The African Continent has always been more queer than generally acknowledged, as Jarrod Hayes had already intuited in Queer Nations (2000) with regards to the Maghreb. It has always rainbow-hazed into such a range of sexualities that it is a matter of legitimate political and critical concern that homosexualities and African societies are currently and were throughout the twentieth century widely read as antinomous. In particular, homosexuality, itself a slippery contender, is still thought to be quintessentially ‘un-African’. Both average citizens as well as contemporary African religious authorities, legislators and heads of state, for whom homosexuality is ‘completely strange to their world view’, have contributed to entrenching this belief. The term ‘un-African’ is often used as a means of controlling variant gender performance or sexualities, and punitive behaviour includes beating, rape, and, in some contexts, aversion therapy, forcible sex-change and even murder. A paradigmatic shift has indeed occurred.

Despite South Africa's ground-breaking sexual orientation clause in its bill of rights and its government becoming the first in Africa to recognize same-sex marriages (in 2006), as well as some legislative improvements in other African countries, homophobia is still rife and homosexuality continues to be vociferously repressed. In 2008, 86 United Nation member countries had laws that criminalized same-sex relations; and some 37 African countries, along with Middle Eastern countries, constituted a majority of those so that it is dangerous and even life-threatening to be out in Africa.