Ideas - How podcasts in Africa are reclaiming queerness and sex

Episode Date: June 12, 2026

Uganda and Ghana have the harshest laws against LGBTQ+ people in the world. Despite the threats, podcasters in both countries are fighting back by creating a space where people can have sex-positive conversations and gender inclusivity. IDEAS contributor Nana aba Duncan was in Uganda and Ghana to find out how the safety, privacy, and independence of the medium offer a path to understanding, validation and community.Laws in some African countries make it illegal for anyone to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. What role should the international community play in nudging human rights on the continent. Listen to The unforgivable crime of being queer in Africa.

You know that feeling when you reach the end of a really good true crime series? You want to know more, more about the people involved, where the case is now, and what it's like behind the scenes. I get that. I'm Kathleen Goldhar and on my podcast Crime Story, I speak with the leading storytellers of true crime to dig deeper into the cases we all just can't stop thinking about. Find crime story wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. It's the first Tuesday of 2026, here at a bar in the township of Bokoto, in the city of Kampala, Uganda. It's karaoke night.

Samantha Ainem Babazi is owning the stage. She's singing Yegwe, a well-loved song in the Luganda language, a classic you hear at weddings. Samantha says the lyrics could pass for vows. She loves the song for its poetry. The lyrics are directed to a woman, and there's a part in the chorus that translates to, You're the one thing that's persistent in all the things that trouble me. And when I do not see you, I feel like I don't have blood.

I search for my heart throughout my whole body, and I can't find it. I know you stole my organs, but please bring back my things. Samantha is on the stage singing like she's sung these words a hundred times. before. A woman comes up, turns her back in Samantha's direction, and now they're winding their waists in sync for a moment. Other people are singing along, some of them in harmony. There is lots of smiling. That's ideas contributor Nanaba Duncan. She traveled to Uganda and Ghana, countries which in the past few years have passed some of the harshest loss against members of the LGBTQ plus community and their advocates.

She met people who, despite the threatening new laws against them, produce podcasts on sex and sexuality and provide space for people to connect, build bonds, and speak openly. When I first meet Samantha, it's afternoon in Kampala. She's at a bar where they serve Shisha and the staff know her well. We're on a rough-sounding WhatsApp video call, and there's a flavor she wants for her Shisha. One second. You have blueberry gum and mined.

You have Kiwi gum and mince. As she smokes her kiwi gum and mince, Shisha, Samantha tells me she wanted to capture a more authentic representation of queer life in Uganda. So in 2023, she launched a gender and sexuality podcast. One of the first stories she shared was her own, capturing the complexity of homosexuality and health in the country. So I have, how do I explain it, I have a messed up with reproductive system. And so I find, there's a time when I really miss my period for so many months, then I go to the hospital. And the doctor is very, very, very serious that I'm pregnant.

And I kept on telling him, there's no way I can be pregnant. And then he asks me, are you sexually active? I said, yes, then you're pregnant. I'm saying, I'm telling you there's no way I can be pregnant. They go back and forth like that for a while. The doctor gives her a lecture on condoms saying how they're not as foolproof as people think they are. So he makes her take a pregnancy test. It comes back negative.

He's like, oh, so you actually know your body? I've been trying to tell you this thing the whole time. Like, there's no way, Nell, I am pregnant. But then because I did not feel like just simply telling him, I cannot be pregnant because I'm a lesbian. But then I didn't feel like something I could easily say. I didn't feel safe in that space. I think that's a moment.

This podcast is called Among You. Hello, listeners. Welcome to the Among You podcast by Kuchu Times Media Group. It is aimed at demystifying the myths around LGBT-Q plus Ugandan's by sharing how similar that Ugandan experience is, regardless of your gender or sexual orientation. We hope that these stories build allies out of you. Enjoy.

When she created the podcast, Samantha had one question in mind. How can I Ugandanize the queer experience? How can I show you that we're the same? I talk about education and spoke about health. So for me, what among you meant is that we are among you, queer people. We are among the Ugandan. And so we're trying to start Ugandans out how Ugandaan the queer experience is. Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act has one of the world's harshest anti-LGBQ Plus laws.

The punishment for a consensual same-sex relationship is prison for life. For normalizing homosexuality or promoting it, you could get up to 20 years in prison and significant fines. That includes any person or group advocating for the rights of LGBTQ plus people. So with a publicly available podcast that is a publicly available podcast that is, focused on supporting queer people in Uganda, this is a risk Samantha's taking. But she's prepared to take it on. Telling the story was more important to me than the risk, I think. I have social privilege. I have financial privilege. I can afford bail.

