Acacia Project

Many + teenagers are chased from their homes by parents due to misunderstandings: the teen might be clinically depressed and thus not helping around the house, parents often perceive only that the word 'gay' means illegal or satanic (not understanding the words behind the LGBTQI+ acronym). Families may have never heard of the concept of 'gender' or 'sexual orientation'. When NGOs in Malawi have explained to them about gender and sexual diversity in a way parents can understand, some parents have wanted to take their children back.

In one country we studied, women’s football was for self-identified le****ns and transmen, a safe (or at least safer) space, and g**s and transwomen play men’s and women’s netball. This is surprising in a society where same-sex and transgender are denounced loudly from church pulpits, and passersby shout out to LGBTQI+ persons in public that they are ‘satanic’, ‘demonic’ and an ‘abomination’. Nearly everyone in the country knows, though, that footballers on women’s football teams ‘are just that way’, and one can even find cross-dressing entertainers out supporting football on game days.

"Trump said there are only two genders, so you don't exist" - The USAID backlash against LGBTQI+ in Malawi
Read more: https://www.jyu.fi/en/projects/acacia-project-lgbtqi-and-street-level-bureaucrats-assessing-motives-violence-and-possibilities-for

Many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa declare that ‘unnatural offences’ and ‘gross indecency’ are punishable by terms of imprisonment from three to 30 years. Check the stories by Michael, Lady J., Adriana and Berenice* on their everyday struggles with police, judges, local government officials and local security guards: https://www.jyu.fi/en/blog/the-police-asked-doctors-to-test-if-we-were-really-gei-four-stories-from-sub-saharan-africa (*all names of our interviewees are pseudonyms)