Africa, Make Up Your Mind: Kenya Expels Girls for “Lesbianism,” Permits Same Gender Marriage Between Older Women

By On February 16, 2012 · 4 Comments

Kenya’s views on same-gender relationships involving women present quite the dichotomy. 

Just last week, I stumbled across this video report from NTV Kenya about the suspension of twelve secondary school students due to allegations of “lesbianism.” The girls were sent home by the principal upon receiving information of their “abnormal” behavior from the rest of the student body.

According to a statement made by the principal, Dorcas Kavuku, “these particular girls were not behaving according to the school rules. They practiced lavish touching and kissed each other which is not normal for people of the same gender,” and so she’d sent them home pending further investigation. A similar story was reported last year involving over fifty girls being questioned for “lesbianism and devil worship.”

Is expulsion on the grounds of homophobia “lesbianism” becoming a more popular trend? One would certainly hope not. Given the number of societal challenges that already bar young girls from receiving basic education in Kenya (e.g. early marriage, pregnancy, harassment by male teachers, etc.),  a country in which girls drop out at a higher rate than boys, denying young girls the right to remain in school hardly makes any sense, even with Kenya’s views on homosexuality.

Incidentally, as convinced as the principal is that same gender relationships between girls are wrong, Kenya’s constitution doesn’t necessarily reflect this sentiment. Sections 162 to 165 of the Kenyan Penal Code criminalize homosexual behaviour and attempted homosexual behaviour between men, not women, a loophole Kenya’s Prime Minister Odinga disregarded in 2010 when he called for lesbians to be arrested along with men to protect the “cleanliness” of the country. Still, lesbian relations are not currently prohibited in the law, which makes sense given Kenya’s long-standing tradition of permitting women to get married in the absence of a male partner.

According to a BBC news report published yesterday:

Homosexual acts may be outlawed in Kenya but there is a long tradition among some communities of women marrying each other.

This is hard to fathom in a country where religious leaders condemn gay unions as “un-African” – and those who dare to declare their partnerships openly often receive a hostile public reaction.

But these cases involving women are not regarded in the same light.

If a woman has never had any children, she takes on what is regarded as the male role in a marriage, providing a home for the younger woman, who is then encouraged to take a male sexual partner from her partner’s clan to become pregnant.

Her offspring will be regarded as the fruit of the marriage.

“I married according to our age-old tradition, where if a woman was not lucky enough to have her own children, she got another woman to honour her with children,” says 67-year-old Juliana Soi.

This customary same-gender marriage arrangement – practised among Kenya’s Kalenjin (encompassing the Nandi, Kipsigis, and Keiyo), Kuria and Akamba communities – has come under the legal spotlight recently because of an inheritance case currently before the courts; some relatives are fighting to inherit a large house which would, by law, pass to the spouse of the late wife.

As the report gleans, if the court rules in favor of the same-gender spouse, it would challenge the patriarchal approach to family relationships, and give woman-to-woman marriages a stronger footing in the modern world. And modern is the key word, since traditional same-sex marriages have been a historical part of Africa’s culture — in over 30 different populations, including the Yoruba, Ibo, Nuer, Lovedu, Zulu, and Sotho — long before colonialism imported homophobia.

In this light, the dichotomy of Kenya’s views towards same-gender relationships involving women isn’t so confusing; it represents Africa’s struggle to find a balance between preserving the old and embracing the new.

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  • dykeroadbaby

    Boy-Wives and Female Husbands is an awesome book. I read it last year while doing research for my dissertation and I was stunned by the stories of same sex love, attraction and practice vividly represented in so many forms. I agree with your view that Africa is struggling to find a balance between preserving the old and embracing the new. I feel that one of the reasons why this struggle has persisted is because many of our ancestral cultures have been wiped out, tainted or sidelined. I knew of Fulani and Hausa male same sex practices before I read about it in BWFH but when people in Nigeria spoke about those practices, I always got the impression that the stories were rumours or untrue and for lack of a better word were not 'sanctioned' by the members of those cultures. Another issue to consider in regards to this balancing act is the lack of a civil discourse on same sex attractions/practice and its place within the African society. Yes, people have started talking about it. There are legislative changes popping up here and there, there are more newspaper articles dedicated to this than ever before but the fact that the topic of same sex attraction/practices are present in the air/media waves doesn't mean that anything is actually being discussed. The loudest voices are of those who are against these attractions and claim they are unafrican. These are not voices of reason as they have neither logic in their arguments nor the facts to back them. Worst of all, they are voices that want to dictate their opinions and impose them on others. They are not ready to listen. If they aren't willing to listen then there can be no meaningful discursive engagements. Africa needs to get to that point where people are willing to listen and are ready to bounce ideas back and forth before we can make any progress in this struggle to balance old and new culture or even in creating one.

  • ewurabasempe

    Hey Spectra!
    I love this book!

  • kennemwikya

    Unfortunately, Spectra, there isn't really any relationship with the court decision and the expelled students. Woman-Woman marriages are distinguishable from lesbian marriages, especially because there is normally a man when the whole thing started. This is a solitary case, we would probably need a more overt case to be affirmed by the courts like in the first one or a positive reaction from parliament. In the case, no reference to homosexuality was made and the government has not issued comment from it.

    • http://www.spectraspeaks.com Spectra

      Have you read Boy-Wives and Female Husbands? True both relationships aren't viewed by the courts in the same way (i.e. based on romantic interest), but that's not the connection I'm making; there's something to be said about gender roles that I don't think should be dismissed based on the fact that no one is calling them 'romantic' or homosexual relationships. In one case, homophobia doesn't permit any kind of relationship between women (and certainly not marriage), hence girls being suspended; on the other hand, traditional "marriages" have existed since before colonialism, so in that case it's okay for women to step outside of the binary.

      It's interesting to me that the constitution's language prohibits any kind of relations between men and doesn't include women. True they aren't described as sexual relationships, but neither should LGBT relationships in my humble opinion. I believe the over-sexualization of LGBT communities (plus the westernized labeling as such) is part of the pushback we're seeing in Africa. We're a more private/conservative/resolved people and straight relationships/marriages are often discussed with the same asexuality as the Kenyan traditional marriages — for procreation, family stability etc. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if some women in these traditional same-gender marriages became lovers / more romantically involved. But that's neither here nor there. Who is to determine what 'intimacy' looks like? There are couples today who never have sex; does that negate their union?

      The distinction that the two types of marriages in the eyes of the Kenyan constitution is an important one to make but it certainly doesn't negate the fact that such varied gender roles within the same cultural context exist despite contemporary homophobic sentiment insisting otherwise. For me the main takeaway is this: as the root of homophobia is about gender roles, this tradition is proof that Africa was way more fluid prior to colonialism.

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