I live in a house where I'm safe. I live in a safe neighborhood. I live in a community that is gated. I don't see my neighbors. So for them to report me to the police or whatever, it would take a really long time. Second, I have knowledge. Like, I'm aware of the law. I'm aware of my rights. But I'm also aware of how to work with police because my father was a soldier.

My family was... I'm from a tribe that is ruling the country. Samantha has been rewarded for putting herself out there. After she published the episode about going to the doctor for missing her periods, a trans doctor who heard it, got in touch, and invited her to his clinic. It turns out Samantha had a bacterial infection.

on her cervix, so she finally knew what was wrong and was able to get help. The risk Samantha takes with her podcast is shared with the people who help create it and support it. Among You is produced by a media company where she works as an editor with other LGBTQ-plus writers and producers. Kuchu Times Media is led by Samantha's boss, Ruth McGansy. I am the team leader at Kuchu Times Media Group. We are a media platform created for and by LGBTIU Ugandans to ensure that our voices are present in narratives about us. The podcast is, first of all, produced internally in culture times. Our staff is young people.

I think I'm the oldest person on the team and mine for the director. Other people on the team are 25-year-old, lesbian women, 22-year-old, gay men, 23-year-old other trans people. It's young people who have structured the conversation for themselves to be interesting. So on a Mangi podcast, you get to listen to conversations between young people discussing how did you come to a place where you're comfortable with yourself?

How have you come to a place where you can safely name yourself as a gay man? How has that worked out for you as somebody who lives in Uganda, a place where you're being told constantly that you'll be hunted and everything. But you're here. You don't have an alternative. On that platform, you get to hear young people talking to each other. Where some people think that in bed,

this person is strictly supposed to play this role and do this. And the other person is supposed to do the other thing. It's like there is a book that was written where people follow. If we're in bed, me as a bottom, I have to do this and this. If I'm at top, I have to do this. this. Whereas some of us we want

things to change around. Yeah. Yes, you are that, but there's something I like on you that I'll not find on that agenda. Allow me play around with it, fix it, do what I want. There is something.

There is something, there is something Grace said. Can we let Mona speak? I wanted to go to Mona because this is very interesting. No, we're going to Mona now. No, no, I wanted to link it to Mona. Sorry.

I wanted to, there's something interesting. Monna. Monna. Okay, Mona. Monna. I give up. I really love this space. Basically, I think for me...

Mona does finally get to speak. She's a queer trans woman who says she doesn't want to limit herself to gender roles. She tells a story about being in a relationship with a man. And when she tells him she's trans, he then wonders about their sex life. Who's going to play the role traditionally played by men? And Mona says, she wants to play whatever role she wants. This is the kind of open conversation Ruth says, the Among You podcast offers to its listeners.

A space to speak freely about gender, sexuality, and expression. In English and many other languages, it's very common to hear someone slip into Luganda to make a point. This one is about the comments people make about a certain politician because his wife has power and more money than him. Loose translation, she is the one who dominates him in the bedroom. Anyway, both Samantha and Ruth have heard the idea that the reason they're lesbians is because they were being influenced by white people or foreigners and they might be engaging in same-sex relationships for money. Not true.

For Ruth, it's important to demonstrate that homosexuality, queerness, transness, they are all part of African identity. What is interesting to us is speak the local language so that people remove their... bias of we are an input of the West. We speak our local language, Luganda, Lusoga, Rujan, Kori. There are very many languages. And in speaking those languages, the aim of the conversation is to be able to speak to the last person in my community, who is not queer, but understands because of the language, we're able to create that rapport with each other for them to stop and listen, this is, this person speaks this language. There is no way this is an import.

In answering the question of who we are, our is to educate communities around us to know we are your friends, we are your sisters, we are your brothers, we are your cousins that you've grown up with in the same household. We've lived among you all this time. But our stories have just never been given platform. What is it about the platform of podcasting that makes it the best for telling stories about sex and sexuality? I'll say, first of all, for our stories, In a country like Uganda, where you're telling us that if a queer person comes, tells their story about how is you, Ruth, as a lesbian woman, has lived in Uganda and the life that you're creating, right? You've created for yourself. How are you living? You're simply answering the question, how are you living as a queer woman in Uganda?

