminalization and marginalization of LGBTIQ+ people globally, including in Botswana at some point. It is part of the recognition, equality, and assertion of human rights. It also reminds us that liberation and equality are not automatically universal, and continued activism is necessary. A reminder of the famous saying by Fannie Lou Hamer, “Nobody is free until everybody’s free.”
The 2023 Constitutional Review process made one thing evident, which is that Botswana still struggles to acknowledge the existence of LGBTIQ+ people as full citizens. Instead of creating a democratic space for every voice, the process sidelined and erased an entire community. In Bradley Fortuin’s analysis of the Constitutional review and its final report, he highlighted how this erasure directly contradicts past court decisions that explicitly affirmed the right of LGBTIQ+ people to participate fully and openly in civic life. When the state chooses to ignore court orders and ignore communities, it becomes clear that visibility must be reclaimed through alternative means. This is why AGANG Community Network embarked on Palapye Pride. It is a radical insistence on belonging, rooted in community and strengthened through intersectionality with families, friends, and allies who refuse to let our stories be erased.
Motho ke motho ka batho!
One of the most strategic decisions made by the AGANG Community Network was to engage parents, religious leaders, and local community members, recognizing their value in inclusion and support. Thus, their presence in the march was not symbolic, but it was intentional.
Funding for human rights and LGBTIQ+ advocacy has been negatively impacted since January 2025, and current funding is highly competitive, uneven and scarce, especially for grassroots organizations in Botswana. The Palapye Pride event was not funded, but community members still showed up and donated water, a sound system, and someone even printed materials. This event happened because individuals believed in its value and essence. It was a reminder that activism is not always measured in budgets but in willingness and that “motho ke motho ka batho!” (“A person is a person because of other people!”).
Freedom of association for all
In March 2016, in the the Attorney General of Botswana v. Rammoge and 19 Others case, also known as the LEGABIBO registration case, the Botswana Court of Appeal stated that “members of the gay, lesbian, and transgender community, although no doubt a small minority, and unacceptable to some on religious or other grounds, form part of the rich diversity of any nation and are fully entitled in Botswana, as in any other progressive state, to the constitutional protection of their dignity.” Freedom of association, assembly, and expression is a foundation for civic and democratic participation, as it allows all citizens to organize around shared interests, raise their collective voice, and influence societal and cultural change, as well as legislative reform.
The Botswana courts, shortly after in 2021, declared that criminalizing same-sex sexual relations is unconstitutional because they violated rights to privacy, liberty, dignity, equality, and nondiscrimination. Despite these legal wins, social stigma, cultural, and religious opposition continue to affect the daily lived experience of LGBTIQ+ people in Botswana.
The continuation of a declaration
AGANG Community Network is committed to continuing this work and creating safe and supportive spaces for LGBTIQ+ people, their families, friend, and allies. Pride is not just a day of fun. It is a movement, a declaration of queer existence and recognition of allyship. It is healing and reconciliation while amplifying queer joy.
ACCRA, March 3 (Reuters) – Ghanaian lawmakers have reintroduced a bill that would become one of Africa’s most restrictive pieces of anti-LGBTQ legislation, three sponsors told Reuters, after an earlier attempt to enact it fell short because of legal challenges.
Same-sex sexual acts are currently punishable by up to three years in prison in Ghana. The bill would increase the maximum penalty to five years and also impose jail time for the “willful promotion, sponsorship, or support of LGBTQ+ activities”.
Ghana’s parliament approved the bill in February 2024 but then-President Nana Akufo-Addo did not sign it before his term ended and John Dramani Mahama took office in January.
Any bill passed by parliament must go to the president to be signed into law.
Ruling party lawmakers Samuel Nartey George and Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah and opposition lawmaker John Ntim Fordjour told Reuters the same bill had been reintroduced in parliament on February 25, sponsored by 10 lawmakers in total.
The bill intensifies a crackdown on the rights of LGBTQ people and those accused of “promotion” of sexual and gender minority rights.
Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi, a Ghanaian trans woman and LGBTQ activist, told Reuters the bill’s reintroduction was “disheartening and hard to process” but that pro-LGBTQ activism would continue.
The fate of the legislation is unclear. Mahama has said he’d prefer a government-sponsored law rather than one sponsored by parliamentarians.
Last year Ghana’s finance ministry warned that the bill, if signed into law, could jeopardise $3.8 billion in World Bank financing and derail a $3 billion loan package from the International Monetary Fund.
Past polling has shown a lack of tolerance for LGBTQ people in Ghana and Fordjour said the country no longer needed to fear economic sanctions.
“The global political climate is favorable for conservative values as demonstrated in the bold conservative pronouncements of (U.S.) President Donald Trump,” he said.
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