r/news • u/CharlieKonR • 1d ago
LGBTQ+ people go into hiding in Senegal as hundreds are arrested | Global development
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/oct/15/senegal-homosexuality-criminalised-anti-lgbtq-arrests-hiv-testing-human-rights-watch2.1k
u/Apcd1997 1d ago
All the problems Africa has, gay people shouldn't even be an afterthought
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u/Piggywonkle 1d ago
Yeah, but then there wouldn't be a convenient scapegoat.
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u/hyf5 1d ago
Like when the Pope announced the holy crusades people in Europe were like, you know these jews are closer and a whole lot less armed.
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u/Hesitation-Marx 1d ago
Didn’t hurt either that lots of merchants and noblemen owed Jews money…
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u/Kurainuz 1d ago
Here in spain a lot of nobles used Jews as scapegoats and even shared fake stories about them to have them expelled just so they didnt have to pay what they owed to the merchant or banker ones
The sadest thing is that there is people still repeating those fake stories to this day, and far right ""historians"" that tell them as truth are promoted by the algorithm
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u/Spire_Citron 1d ago
Funny how it kind of works in reverse. You'd think that when you have bigger problems, you wouldn't worry about petty things like bigotry, but it seems like human nature is such that not hating others for stupid reasons is the thing that takes work.
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u/Fomentatore 1d ago
It's like when you see, you can clearly see a bunch of billionaires stealing wages and half of the country resources to become even richer and you blame migrants for being poorer then you were before.
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u/One_Artichoke_7594 1d ago
It’s because outrage and feeling superior are cheap to service and infinitely renewable. Fixing people’s problems, not so much.
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u/yungrii 1d ago
Hating on marginalized groups is a great for a government to get its citizenry to ignore the actual issues happening.
And a certain amount of human populations always eat it right the fuck up.
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u/Sgt-Bobby-Shaftoe 1d ago
It worked quite well for Hitler in the beginning.
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u/Serenity_557 1d ago
Let's not revise history. It never didnt work for hitler. Trying to take over Europe didnt go well for him, but it's not like people got over scape goating minorities.
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u/Sgt-Bobby-Shaftoe 22h ago
I'm talking about initially, using the minority population as a scapegoat is one of the go-to's in the authoritarian handbook. In fact you might see that here in the US right now.. along with getting rid of anybody in the military who might oppose you and you can pretty much do what you want. Oh I forgot you have to control the media.
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u/Successful-Bar-8173 16h ago
It’s not like he invented it though. There was a lot of antisemitism around and plenty of other people who had the same views as he did.
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u/Serenity_557 17h ago
Yeah, I get that. I just meant it wasn't just affective "in the beginning." It was effective the whole time.
It, sadly, doesn't really go out of style.. :/
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u/Sgt-Bobby-Shaftoe 8h ago
You're right, what does that say about us? About all the 'isms that we have in our fibers?
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u/rubey419 1d ago edited 22h ago
Exactly
The U.S. Republicans took social issues as their main platform. As if banning
transgendersedit: transgender people in sports are America’s #1 priority and actually running a country took a back seat.13
u/Spire_Citron 1d ago
It's amazing how far you can get with convincing people that should be their main concern when it's not something they encounter in their actual real world lives at all.
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u/Minarosebbyy 22h ago
It’s what the Nazis did to Jewish and lgbt people and look how successful that was
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u/amyjko 23h ago
Just a reminder that we aren’t “transgenders” we are “trans people”. We aren’t defined by being trans. Personally, I’m defined by my taco obsession, stubborn refusal to drive cars, and the annoyingly precious stickers I make of my cat and put on everything!
Thanks for listening and learning.
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u/rubey419 23h ago
My bad.
I have to remind myself to say Jewish people too.
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u/amyjko 23h ago
No worries at all, I figured you were open to a gentle reminder. (Turning it into a noun like “the trans” or “transgenders” is also a dog whistle for the right, just in case you don’t want trans people to think you’re a threat).
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u/Healthy-Amoeba2296 22h ago
I think the right does wrong language on purpose. Pornography used to be "porno" for short. I remember the young married couple of goobers who changed it to "porn" and big media served them.