By naming myself as a queer woman and coming out here with a picture and everything, I could fall, pray, to the provisions of the law that say promotion of homosexuality. that by telling my story, then I'm encouraging people to be homosexual. In that regard, podcasting then becomes the best alternative because if there is no face, who are you going to arrest? It also allows us to stand on our things as a LGBTI activist. Our stories must be told. There must be avenues. When you tell us that our faces are at danger to society,

because by being seen we are then promoting homosexuality. We must seek alternatives. The alternative right now is I should use my voice. I will use my voice to speak because unless I keep speaking, you will not know you'll keep using that excuse that I'm not here. I'm an import. But if I'm speaking in a language of my people, the local language of my people,

there's no way you're going to deny that my experiences are not Ugandan. And I'm therefore, I'm non-Ugandan for being queer. So podcasting, I believe that in circumstances like we're seeing now, is a safe option because it removes that bias. There's that safety not seeing who is behind the voice and we can't track the voice, but the story has been told. Another reason why Ruth says podcasting is important is because it's a way for queer Ugandans to tell their stories from their perspectives. She says it counters the way queer stories from Africa have been framed in international media. There was a point in time before we, African queer, started telling our stories when our stories were being told by white journalists. And they would need to take you and put you in a ghetto somewhere because it must then communicate the story that we are poor, we are suffering, we need to be saved.

Like, there's that projection that media does of Africa, where I'll say Uganda, they will need to tell a story of you somewhere where there's rubbish streams of dirty things are flowing. Ramshakoed homes because then it becomes a Ugandan story that white people will be interested in because there's a picture of suffering and all that. But those are not the only stories that are available. Yes, circumstances or

discrimination of LGBTI people then pushes them to live in low-income areas, but not all of us are living in low-income areas. There are many of us that are finding ways to a life that is comfortable and fair. Might not be safe because there have been

told these stupid biases. In podcasting that you remove that, because you're not going to see that bias, it also gives us avenues to tell our stories safely because when you can't see the face, the voice still tells the story, and that is what is important. There's an important story Ruth told on another podcast based in South Africa called Radio Workshop. It's an organization that teaches young people across Africa how to make radio and podcasts, and she was working with them as a reporter. Her story was about Rihanna, a trans woman and one of the first people to be arrested after Uganda's anti-homosexuality bill was passed in 2014.

The story starts with a night out, when Rihanna was 19 years old. She's living in an apartment with her friend Kim and Kampala. She was out as a trans woman and deep into the queer scene. As usual for her, she's out on a Sunday night at the bar where she can be openly trans. Here's part of that story from Radio Workshop. with co-host Lesothi Maguartle. Rihanna remembers having a great night and leaving Rambar at 3 a.m.

She brought home a friend who needed a place to sleep. Rihanna says they passed out in their party clothes and then just three hours later at 6 a.m. Someone knocked on the door three times. Yeah, three times. Rihanna and her roommate Kim had no idea who was at the door, especially that early. Kim shouted,

who's that one? It's me the local council chairman. Chairman? That made things even more confusing. So Kim yelled out, what are you doing here at this time? He said, you open,

I tell you. By the time he opened the door, the guy pushed the door hard like this. And then said, he's even putting on a dress. He's putting on a dress. These are indeed. The man knocking at the door isn't alone.

There are police, angry neighbors wielding sticks, wielding stones, and the media is there. Rihanna is beaten, arrested, and ends up spending nine months in prison. She faces more abuse there, including being made to clean the prison floor with her tongue. It was a terrible experience for rehab. But then throughout that whole process, Rihanna is just coming out to her parents. When she gets arrested, her parents are not aware that she actually is trans,

identifies as a transgender woman who is then queer. Rihanna is released and starts an organization to support queer people transitioning out of prison. Eventually, Rihanna's mother, Jane, learns more about her daughter and becomes a fierce advocate. In March 2023, Jane and seven other mothers

publish an open letter in Uganda's Daily Monitor, a major independent newspaper. It said, in part, we are Ugandan mothers who have had to overcome many of our own biases. We request you, our cherished president, not assent to the anti-homosexuality bill. Two months later, Uganda's president, Yawarima Sevni, signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act into law. In the radio workshop podcast episode, Rihanna's mother joins for part of the recording. Rihanna reads a letter of thanks to her mother. It hurts me a lot, Mommy, to say this. Honestly, you have helped me a lot in diverse time.

And I keep on wondering, how can I ever show you how thankful I am, Mommy? I love you. with everything I have and more. Rihanna finished, put her letter away, and listened as her mom responded. You can bring a child into the world, but you can never tell what they'll turn out to be. If you're birth a child and they turn out to be trons,

you cannot poison them or strangle them. At this point, it's not the project protecting me or keeping me safe. None of you can keep me safe. God keeps me safe. Because even if you run, if it's God's will, that's your final day. I'm not worried.

It's you guys that are worried. I'm not afraid. It is you that is afraid. It was a powerful story that I got an opportunity to listen to and produce it. I'm glad that when my mother listened, she took time to listen to that story. And we talked about it at the end and she's like, are these the experiences that you people are having? She asked you that?

Yeah. And what did you say? Yes. That is what it means. We had to have a moment when you get like, that's what it means when your area MP comes and tries to campaign on the basis of they passed the anti-homosexuality law.

