Miss Mavis Dash at the Homecoming Renaissance show that closed off Drag Night Namibia Cycle, 2023. Photo: Experienced Photography/Drag Night Namibia
From Franka Olfermann
Namibia’s queer community on the path to equality
‘It feels so good to be alive/That’s why I lift my head with pride’ – Beyoncé’s song “Be Alive” booms out of the loudspeakers. The audience cheers and claps. On stage, Miss Mavis Dash performs in a silver Lycra bodysuit and knee-high boots, inspired by Beyoncé’s album ‘Renaissance’. The other drag queens on stage also wear Beyoncé-inspired outfits and accessories: black lace bodysuits, silver cowboy hats and fringed tops. It’s their last performance of the evening so they are celebrating one last time.
We are at the Goethe Institute in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. Drag Night Namibia is now well established in the Windhoek art scene and has a stable circle of visitors and supporters. Some Namibian drag queens are also successful beyond the country’s borders. Founded in 2020, Drag Night is an important event in the queer scene in Namibia. It is a place for celebrating queer joy and solidarity, it is about making queerness visible and taking up space. Because the fact that queer people are this present in the Namibian public sphere is not a matter of course.
Namibian society has ambivalent attitudes towards its queer citizens. This is shown by surveys from last year’s Afrobarometer. While almost 70 per cent are against marriage rights, parenthood and equal rights, roughly the same number would have nothing against same-sex couples as neighbours. This makes Namibia the third most tolerant country in Africa. However, this cannot hide the rising rates of violence against members of the LGBTQ+ community. According to activists, at least six people have been killed in hate crimes in the last two years.
There is hardly any legal protection for queer people in Namibia. There are neither explicit anti-discrimination laws nor a third gender entry. It is not possible to recognise same-sex partners or parenthood. Only after gender reassignment surgery may trans people have their gender entry changed. However, the legal situation has slowly changed in recent years.
After years of activism by the LGBTQ+ community, the Supreme Court ruled in June 2024 that the so-called ‘Sodomy Law’ is unconstitutional. As a result, male homosexuality was decriminalised in Namibia this year. This is a huge success for the queer community. A year earlier, in May 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that Namibia must recognise same-sex marriages performed abroad. This was preceded by complaints from couples who had married in South Africa or Germany.
‘By challenging the courts, we are strengthening the equality clause in our constitution – not just for queer people but for generations of Namibians to come’ Omar Van Reenen, co-founder of the queer organisation Equal Namibia, told the Guardian, describing the background to the lawsuits. Legal successes are essential for progress, but an ‘an autocratic parliament that could drag us back to the oppressive practices of the Apartheid era’ poses a serious threat to democracy, as the media platform Context quotes Van Reenen.
These legal successes were followed by a political backlash. In response to the ruling on recognising same-sex marriages in 2023, parliament passed two laws that would roll back the rights of queer people. On the one hand, the MPs want to define marriage exclusively as a union between opposite-sex partners. In addition, the gender-neutral term ‘spouse’ should only refer to spouses of the opposite sex. The law would also criminalise so-called ‘advertising for same-sex marriage’. In practice, this would mean that LGBTQ activists and their allies would face prison sentences if they campaigned for their rights. However, these laws have not yet come into force after more than a year, as they have not yet been signed into law by the president.
The ruling SWAPO party has the majority in parliament. It condemns homosexuals and their practices. And things are no better in the opposition either. Most parties do not even want to recognise the existence of queer Namibians. Opponents of same-sex marriage often claim that it is ‘un-Namibian’ and ‘not Christian’. Instead, they claim it is a western influence and the imposition of un-African values.
Historically, however, it is in fact the other way round. The legal and social homophobia and transphobia – not the queer people of Namibian society – are a product of German and European colonialism. The Sodomy Law, for example, which criminalised male homosexuality until recently, is a legacy of colonialism. It originally stems from Roman-Dutch law. Due to the South African occupation of Namibia during apartheid, it also existed in Namibian law.
Namibia’s recent colonial history
1884 – 1915: German colony ‘German South West Africa’
1904 – 1908: Genocide of the Ovaherero and Nama
1920 – 1946: South Africa has a UN mandate over Namibia, introduction of apartheid
1947 – 1989: Occupation of Namibia by South Africa in violation of international law
since 1990: Namibian independence [fought for by later ruling party SWAPO]
The same applies to Christianity and its moral concepts. Missionisation delegitimised a variety of local beliefs and values. However, there is numerous linguistic and anthropological evidence in what is now Namibia that homosexuality was practised in pre-colonial societies and that there also existed genderfluid people. In the languages of the San, Ovambo and Ovaherero – some of Namibia’s many population groups with their own languages – there are words to describe, among other things, same-sex erotic friendships, partnerships and so-called ‘men with a female spirit’.
German ethno- and anthropologists from the 18th and 20th centuries also documented practices such as same-sex wedding ceremonies or trans people in their racist publications. So it is not queer lifestyles, but the persecution of queer people that is ‘un-Namibian’, as the LGBTQ+ community repeatedly emphasises.
‘The majority of parliamentarians and ordinary citizens lean heavily towards conservative ideologies that suppress LGBTQ+ rights, including same-sex marriage’ observes Ndumba Kamwanyah, lecturer in Human Sciences at the University of Namibia (UNAM), in Context magazine. He observes that the progressive court on the one hand and the conservative parliament and society, which often insist on traditional and religious values, on the other, are increasingly diverging. Without significant changes in the composition of parliament or broader social pressure, he sees LGBTQ+ rights in Namibia continuing to be jeopardised.
It is clear that little will change in the status quo in Namibia for the time being. In the presidential elections at the end of November 2024, the ruling party SWAPO won surprisingly clearly in the first round. But the queer community is resilient. It will continue to fight for its rights. There will continue to be drag performances that can inspire people, empower the community and slowly lead to change.
About the author:
Franka spent the last year in Windhoek with kulturweit, the international volunteer service of the German UNESCO Commission. During this year, Franka immersed herself deeply in the queer community and is still closely connected to it today. Since this year, Franka has been studying European and International Relations in Strasbourg.