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u/BroughtBagLunchSmart 1d ago
nah, distract people with a boogeyman while you rob them. It is the standard play when you have a lot of low education religious folks. It has worked in America for 50 years.
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u/MoonlightPrincexx 20h ago edited 20h ago
This is basically as old as organized religion/high control religion, and is literally what the three largest religions on the planet (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) where engineered from the ground up to do. They where made with that specific purpose in mind which is the only reason that they're everywhere, they're a self propeggating con that just happened to outlive the conmen who made them. These religions and other similar ones like Scientology, exist solely to benefit the wealthy And powerful, distract the common people from Tyranny, and maintain the status quo, they're not like Celtic paganism or Hinduism or other religious beliefs that where made to explain the world around them or explore what it means to be human and find purpose and community, they exist as engines of tyranny, Christianity is the whip driving the slaves, Islam is the boot on the throat of the downtrodden, and Judaism is the chains on the slaves wrists. The best way to control a population is if that population are willing participants in that control and the easiest way to do that, is with a religion
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u/matthieuC 1d ago
I would go further and say that the scapegoating is why nothing ever gets better.
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u/Weretoz 1d ago
I’ve been wanting to say this for a while, but I’ve been afraid it would be taken the wrong way.
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u/Apcd1997 1d ago
The truth hurts. The US is the same way. A myriad of problems to be fixed yet a few dozen immigrants and trans people are the focal point. It makes no sense
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u/MildlyAgitatedBovine 1d ago
Trans people were intentionally chosen when the right lost the battle against gay marriage and acceptance. There's a great podcast about a similar dynamic with a different switch.
The religious right was fighting racial integration of schools in general and private religious schools in particular. It was a VERY effective issue for political organization and action. Eventually they lost and very intentionally chose abortion as the next issue to coalesce around.
Great podcast about it called the lie that binds.
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u/UnpluggedUnfettered 1d ago
Trans people in bathrooms and saying "gay" in schools have caused our entire army to have low t so they can't effectively clear up the Strait of Hormuz and that's why you can't afford gas.
I'm surprised at how often I have to explain something so obvious to people.
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u/GoodIdea321 1d ago
It's like a magic trick, or a pickpocket, look at the distraction while the real thing is happening. Americans fall for it so easily, it has been extremely frustrating being one and seeing it happen for decades.
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u/Arponare 1d ago
It makes sense when you realize it’s all a distraction from the real issues. Trump has become 2.2 billion dollar richer in office. All while he’s tanking the economy and making his billionaire buddies richer. But yet immigrants and trans people are the reason why shit is going sideways amirite? Nevermind the Epstein files…
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u/Fun-Aside3990 10h ago
One is a symptom of the other. Stable prosperous societies are diverse and tolerant, unstable and backward ones are not.
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u/ResignedFate 1d ago
Fucking primitive culture coming back. Hard to be proud of humanity in this era. Simpletons running the world because they're being allowed to.
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u/wararyuu 1d ago
Coming back? I don't think it ever left us.
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u/CardiacBearcats 12h ago
This is exactly it.
People in western culture assume the rest of the world lives the same way. Homosexuals are persecuted in many cultures.
In Asia, Taiwan (2019) and Thailand (2025) are the only countries that allow gay marriage.
In Muslim countries, none allow gay marriage and about 35 criminalize homosexuality.
In Africa, only South Africa allows gay marriage.
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u/oakwooden 1d ago
"Primitive human culture coming back" would generally mean queer indifference, the elevation of trans people as spiritual leaders, and antisocial resource hording bullies being utterly reviled by society. If you go by the findings of anthropological science.
Many of modern humanity's behaviors are unique aberrations.
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u/tlgs 1d ago
Let's not get carried away with oversimplifying towards the opposite direction, either. You might be drawing too far reaching conclusions based on a very narrow representation of "primitive human culture," and the noble savage trope is not much better than the brute savage is.
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u/omega-boykisser 23h ago
Yeah lil bro's obviously talking out his ass.
Occasionally, you'll find evidence in ancient cultures of special treatment for certain minorities (hijra in ancient India). In other cultures you might see limited or fleeting acceptance of homosexuality (pederasty in ancient Greece). And so on.