That is what it means. And you need to understand that you're listening to people whose lives could have easily mirrored yours. I could have been Rehanna. I could have been the queer person arrested. Listening to Rihanna's story and her mother had the unintended effect of helping Ruth's mother understand Ruth.

It's exactly the kind of understanding of Ruth is trying to foster through podcasting, and she makes sure to provide an environment where that can happen. We recorded that story over 18 hours, but that's because there were so many emotions in the room. We had to take poses of crying, having to hold each other, of having to watch Rehan and the mom, have a deeper conversation with themselves that they had never even fully come to. That is not something that we could do on camera. it's when you're letting people speak right

podcasting is more maybe you close your eyes and think of when our sisters had to tell stories around the fireplace in the evening the story has to be told with detail it has that impacts that over generations and generations it gets told I see it has the nuance that went into

storytelling at the fireplace and we get to keep those lessons that we learn in there podcasting allows us to bring that fireplace conversation into the that let's talk in a way that I hear. It's not revolutionary to talk about the power of audio. In Africa, radio has long been the most widely used medium. But when it comes to sharing stories of LGBTQ plus people in Uganda,

Ruth says podcasting is better, and there's one reason why. Independence. From my experience at Qutti Times, we can produce a podcast without getting permission from the Uganda Communications Council that gives right to have air space on radio. Podcasting allows us to bypass those bureaucracy lines that say voices can be censored, somebody needs to approve what then goes on air. That's the one important thing for us. Can we tell queer stories in a society like ours that says we cannot tell our stories?

We cannot have radio platform and FM platform like, oh, these are the groups, but we can still use our voices to speak. speak to people. The name of the audio production parent company, Kuchu Times, is intentional. Kuchu is a catch-all term meaning queer in Uganda. Back in the early 2000s, it was used in secret as a way for people to refer to each other and stay under the radar. It was also a reclamation, taking a word meant to be pejorative and owning it for themselves.

At Kuchu Times, people like Ruth and Samantha are also speaking up for themselves. as well as other LGBTQ-plus Ugandans. The Anti-Homosexuality Act continues to be used by institutions and people to harm, abuse, and exclude. In early January, Kuchu Times reported more police arrests of gay men, including extortion and repeated abuse, in one case with a forced anal examination on a man to, quote, prove his sexuality. At Makareira University, Uganda's largest post-secondary,

institution, students who were suspected of being gay were targeted with violence by other students who demanded in a letter that the school stand with them in their homophobic position. The school wrote back that students deserve to live without fear of violence or harassment. That might seem small, but momentous acts like this can nudge change, creating safe spaces for queer people in Uganda, like Samantha Inababazi at that karaoke night where she and others in her community are invited to come and sing their hearts out. Samantha Ainem Babasi is working on a new podcast, launching soon, called Bridging Rainbows.

It brings together young queer folks with their elders and activists. This is Ideas. I'm Nala Ayyat. You know, every day on Up First, NPR's Golden Globe-nominated morning news podcast, we bring you three essential stories. At the heart of each story are questions. What really happened? What really mattered? What happens next?

At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious and to follow the facts. Follow up first wherever you get your podcasts and start your day knowing what matters and why. So where are you staying? Um, at my sister's flight. My sister lives here. Ideas contributor Nanaba Duncan traveled to Uganda and Ghana to meet podcast producers who create space for conversations about sex and sexuality. Both countries have recently passed some of the harshest anti-LGBQ plus laws in the world. And a warning. There is sexually explicit content and discussion of genitalia in this next half of the episode,

so it might not be suitable for some young listeners. Now, meet podcaster Malika Grant. Malika grew up in Akragana before moving to the United States for university. One day, when she noticed her young daughter exploring her own genitals, it took everything in her not to say anything. She was four or five years old, and I used to give all the kids a bath and dry them off and send them on their way. And I had a mirror on the backside of my door. And she just kind of paused and looked at herself.

And I could see herself, you know, checking herself out, you know, her hair and her face. And she's making giggly faces. And then she sat down and she spread her legs and she was taking a peek. And the instinct in me was to do what had been done to me is like, don't look at that. Don't touch that. That's nasty. You know, good girls don't do that. But I suppressed that indoctrination and I let her do it.

And then, you know, she took a look. She got up and she went and put her clothes back on. Malika felt proud of herself in that moment because what she learned about her body from her mother was quite different, especially when she first got her period. By then, I knew what a period was because some of my classmates had had their period.

And I'd seen them staying themselves and I was like, oh God, that's going to happen to me one day and then it did. So, you know, I go to her and I say, hey, I've got my period and she's like, that means you're a woman now. I was like, okay. So she told me the light on my back and then she took this tampon and I'm 10?

