Kim, a 23-year-old transgender woman from Cape Town, South Africa, has only just escaped from the damaging effects of the conversion therapy she experienced during her childhood.

At just 14, her mother took her to a pastor in hopes that he would be able to pray her transgender identity away. When prayer failed, Kim was made to see the pastor weekly for seven months until she feigned cis-heteronormativity in order to escape. This performance went on for the remainder of her high school years, which Kim describes as the most depressed period in her life.

Related

I stopped listening to the bisexual gatekeepers & now I own my identity

Although Kim is thriving now as an adult, many minors who go through conversion therapy aren’t as lucky, especially those born in a continent where queerness was once revered but now demonized. 

Once upon a time, Africa was known for its wide acceptance and reverence of queer identities. Now, Africa is renowned for being one of the most culturally and legally intolerant continents regarding queer identities, with even some of its most constitutionally progressive countries guilty of participating in harmful and unethical practices such as conversion therapy. But why? And most importantly, how can this once sexually diverse continent reclaim its heritage?

Never Miss a Beat

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

There is a misconception among African folk that queer identities were imported to Africa by the West. This couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality, queer identities were deeply woven into the fabric of many precolonial African societies, often integrated into spiritual, social, and political life. 

For example, the Chibados were individuals from Angola who were assigned male at birth but lived as women, marrying men and serving as diviners and spiritual healers. In Uganda, the Mudoko dako people were effeminate males who were socially treated as women and permitted to marry men. 

Most African countries had their own version of gender expression and sexual orientation, but the same level of tolerance. This, of course, was before colonialism, which brought about the evisceration of the diverse sexualities and gender expressions that existed, particularly by means of the law. 

It wasn’t until the mid-90s that queer identities began gaining legal rights and protection, with South Africa spearheading the movement. Today, South Africa is renowned as one of the most tolerant and constitutionally progressive countries in Africa regarding LGBTQ+ rights. However, despite this fact, South Africa remains one of the most conservative countries culturally, with some communities partaking in the practice of conversion therapy specifically on LGBTQ+ minors.

Despite how harmful conversion therapy is, it isn’t illegal in South Africa. While the Children’s Act protects minors against abuse, it does not include conversion therapy. Unfortunately, even after recent attempts to introduce a bill that bans conversion therapy, the practice still isn’t criminalized. 

Conversion therapy is particularly harmful because it “leads to an increase in anxiety, shame, depression, suicidality, self-harm, and other mental health struggles,” complex trauma and relationship psychotherapist Doriel Jacov tells LGBTQ Nation.

“When told a core aspect of yourself is wrong, a disorder, and simultaneously your choice, you’re left feeling a lot of self-hatred.” 

Jay*, a 20-year-old transgender man, can attest to the negative effects of conversion therapy. “I came out to my mom when I was 16 years old, and she beat me. That was the hardest beating I had ever received in my life.”

“We didn’t talk about my transness or anything days after. Then she showed up with our pastor from church. The minute I saw him I knew he was there to pray my transness away so I let him and pretended that it worked. I knew that was the only way for me to survive until I could turn 18 and move out of my mother’s house.”

“I have a hard time letting people in now,” Jay shared with LGBTQ Nation. “In my mind, it’s not safe for me to let people in because that means sharing my trans identity with them, which may or may not result in rejection or violence.”

If it’s clearly evident that conversion therapy doesn’t work and is harmful, then why do people practice it at all? Is there actually scientific proof of its ability to affect people’s gender identity or sexual orientation?

According to therapist and educator Allyssa Powers, “Conversion therapy exists on the premise that being LGBTQ+ is a mental illness that can be cured. This notion has no scientific backing and has been debunked.”

She goes on to say that, “the belief that it works largely stems from religious or ideological convictions rather than any empirical evidence.”

75% of conversion practices in Africa occur because of religious and cultural reasons. According to Stats SA, 84.5% of the South African population subscribes to the Christian faith. One can then speculate that the reason why conversion therapy hasn’t been criminalized in South Africa is that although South Africa is constitutionally progressive, culturally the nation is extremely conservative. 

Conversion therapy aside, queer people are targeted on a daily basis in South Africa. The ignorance surrounding queer identities manifests as bullying (both online and in-person), harassment (cat-calling), as well as physical and sexual violence. Additionally, many individuals face rejection from their families. 

This is despite the numerous laws that support queer identities including the right for same-sex couples to marry and adopt children, the right for transgender folk to access gender-affirming care and update their legal documents, and many more laws.

The average South African is conservative because they are (hyper) religious and unaware of the history of queerness in Africa, as well as its erasure due to colonialism. Perhaps if South Africans were privy to their history, they wouldn’t believe in notions such as, “queerness is unAfrican.”

The cultural, moral, and legal failing of South African natives, as well as the government, leaves room for people with backward ideas to not only abuse LGBTQ+ minors, but to get away with it.

What makes matters worse is that there is virtually no media coverage on conversion therapy taking place on transgender minors or any other queer minor, for that matter. Transgender issues are rarely talked about, and there is little accurate representation in the media. The overall silence and lack of representation also make it easy for people to remain misinformed and for that misinformation to manifest as harm. 

The only way for South Africa—and our neighboring African countries—to reclaim our heritage and end the violence towards LGBTQ+ individuals is for our people to realise that the only unAfrican thing is the queerphobia we inherited during colonialism. That we were taught more than just to hate the color of our skin. 

Today, Kim stands liberated both from her trauma and her internalized queerphobia.

“It took a long time, but I’m finally free from the shame I felt growing up,” she said. “It took me having to deconstruct my faith, move away from home, and decenter my mother’s opinion of me, and cultivate a chosen family to heal from the trauma I suffered.  I’m so grateful for my therapist and my chosen family. I don’t think I would have made it without them.”

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.