Homophobia

• Addressing claims of homophobia, the rapper wrote on Instagram: “I didn’t write the line about gay people.
• … I got love for all people.” He continued: “To me [by] ‘queer’ I don’t mean someone who’s gay.
• As rap music approaches its 50th anniversary in August, I believe it is increasingly embracing challenges to – and debates about – homophobia.

The history of homophobia in rap music

• Indeed, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, high-profile rap groups such as N.W.A and artists like DMX similarly used pejorative language against members of the gay and lesbian community.
• Perhaps the most famous rapper using homophobic lyrics is Eminem.
• Throughout this controversy, there was only a muted response from the rap community itself.
• Indeed, researchers who studied the link between rap music and resistance among young men of color to coming out found that it influenced some gay men’s decision to conduct any same-sex practices on the “down low” to avoid revealing their sexuality.

The start of change in rap community

• For example, in 2005 Kanye West apologized for his past homophobia and even urged fellow artists to cease using lyrics that degrade the LGBTQ+ community.
• These individual actions did not end anti-gay expression in rap, but it does, I believe, show progress among those in the hip-hop community.
• However, many present-day male rappers wear tight-fitting clothes – a fashion choice once considered “gay” and therefore demeaned in the rap world.
• Moreover, such outfits are created by gay fashion designers, a point that Offset acknowledged while defending himself against claims of homophobia.

Out of the closet and onto the mics

• Even more telling, I believe, is the growing number of mainstream LGBTQ+ rappers.
• Over the past decade, there has been a rise in the number of successful gay and lesbian emcees.
• Albeit the music of openly gay Lil Nas X is more pop than rap, it has sold over 1 million copies.
• Even 50 Cent, no stranger to homophobic lyrics, praised her on Instagram: “Young M.A the hottest s*** out right now.

Still room for growth in rap music

• But it does show that hip-hop has evolved to a point at which self-reflection and conversations are taking place on past and present instances of homophobia.
• That’s not to say that anti-gay beliefs don’t persist in the music of some.
• And at least for now, rap artists are called on it – increasingly by members of their own community.

• Previously there has been been historical surveillance and targetting of queer people in Uganda, but no penalties nearly as harsh as this.
• Their proponents argue that they protect the heterosexual African family and “African values” in a rejection of “western norms”.
• As an African political sociologist who researches and teaches gender and sexuality, I argue that these laws are a backlash.
• They are a response by patriarchal societies to increased freedoms for previously marginalised groups, including women and girls.

International connection

• Read more:
  LGBTIQ learners at risk in South Africa as conservative Christian groups fight plans for safer schools

  Some of these financial resources unfortunately also come from development funders.

• A 2022 investigative report points to international donor funding flowing towards churches and associated groups that propelled anti-LGBTIQ+ legislation in Ghana.
• And, more recently, the role of groups such as Family Watch International in the anti-homosexuality law that Museveni has assented to.
• These freedoms include the reclamation of formal political spaces – parliaments, political parties and legislation.

What needs to be done about it

• Firstly, the wave of new laws demands transnational organising.
• The latest law is not just about LGBTIQ+ people in Uganda.
• Thirdly, there is need to track money, and associated advocacy, to stop the development funding that goes to anti-LGBTIQ+ groups.

• However, this recent panic about drag queens reading in public libraries is actually typical in the history of child sexual abuse.
• This history has involved repeated moral panics that distract from the alarming data regarding child sexual abuse in the home.

Moral panic

• Satanic ritual abuse captured headlines and people’s imaginations with tales of particularly painful, depraved and degrading practices.
• Research has shown that reports of abuse initially came from adults who “regained memories” of experiences of satanic abuse in their childhoods.
• Read more:
  'Satanic worship, sodomy and even murder': how Stranger Things revived the American satanic panic of the 80s

  The consensus in medical literature that emerged in the 1990s was there was a tendency of some individuals, especially clients of particular psychotherapists, to manufacture memories of abuse which never occurred.

A deviant lifestyle

• Campaigns to decriminalise homosexuality often struggled against attempts to impose unequal ages of consent in reform legislation.
• In Tasmania, the last Australian state to decriminalise sex between men (in 1997), a heated public debate frequently raised issues of child protection.
• Letters to newspapers claimed that decriminalisation “would only open the floodgates and allow the very young to become prey to those who have chosen to lead this deviant lifestyle”.
• Such change and suppression practices are now thankfully against the law in many jurisdictions around the world.

A kinder and gentler future

• Despite periodic moral panics, the history of gender and sexuality since 1970 tends towards a kinder, gentler future.
• People have generally become more accepting of LGBTIQA people’s human rights, and are more welcoming and celebrating of sexual and gender diversity.
• Because of this history of growing acceptance, young people are feeling more comfortable and safer to explore their identities at younger ages.

• NYX Professional Makeup will also be advocating for LGBTQIA+ individuals by offering education and allyship training nationwide.
• NYX Professional Makeup celebrates the LGBTQIA+ community year-round through its Proud Allies for All campaign in partnership with the Los Angeles LGBT Center.
• To date, NYX Professional Makeup has donated more than $500,000 to various global LGBTQIA+ organizations, including the Los Angeles LGBT Center.
• "NYX Professional Makeup stands for artistry for all, and proudly advocates for the community's freedom of expression online and offline."