And she's pushing this tampon into me. And finally, I'm like, can you please stop? This really hurts. I don't think that this is supposed to hurt. And then she kind of had this look on her face like, I think she was satisfied that I was a virgin and untouched or whatever because she did have this obsession with me and my sister potentially being pregnant. If we got sick, she was like, are you pregnant?

We got fat. Are you pregnant? I'm like, I just ate too much gel off rice. Malika wants better for her daughter, for her to know her own body and to be comfortable with touching herself, whether it is for pleasure or for health. Because I do think that it does have outcomes, right, beyond the obvious that we don't really consider. When we're telling young girls, your body is dirty, don't look at it, don't touch it, don't engage with it in that way. Malika wants her kids, her three daughters and her son, and everyone, for that matter, to have a healthy, and informed understanding about their bodies, sexuality, and sex.

It's part of the reason why in 2009 she started a blog with her co-founder, Nanadakua Setsiyama. Ten years later, they turned the blog into a podcast. Hey, good people. Welcome to the adventures from the bedrooms of African women, the podcast. My name is Malika Grant. And I'm Nanadakwa Sitchiema. So, Nanadakwa and I have been friends since 1994. where we met in boarding school in Ghana.

After graduation, we both moved to different parts of the world, but stayed connected by letters and the occasional long-distance phone call. And now to do this podcast, we want people to just have real knowledge about sex. Yes. I particularly don't want people to think of sex as something that also necessarily results in pregnancy. Because, you know, that connection is not automatic. It doesn't need to be. It doesn't need to be.

And it shouldn't be. On the podcast, Malika and Anadakwa cover topics like relationships, queerness, orgies, transness, masturbation, sexual trauma, and aging. In one episode featuring women over 40 called The Anti-Factor, you hear from Fatim Faye. She's a 63-year-old Senegalese feminist, and she had some very frank advice on how to talk about your physical needs, including speaking up when it hurts.

It hurts is like, I think, a magic word because it's not supposed to be hurting. So say, oh, I'm sorry, it hurts. And, you know, the person will understand that maybe they must not be too hard on that spot. And the other way also I like it is I play with your parts, while you play with my parts, like the 69. And if you hurt me, I hurt you. And if you say out, I say out. On an episode called De-Centering the D, you hear a range of people sharing their thoughts on their penises.

Size doesn't matter to me. Like you can't just have a huge thing. Like it has to come with their experience, with the expectations that is needed. You know, like you're coming to give the full, the full package, but not just like, yeah, I have a huge leg, so that should be enough. I've seen lots of penises because I went to boarding school and it's open showers. But the general impression that I have is that, like, I'm fine. So that means I'm either average or above average.

But I've seen bigger. So look, it packs light and it rises to the occasion. I mean, that's all you could ever ask of a good dick. Sometimes a penis seems to be like a bird to have. For me, I feel like penises are just overrated. I mean, it's cool, but, you know, acclateras has twice the number of nerve endings that a penis has. It's not as pleasurable an instrument as it seems like people make it out to me. People speaking honestly about their penises, an older woman speaking in detail about sex,

teaching you to have confidence and agency over your own body? Not at all what Malika and Nana Daku heard when they were growing up. Instead, there were a lot of expectations, warnings, and very little information. Here's Nana Daku. Many of us, at least I was raised here in Ghana, where you really don't get told any about sex growing up. All you usually told is don't do it and nobody really goes into the details of what it is. And then somehow miraculously, you expect it to get married, pop out babies, nobody's told you about pleasure, nobody's told you about how to feel good in your body.

You're supposed to go from, you know, one context where you were told something was bad and you couldn't do it to suddenly, you know, there should be some results from this activity. This is my exact experience. I was born in Ghana and raised in Canada. My family lived deeply within our community, the food, the language, celebrations, all of it. My mom first spoke to me about sex when I got my period. Like Malika, there was a tampon involved,

but my mother just gave it to me while she stood by in our bathroom. And then there was a moment I will never forget. She said something to the effect of, don't let anybody put their thing there. So as I'm having these conversations with Nana Daqua and Malika, I'm thinking I have to call my mom. Hello. Hi, Mommy.

Hi. So I have a couple of questions for you. When I got my period, you gave me a tampon. We were in the bathroom. And I remember you were instructing me to put the tampon in. And then I remember you saying, don't let anyone put their thing there. Do you remember that?

Don't like anybody touch you. Yes. So why did you say that? Because once you have your period, if anybody, any man touches you, a tendency of having a child is great. So when you have a girl child, this is number one thing you have to let them know.

Let them know that this is, their body is their body. Nobody has the right to touch it unless you agree. And even that as a child, it's not allowed for a man to touch you, where you don't want to be touched. Can I tell you my experience? Yeah. I wasn't told anything. I didn't have my period.

