The LGBTQ+ movement as we know it today can be traced back to the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village. A gay bar that catered to a variety of patrons but was popular with the most marginalised in society; transgender youth, effeminate young men, homeless youth and the likes. The LGBTQ+ community was subjected to civil laws that, in New York City allowed bars to refuse service to LGBTQ+ patrons, paving the way for arrests, harassment and incessant entrapment by police.
On the 28th of June 1969, the police raided the Stonewall Inn and the street erupted into violent protests. The altercation spilled into the streets and more LGBTQ+ street youth joined in the uprising and as word spread, more LGBT people from surrounding neighbourhoods joined the riot that lasted for six days and marked the beginning of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement in the United States and subsequently across the world.
On the one-week anniversary, there was a gay march and on the first year anniversary, the first gay pride march was held in New York City and across other cities. Several countries have gone on to celebrate gay pride or a variation of it annually, including Africa nations such as Mauritius, South Africa and Uganda. Pride and its early demonstrations often centred simply on participants’ being proud to be out of the closet, on individual freedom, and on the diversity of the LGBTQ+ community. But by the 1980s, particularly after the spread of AIDS political and social activism had become central to Pride events and many of the marchers carried placards that focused on the social issues of the day.
History is important and it is important we know our history because it allows us to understand the past it provides us with context for the present and allows us to build for the future. Because the plight of LGBTQ+ people are different in different cities and countries across the world, how Gay pride is celebrated differs based on the realities of the specific community. However, common themes in Pride events/marches whether it be in the United States or Uganda are that they are in the open, inclusive of all people and accessible to all people and are a joint effort by activists and organizations on the ground, as well as a diverse set of community members.
Bisi Alimi, a renowned LGBTQ+ activist and the first Nigerian to come out on television made a self-congratulatory post on twitter yesterday, to his foundation and team for organizing an “LGBT pride event in Lagos” what he termed “a very important historic moment in the LGBT movement”. But before Bisi Alimi starts with the self-adulation and branding, he needs to ask himself who was included and who was excluded from the event, what benefits the Nigerian LGBTQ community at large has derived from the event, whether visibility has or will rise a result and most importantly whether what he did is indeed novel or a mere rebranding of what has been and is taking place already. An event that was only announced after the fact, behind closed doors in an undisclosed location and limited to activist celebrities and their friends and exclusive of even visible LGBT faces on social media and LGBTQ+ organizations doing the work on the ground cannot be termed a “pride event”.
An exclusive gathering of gay people and their friends and allies is not a pride event; it is merely a gathering. Gay people in Nigeria from Abuja to Lagos to Port Harcourt and beyond have such gatherings every time in their houses and other discreet locations. The only thing missing for them is the social and financial capital to brand it a “Pride Event” and post it online. What Bisi Alimi did is nothing new, and whatever name one wants to call it, it is definitely not a pride event and definitely not the first of its kind. Pride is inherently inclusive of all and centred on visibility. If both cannot be achieved pride need not be organized or termed as such.
Organizing, social media conversations, visibility and LGBTQ+ representation in media (albeit in Hollywood) is helping drive tolerance and acceptance of the community. According to research from TIERs, “60% of Nigerians will not accept a family member who is LGBT” down from 83% in 2019 and 75% of Nigerians support the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act (SSMPA) down from 87% in 2015. There are things to be thankful for because there is progress but there is work to be done.
While WE ALL strive towards building a mass movement of LGBTQ+ people cutting across all abilities, social and economic class and beyond and building a society that tolerates us in order for us to truly have an LGBT pride event, we will continue to commune and thrive in the ways we have been doing. But until then, the first Nigerian pride is yet to happen.
Ibrahim Bello is a young Nigerian passionate about the rights of LGBT+ people in the country.
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this Op-Ed by the Writer are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Rustin Times.
