Paper short abstract:

This paper will discuss the politics homophobia in Buganda, how homosexual practices were first made into a sin in the 1880s and then criminalized in 1890s. These sexual prohibitions were key in the political marginalization of the king of Buganda by his pro-British protestant chiefs.

Paper long abstract:

There has been much debate on homosexuality in Africa during the last decades. In Uganda, this topic had been very marginal during most of the 20th century. It is only since the late 1990s that it has become a major public issue (Anti-homosexuality Act of 2014). However, in the last decades of the 19th century, homophobia had also been a major political and religious issue. Homosexuality was made illegal (by a vote of the native assembly in 1896 and later through British law). After 1900, these issues stopped being politicized and died out. Missionary archives, colonial sources as well as ganda writings refer to these debates about sexuality albeit in a very elusive manner. The conversion to Christianity and Islam during the 2nd half of the 19th century, led to a redefinition of gender and proper sexuality in Buganda. In the 1880s, royal homosexual practices became increasingly frown upon by Christian missionaries and their converts.

In the 1890s, with the help of the British, elite Christian converts rose to power. Political competition marginalized the king and pitted against each other Catholic, Muslim and Protestant chiefs (favoured by the British). Controlling the king, Mwanga, became a key element in the fight for power, honour, converts and wealth. Dissatisfied with the status quo, the king wavered between the Catholic and Protestant factions. To neutralize him, the great protestant chiefs used his fondness of male sex partners against him. In the 1890s like today, homophobic religious feelings were fed by hidden political motives.