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.

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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.

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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.

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