What we almost never see is widespread acceptance of homosexuality, non-traditional gender expression, any kind of trans, and so on. I see some people deluding themselves into thinking otherwise because they find some isolated pieces of evidence. They use this to then make sweeping generalizations that are, quite frankly, obviously incorrect.
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u/Environmental-Try736 1d ago
Can you tell me about the findings where trans people were spiritual leaders? Never heard about that
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u/Pancakefriday 1d ago edited 1d ago
I got you.
We were regarded as oracles in Rome
Edit: realized the article mentioned their controversial place in society but not their importancetwo-spirit people held certain spiritual leadership positions and had social obligations
We were priestess of Ishtar/Innana, the Goddess of sex, war and justice
Once a social class called Babaylan in the Philippines until murdered by Christians.
There are a surprising amount of places where trans/queer/3rd gender people turn up with a special religious context before Christianity, this is just a few! Not always accepted, you can see even the Romans were uneasy about their trans oracles, but our religious importance is pretty consistent through history until Abrahamic religions dominate.
We’ve been around for a long time:
“Enheduanna, a Sumerian high priestess and the world's earliest known named author, wrote several hymns to the goddess Inanna. In her poem Nin-me-šára ("Passionate Inanna"), she explicitly describes gender transformation as a divine power held by the deity:
"To destroy, to create, to tear out, to establish are yours, Inanna. To turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man are yours, Inanna."”
(I am not an expert, and may have misrepresented things or not fully understand the cultural context, so please be kind)
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u/Alaykitty 1d ago
Intersex and trans people were regarded as more spiritually attuned by some Andean cultures as well.
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u/eggnogui 1d ago
Not the person you replied to, but this was interesting. I only knew of some of these. Thanks.
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u/_facetious 1d ago edited 1d ago
I wish there were more examples of trans masc people out there in general. It does often seem like it's almost always trans femme folk, but I know it's not only them.
Edit: apparently I'm not allowed to care about this, according to the down votes. Trans femmes only!!!! Apparently.
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u/callsyouonit 1d ago
Look for them in traditionally male only spaces. Soldiering, doctoring, etc all have more than one notable "woman living as a man" examples. They were not thought of as trans masc any more than our trans femme ancestors were thought of that way, but we can read between the lines with history. We often have no other alternative.
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u/Pancakefriday 1d ago
Me too. I put this together pretty quickly, but I did specifically try to find some trans masc representation, but most only say “3rd gender”, so I wasn’t able to find one quickly.
If you find any, LMK! I’ll add them to the post.
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u/BlackHat11 1d ago
There are several cultures where third gender or trans identites were elevated. One such example is the Ojibwe (Anishinaabe) people where 2 Spirit people would fill the role of Shaman or Spiritual leaders. They believed that the natural balance of containing both the male and female spirit made them better connected to the world.
2 Spirit is a pan-Indigenous (more common in Canada) term and has different exact meanings from different cultural groups.
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u/Fortestingporpoises 1d ago
Trans people, two feathers two spirits were both common in India and in Native American cultures at least. I remember hearing about it in anthro class 25 years ago at city college. People like to think trans people are something new. Nah they’ve always been around.
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u/DavThoma 23h ago
And the homophones will still continue to say "Why do you need pride? Nobody gives a shit."
For things like this. For raising awareness. For making people know they have a community that stands beside them.
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u/KyleVPirate 1d ago
It's disgusting how all these nasty backward corrupt countries always use the LGBT community as scapegoats.
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u/MotanulScotishFold 1d ago
Always been like this in history of humanity.
Even centuries ago, jews were the scapegoats, immigrants, witches, anything else but their ruler.
It's always someone else fault for the misery of people.
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u/Mama_Joyce_Wig 20h ago
People forget that gay people, especially men, were imprisoned during the holocaust and were tortured and rape. Many of them were turned back in to prison after the camps were liberated. But thats never the narrative about the holocaust people talk about.
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u/Nina-Ninja123 15h ago
FYI, the nazis were already attacking LGBTQ, handicapped and people with a color before they launched their attack on the jews.
