Same-sex lives between the language of international LGBT rights, international aid, and anti-homosexuality

Abstract

This article considers how international development aid is used in engaging with sexuality rights in Africa. It considers both the emergence of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights as aid conditionality in international aid relations and responses to these from African political leaders. The central issue identified is that political leaders for and against these rights have marginalized and ignored voices of the sexually diverse people in their engagements in African settings. Here, a problem emerges that people’s own claims for rights are subsumed within the broader agendas set by politicians at international and national levels. This article analyzes these relations and their outcomes for activists and civil society groups in diverse African settings by considering the language of LGBT rights used by international political actors and the ways in which African political leaders develop their own language on the issue.