So when somebody touched me, I didn't know what was going to happen. So my mom had a boyfriend when she was 16, and she was having sex with him. But she was truly naive. She didn't know that having sex could lead to having a baby. And since I was curious, I asked her if she was having fun. And I was 16. So now here you have your own daughter, and you're trying to prevent her from having a baby so young like you did.

Yes. That baby is my older sister at Kos. My mom left school for two years while my grandmother raised Akos, and then she was raised by my mother's older sister. To make a long story short, my mom eventually came to Canada without Echoes, but she's loved her all the while and we're all close. The group chat is called Myrower.

Mommy's girls. Back to my mom and the day I got my period. I knew it was going to happen somehow, but it was too early for me. So you didn't have anything planned? No. I wasn't, I was thinking of maybe 13. So when it came, I was cut off God. So now, thinking of all the things that you know, is there anything that you would do differently or anything you would do the same? differently will be talk about it earlier. I love my mom, and I know that she was protecting me. I did tell her later that essentially the first message I learned about sex was that it was associated with danger and to not let it happen.

But I don't blame her because she was parenting the best way she knew how, just like I'm parenting the best way I know how. Maybe this is why I've been. drawn to podcasts like Adventures in the Bedrooms of African Women. It's definitely why Malika and Anadakwa made it. Even though they didn't learn much about sex growing up, they heard about it a lot. Here's Malika.

Nana Dakar and I were in high school and navigating the world as young women, 16 years old. And even at the time in the 90s, a highly sexualized world and environment. Like it was in all the music. It was, you know, in all the dances. was sexually suggestive or explicit, we had no real kind of input or information, useful information about sex as a whole and all the different aspects of sex, right? Because you're 16, you're dealing with all these very, very serious and intense emotions and feelings and

desire. But there was no, nobody was comfortable enough to sit down and talk to us about it in a real way and an honest and authentic way. This doesn't mean they didn't learn anything about sex. It was part of the curriculum at school, but the focus was on biology. Any conversations about sexual intercourse centered mostly on abstinence, and it's been tough to change that. In 2019, there was a move by the Genian government to introduce the comprehensive sexuality education program.

It was developed with the United Nations to teach young people about the emotional, social, and physical aspects of sexuality. The idea was to add age-appropriate, rights-based reproductive health into schools. The goals include helping young people understand their bodies and their rights, reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies, and sexually transmitted diseases,

and to prevent gender-based violence. But there was an immediate backlash that still continues today. People, groups, politicians, objected because of religious values, cultural values, and there was a heavy resistance to what are perceived as westernized ideals, including non-binary genders and the acceptance of LGBTQ-plus identities. This was a huge nationwide topic.

It was on talk radio everywhere. Some people called the program Satanic and demonic. Joy News is one of Ghana's top news outlets. Here's a host in a discussion about the program, interviewing a Christian marital coach known as Mama Kathy. So let me start with you, Mama Kathy. This morning on the Super Morning Show, you called this a demonic agenda.

What are your thoughts on it? And why did you come to that conclusion? I came to that conclusion after having gone through the materials that is supposed to give life and give birth the CSC for Ghana and not only Ghana, but other African countries and even the West. And I've realized that the agenda is, is to sexualize children. And we have more than enough problems

to add that to a child, probably from the age of four, right, up there. It's really an agenda that is meant to extinct humanity in Africa. So I don't believe it's right. Awakening erotism in children is something that you don't think is right for a child. You know, teaching children some intricate things about sexuality is not something that you want to play with.

And so it's an agenda from hell. I will stop it at the bad. In fact, the comprehensive sexuality education program teaches kids from five to eight things like the scientific names for genitals, how to set boundaries against touching they don't want, and how to identify trusted adults when they need help. Still, the backlash against the program was so fierce that the government backed down and it didn't go forward as planned. But if you're looking for something different, you could go to a podcast and no one would have to know. Here's Malika on an episode about sex positive parenting with a mother and daughter based in South Africa. I am heterosexual, but I'm panromantic. Oh.

So that sounds very unromantic. Actually, it's the exact opposite, because I'm romantically attracted to all genders. Oh, you go. And one of the things that I liked is, because I've had a few identities. At first, obviously, I was straight because heteronormitivity. Hey. And then I identified as buy and then pan and then another thing that I can't remember. And then I was pan again.

And then I'm like, oh, wait, I'm none of that. And you kind of just went, okay. I'm like, oh my God, mama, I like this girl. Oh, really? Is she nice? That's the criteria. Yeah, you're just like, is this person not an a whole? That's your standard.