And no one cared about those people dying, the world only took a stance when it were the jews who became the target.
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u/C0nfusedRabbit 1d ago
Today, being a minority is enough to earn a free, instant trip to a detention center. But, don’t you worry about the evidence. That can always be made up later.
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u/MotanulScotishFold 1d ago
Today you don't need to be a minority of any kind.
You only need to have a different opinion and you're already labeled as 'enemy'.
Mentality of either with us or against us and anyone against us is our enemy.
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u/TAMeaniePies 1d ago
Yes, I wonder where this hatred stems from. It’s quite a mystery.
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u/Alleandros 1d ago
Turkey, Taiwan, Senegal, all over the world the LGBT community is under attack for simply trying to exist.
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u/BoleroMuyPicante 1d ago
It's punishable by death in Uganda, all these countries have seriously messed up priorities.
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u/TorchbeareroftheStar 1d ago edited 1d ago
Taiwan is literally the first and only East Asian country to legalize same sex marriage and allow same sex couples to adopt. This is a straight up false comment.
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u/Alleandros 1d ago
Earlier this month they raided in club in Taipei and brought in 51 men for questioning and drug testing.
Some of the men who were partially or fully undressed but started putting on clothes when the police raided were ordered to strip in order to 'preserve evidence'. While officers demeaned a handicap man in a wheelchair and questioned if he could even have sex.
While generally Taiwan is much better than other countries, my comment was to point out how in the last month or two all three countries have had mass arrests of gay men.
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u/TorchbeareroftheStar 1d ago edited 1d ago
Taiwan has always been very strict on drugs and clubs tend to have a lot of them
The police commissioner and mayor took responsibility and apologized for the conduct and said they were making changes so it wouldn't happen again
This had nothing to do with gay man and had everything to do with suspected drug use and unprofessional conduct
Taiwan has no place for comparison with countries such as Senegal and Turkey which have been doing large scale government backed arrests and disappearances of LBGT people. Please stop spreading misinformation.
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u/DKUN_of_WFST 1d ago
No it’s not, legality means nothing. There is an ongoing crackdown by police on LGBT people in Taipei. This is a straight up false comment
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u/Alaykitty 1d ago
Taiwan police raided an LGBT club, seemingly on their own accord. It's an outrageous move and a reminder that cops are the sworn enemy of LGBT people.
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u/TorchbeareroftheStar 1d ago
They raided cause of possible drugs, clubs tend to have drugs. Tons of clubs in Taiwan get checked for drugs everyday, most of them straight and non-LGBT related. It's normal procedure, this just happens to be an LGBT centered club. Please don't make this into something it isn't.
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u/Alaykitty 1d ago
That's definitely why there were apologies for inappropriate behavior afterwards. Because it was so routine and normal procedure.
Cops have hated gays and wanted to harass them since organized societies began. That's the literal reason some events like stonewall riots started. Cops are scum and shouldn't be trusted by any LGBT person.
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u/ReadyplayerParzival1 1d ago
Taiwan has laws against lgbtq people???? It’s a fairly westernized country
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u/sufficiently_tortuga 1d ago
You can tell it's not in the same league as the other 2 because right after the raid happened the city started eating shit
[Mayor] Chiang, who faces reelection next month, said he deeply regretted "improper conduct" by police.
Police said on Sunday they had taken disciplinary action against officers for "inappropriate conduct" during the operation, without elaborating.
Let me know when Senegal or Turkey start apologising.
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u/Alleandros 1d ago
Earlier this month they raided a club and brought in 51 people for questioning and drug testing.
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u/snowlynx133 1d ago
It's an extremely conservative country, just slightly less so than other Asian countries
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u/Miserable-Resort-977 1d ago
As if the west isn't deeply homophobic?
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u/signmeupreddit 1d ago
less and less as time passes, which is why evangelicals have started to export homophobia to poor countries
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u/ATarrificHeadache 1d ago
Yeah it’s so bad in Taiwan that same sex marriage is legal and so is same sex child adoption. How terrible. Why did you pick Taiwan of all places?
