Black skin, 'cowboy' masculinity: a genealogy of homophobia in the African nationalist movement in Zimbabwe to 1983
Epprecht, M.
Culture Health and Sexuality 7(3): 253-266
2005
ISSN/ISBN: 1369-1058 PMID: 16864201 DOI: 10.1080/13691050410001730243Document Number: 266733
This paper examines the intellectual and social origins of racialist homophobia in contemporary Zimbabwean political discourse, exemplified by President Robert Mugabe's anti-homosexual speeches since the mid-1990s. It challenges the notions that such homophobia is either essential to African patriarchy or simple political opportunism. Tracing overt expressions of intolerance towards male-male sexuality back to the colonial period, it focuses on ways in which notions of appropriate, respectable, exclusive heterosexuality within the 'cowboy' culture of White Southern Rhodesia trickled into, or were interpreted in, the African nationalist movement. It concludes that understanding this history could improve efforts to address concerns around sexual health in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in the region, particularly silences around same-sex sexuality in HIV/AIDS education and prevention.