Do they treat you good? Do they have common sense? And I really appreciate that. You're very, very open about things. After two seasons of the podcast, Nana Daqwa took things further and started writing. She traveled to Senegal, Tanzania, and Ghana, and wrote a book called Seeking Sexual Freedom,

African Rights, Rituals, and Sankofa in the bedroom. She says Africans talking openly about sex and sexuality on podcasts is actually a way of returning to old traditions. I think it's great that these podcasts are talking about sex and sexualities, because we went from a pre-colonial era where we had designated spaces in time to talk about sex and sexualities to colonial era where there was no conversation, at least for the British colonies, it was very much like Victorian era-style morals, you know, to a post-colonial era where we're still very much influenced by colonial governments, where a lot of the laws that governments are trying to pass by now. and sexuality really stemmed from colonial era type laws, where we don't know our history. We don't know that in many, many communities in Africa, women, for example, could marry other women.

We don't know, for example, that gay men were recognized in their societies as people with special powers, as spiritual healers. We've lost so much knowledge. And so for me, I think this is a time for us to recreate knowledge. This is a time for us to unlearn and to relearn. Nana Daqwa reminded me about the Krobo people in Ghana. In their tradition, girls perform a dance called the Klama for a puberty ceremony as part of teachings they get from elders.

And those were spaces where girls learn about their bodies and they learn about sex and sexualities. Amongst the Bugandas of Uganda, you have the role of the Sasanga, who's your paternal aunt, who is responsible for teaching you about sex. sometimes it's also responsible for teaching you how to pull your labia and because that was believed to give your husband pleasure, but also to give you the woman pleasure. You know, you had Bouganda schools actually teaching girls in groups to pull their alabia

and letting them literally see what alabia looks like. I think that's revolutionary. You don't have that. I think it's important for women to know what the alabia looks like. And from having interviewed a woman who had this done when she was young, she says sex is amazing and she thinks it's because of her elongated labia which for me, what's radical

is teaching you about your body, you're encouraged to touch your body and I think that's revolutionary. At its peak, Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women was averaging roughly 40,000 downloads a month and that includes the aunties and the uncles,

Nana Dukwa and Malika's parents' generation, the people at Malika's church. At first, Malika, Lika was surprised because of how conservative they act. I was astounded because I was like, but you guys were always so buttoned up and, you know, very standoffish. But I have to remember that our elders were freaks. These people in Ghana used to have burlesh shows in the 70s.

They had clubs. They had daytime clubs. You would leave the office for lunch. Go to the club, party for an hour, and come back to work. This is documented. These people were freaks. This is my parents' generation. These are people who were born at 1954, just after Gold Coast was abolished.

We're the new Ghana. So, you know, while these people are preaching, you know, be holy and be sanctimonious and your body's a temple. And I was like, but when you were by age, you were in your polyester platform, bell bottoms, your Afro, getting to freak off at the club. But okay, fine, whatever. So the people of Malika's parents' generation are listening. But their peers continue to debate sex and sexuality in Genyan legislature. In late May this year, 2026, the so-called human sexual rights and family values bill passed in the Genyan Parliament. If someone is caught in a same-sex act, they could be punished up to three years in prison.

Supporting same-sex acts or people who engage in them could mean up to five. The last and final step is presidential assent. Human rights organizations say the bill was rushed to coincide with the fourth annual African interparliamentary family, sovereignty, and values conference, which is being held in Ghana this year after three years in Uganda. It's funded in part by international Christian right groups, continuing the long history of Christian influence in African countries dating back centuries. The approval of the bill. is a clear sign of the strength of those organizations and puts many LGBTQ plus people in further danger. But Nana Daku says there's more to headlines like these.

I think what people may miss when they read headlines about the queer community in Ghana is the ways in which queer communities are also organizing to create spaces of joy, to create spaces of resistance, to basically be in community with each other. And I think that's for a couple of reasons, right? First of all, it's not like a lot of global media journalists have relationships,

intimate, close relationships with members of marginalized communities in Ghana. So they may not be hearing these stories for themselves. And members of the community may not necessarily have the skills or experience or connections to get those stories out into the global press, right? And I think also the global press generally like, you know, if it bleeds, elites kind of stories. So you miss the acts of resistance, the women-only festivals, the women-only parties, you know, the spaces where people gather, just to be in community with each other. With 40,000 downloads a month on his podcast, Joseph Inti knows how to build community.

He's the star host of Sincerely Akra. Welcome everybody to another exciting episode of the favorite, favorite, favorite podcast that everybody loves. Yes, it is Sincerely Akra. And my name is Joseph Inte. and it is another exciting Monday for you, Sincerities, because guess what? We dropped a new one. Of course, I have to shout out Kwame Asante.