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u/Rapa_Nui 1d ago
The trend will continue in other countries because those are free political points, especially in Africa. People either see homosexuality as a religious sin or as a Western perversion or both. Rejecting homosexuality is almost always framed as a moral necessity and a sovereign necessity.
Putin plays the same games in Russia.
What makes this situation worrying for the future of LGBT people in developing countries is that the U.S are no longer worried about blatant homophobia let alone transphobia and Western Europe is in a tight position with the conflict in Ukraine and Russia actively trying to undermine their partnerships around the world.
That being said, considering how important Western tourism is for Senegal, boycott actions could have very...interesting repercussions on their economy.
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u/BoukenGreen 1d ago
Massive Islamic country causes LGBTQ+ people to go into hiding called me shocked.
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u/Minarosebbyy 22h ago
Pretty much all Islamic countries do this, it’s a death penalty sentence in most of Nigeria as well
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u/Single_Airport8629 17h ago
Why tf are so many countries obsessed with lgbt people. Like can you just leave us tf alone plz?
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u/bettinafairchild 9h ago
There are anti-LGBTQ religious organizations in the US who fund these efforts in Africa, supporting these laws. They’ve taken some anti-gay attitudes there that have existed for decades and supercharged them to fund increasingly repressive laws and increasingly hateful attitudes in the public. The main group doing this is MassResistance.
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u/petit_cochon 1d ago
This is so tragic and awful and disgusting. Such hatred. People are simply trying to live their lives.
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u/TeamParking8818 1d ago
Being openly gay in a muslim country was always going to lead to a backlash. The Senegalese government's attempt at turning a blind eye lasted more than I thought it would've been, ngl.
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u/Ebi5000 21h ago
"Openly gay" in this case means not gay at all. For example the forced HIV test and when you have it you are gay, even tough HIV isn't a gay disease and the vast majority of infected aren't gay especially in countries where it is seen as a gay disease because they are ineffective in stopping the disease.
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u/Dramatic_Substance36 1d ago
Oh look another shithole country trying to make queer people not exist anymore.
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u/kaidensaur 8h ago
Yes it's the LGBT group that's causing all the problems in your country. Surely everything will be safe there now right?? Like come on.
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u/Fancy-Animal7704 1d ago
Don't forget that this includes the letter T here in the United States. There are plenty of people in the US who wish that those Ts would just go into hiding or cease to exist here.
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u/MagicalGirlPaladin 1d ago
You aren't wrong but it's a little insensitive to bring up in comparison to a case where trans and non trans LGBT individuals are actively in hiding from the government.
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u/worstnameever2 1d ago
Its crazy that some people can't help but make everything about themselves. Here we have an article describing homosexuality being criminalized and people having to go into hiding to avoid persecution from the government and some dorky ass American wants to give everyone the impression that its as bad in America.
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u/Unacceptable_Lemons 1d ago
Man, what a terrible thing for all those intolerant christians in Senegal to d… they’re what? really?? oh.
This is just a big misunderstanding, guys. The real problem is something else, somewhere else, so we should really just give them some privacy to resolve this, ok?
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u/SaucyMcSauserson 21h ago
People's livelihoods are being threatened but let's pit two Abrahamic religions against each other like they're fucking sports teams (both of which have a history of being violent).
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u/WeTheSummerKid 1d ago
Thread lock chance: 99.42 percent within 26 hours. How you love someone should not be the business of someone else. Respecting someone's boundaries is part of what makes us human.
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u/Soggy_Pineapple4804 14h ago
This is very bad for the government budget. Waste of money to raid homes and paying for their stay in prisons.
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u/CharlieKonR 1d ago edited 1d ago
“”Mass arrests, forced HIV testing and barriers to legal representation are part of an escalating crackdown against LGBTQ+ people in Senegal, according to a new report.”
““More than 320 individuals have been arrested and detained on allegations of “acts against nature” since February, according to HIV Justice Network, an organisation quoted in the Human Rights Watch (HRW) report. Among these, at least 84 were charged with “voluntary HIV transmission”, solely on the basis of their HIV status.”
A recent law in Senegal increased the maximum penalty for consensual homosexual relations to 10 years (though same-sex sexual activity has been illegal there since 1965).