Anti-Gay Bill, 2023: A Boy Can Throw Like A Girl, But in Uganda This Will Be Criminalised

Gender is fluid. Gender is dramatic. Society is to a tide what gender is to an ocean. Society and gender draw determination from each other.

To legislate gender is likely to lead to censoring social roles which may nip genres, innovation, agency, determination, autonomy and productivity in the bud.

Dress, prayer, song, recreation, drama, dance, prose, interaction, political dispensation, service delivery, scripture, religiosity, normativity, feminism, masculinity, education, knowledge and skills transfer, parenting, trade, speech, liberty, happiness, socialisation, ritual, rites of passage, gender reveal events, nurturing and lifestyle will be affected in a post Anti-Gay Act 2023 Uganda.

Anti-Gay is a regime that fuels negative gender stereotyping, upholds misandryist and misogynistic tendencies including sardonic, innuendo-laced and suggestive remarks sexually objectifying bodies. A male whose voice never breaks and a female who grows beards will be stigmatised. Uganda is to be the destination for any form of therapy, exorcism and rehabilitation as long as it is upholding an Anti-Gay agenda. Genital fondling and rape in the name of correction will be applauded.

The Anti-Gay Act, 2023 will be a pyrrhic victory backdropped against reversals in HIV, TB and Malaria prevention and elimination stewardship by a model country.

In a country known for political pyrotechnics, the Anti-Gay regime provides tinder which will see education (tread carefully around sexuality and identity themes); media (muzzle up their speech on sexuality); religious (preach no sex before marriage); political (scrutiny around associations); government (over reach and disruption of privacy); and civil society (fear of deregistration) institutions vying for the best Anti-Gay advocacy record in Uganda.

Anti-Gay Agenda generics will arise. Legislators will come and go depending on which Anti-Gay generic or variation they stand up to. Careership in any profession is being eroded and is no longer vogue.

We need to counter restricting and normative censorship by establishing gender-affirming knowledge and didactic skilling or empowering sessions based on sound reasoning.

Uganda should be a country where it is possible to provide information that theologically, scientifically and socio-culturally promotes life promoting and dignity enhancing narratives. We still need to figure out the incomprehensible complexity of God's creations.

The Uganda Medical Association and other such bodies should provide resources that counter simplistic propositional claims that are narrowly selected as sources to justify a censorship agenda and preconceived conclusions. Address cherry picked and ideologically driven sentiments that serve to stir plebiscite emotions. Traits such as hetero or homo-normativity include the inherited features or products of vast and complex interactions of numerous genes.

There is no one genetic trigger that by itself or of itself causes character traits, dispositions, sentiments and even opinions. To make claims that deny gender expansivity is an example of hetero- supremacism.

Human sexuality and gender are so complex that science and academia are still learning about them. Concern and love should reflect a culture of inclusion and not arrogance nor dismissiveness. Inclusion means reaching out and encountering trans, nonbinary and intersex people and show interest, recognise their very existence and experiences.

The Anti-Gay Agenda may be blind to what is done in jest or as a social-cultural agency. It may bring about hasty conclusions, litigant tendencies, presumptions and wastefulness.