I met with Joseph at the top of a newish restaurant in downtown Accra. He's driven across town having navigated rush hour traffic. He's buttoned up in a long-sleeve shirt tucked into crisp dark pants. He's got a bald style and a thin mustache. He's younger than me, but somehow he reminds me of my uncles. The sincerely Acre podcast is essentially a crass love letter to the world. Our podcast discusses, you know, being a young person living in a cry, striving in a cry, trying to make it in a cry, you know, some of the existential problems that we deal with, as well as also give commentary on the thriving art scene. When there was a host shifts going on where young people were starting to do really cool and amazing things, we're at the heart of it.

And you just kind of get an idea of what it's like being a young person growing up in a crowd. Joseph says the podcast isn't strictly about sex or sexuality, but it is open. We didn't set out to be like a sex podcast. But however, what I would say is we're sex positive. I think that's the right framing. Joseph describes himself as an effeminate man. In Ghana, there's long been a term for this identity. Kojo Bessia.

It's a portmanteau of the Akun words for Kojo, a boy's name, and Bissia, which means woman. With episode titles like I Am Kojobesia and Lagos and the bisexual Wahala, his podcast is obvious about its friendliness to LGBTQ plus Ganyins. Here's a letter Joseph got from a listener in an episode called The Mailbag, a letter from Akufi. Anyway, hello, Joe, look, hey, this sounds like a, what's it called a beginning of a Cardi B song. I see, look, I found my dad on Tinder. Well, I did not. My gay may fail. Oh, this letter is giving.

Hey, I found my dad on Tinder. Well, I did not. My gay male friend did. And they've been chatting. This is so trifling. He only told me because last week was my dad's birthday and I posted him. I thought somebody was catfishing with his account. Right.

So I forced my friend to ask him to let him come over. And guess what? My dad planned a whole trip to our hometown. saying our grandma has missed us, but guess who isn't coming with us? My dad! Hey, Uber Boy is smuto, Pritawati. Just say he has parked all of you straight to the village over his gay lover. Hey, uh-uh.

Joseph's energetic, funny, and conversational style once earned the show the number one spot on Spotify in Ghana. It's fast-paced, it uses lively and relevant sound effects and memes, and it features interviews with well-known personalities in the country. It was also one of 13 podcasts in Africa to get funding from Spotify's African podcast fund. So he's often being silly and focused on fun. But Joseph realizes being sex positive has an impact on listeners. I remember I went to a program once and I saw a young lady who told me that she was contemplating suicide. and listening to my podcast and just my existence in the colorful way and whatever,

talked her off the ledge. She didn't come across to me as a straight person, you know what I mean? I don't know. Maybe that is impacting the sense that it's okay to just be yourself. You know what I mean? I've had very difficult times in my life where I have contemplated stopping this podcast because it really is a very stressful thing to do eight years consistently. And every time that I get to that point where I'm like, you know, we've done, it's fine.

I think about her and the other people who have not told me. Now that the anti-LGBQ Plus law has passed in Ghana's legislature, there might be a question mark around podcasts that are out in the community and have a visible presence. In anticipation of this, Malika and Nanadakwa move their home base to South Africa, where Malika lives. which was easy to do because we are a pan-African organization. What a lot of people don't realize is that this bill doesn't just affect queer people. It affects queer allies. It affects academics.

It also affects people who are straight and are considered heteronormative. This bill is a disaster. Nana Daku says what they're doing is essential. I think the mere fact that Africans are podcasting about sex and sexuality is revolutionary. still in context where our governments try to criminalize us. We're talking about sex and sexualities. So one of my very good friends was Kaz. She has a podcast called The Spread.

She's Kenyan. And literally, at one point in time, the Kenyan government was trying to ban her podcast. You know, they weren't able to because this is a podcast. Hey-ho. And I love the way in which you can just be creative with how you tell an audio story. And I think we need all of that kind of content out in the world.

We need the conversations. We need the deep dives, we need the audio stories. We just need more and more audio content when it comes to sex and sexualities. And I think Africans are doing something really exciting in that regard. The governments of Ghana and Uganda are actively working against LGBTQ plus people and their communities, as well as more holistic sexual education, using the argument that it is un-African. But the citizens across age, class, and religion tell a different story. Producers, hosts, writers, and editors are all using the safety and independence of podcasts

to talk about sex and sexuality with pride, with joy, with facts. In many cases, while risking their lives and their livelihoods to do so, having learned and been reminded of the histories of our traditions, this resistance doesn't seem on African at all. On the contrary, it strikes me as very African. Ideas contributor Nanaba Duncan reporting from Uganda and Ghana. You can find more stories on LGBTQ plus issues in Africa in our podcast feed. Thank you to Sadia Ansari for editorial support

and to Carlton University's School of Journalism and Communication for use of its recording studios. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso, technical production Emily Kiervezio. Our senior producer is Nikola Lukshic. Greg Kelly is the executive producer of ideas, and I'm Nala Ayyad. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.