The Ugandan parliament began debating a bill on Thursday that would make it illegal for people to identify as LGBTQ, with legislators arguing that the existing prohibition on same-sex relationships does not go far enough.
Same-sex relationships are punishable by up to a life sentence in prison in this profoundly conservative and religious country in east Africa.
More than 30 African nations forbid same-sex relationships, but if Uganda’s legislation is approved, it would appear to be the first to make it illegal to simply identify as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) person.
According to British news agency Reuters, the proposed Ugandan law was presented as a private lawmaker’s bill and aims to enable the nation to combat “threats to the traditional, heterosexual family”.
Anyone who “holds out as a lesbian, gay, transgender, queer, or any other sexual or gender identity that is contrary to the binary categories of male and female” faces a sentence of up to 10 years in jail under the proposed law.
Additionally, it makes it illegal to “promote” homosexuality and to “aid” or “conspire” to have same-sex relationships.
The legislation is similar to one that was passed in 2013 that criminalized lesbianism and toughened some penalties. Before it was overturned on procedural grounds by a domestic court, it attracted strong international condemnation.
The new measure was read in the legislature, and Speaker Anita Among forwarded it to a committee for review and public hearings before returning it to the House for discussion and a vote.
Members of parliament were encouraged by Among to reject intimidation, citing rumors that some Western nations had threatened to impose travel restrictions on those involved in passing the law.
She questioned, “This business of intimidating ‘you will not go to America’, what is America?’.
According to activists, a parliamentary committee’s inquiry into allegations of the promotion of homosexuality in schools, which was ordered in January, has already triggered a wave of prejudice and violence against LGBTQ people.
