Gay Ghana: Queer Undercover

Hating gay people in Africa won’t drive ‘gayness’ away. But it forces more people to live double lives and create social conditions that continue to fuel deceit and spread disease. Take a good look around you. Men having sex with other men is far more common in Africa than is socially acknowledged.

A business associate in Ghana is a married, middle-aged marketing manager with a young assistant who goes everywhere with him. One day, we were in a meeting when he touched the younger man’s shoulder and told him to “speak up.” It was such a tender moment and so illuminating that it suddenly became apparent that these two men were intimate.

All of us in the room clocked the moment. Although we never spoke of it directly, we caught ourselves smirking about what this young man did for his marketing manager boss, especially after the boy was unusually absent from our follow-up meeting the following week.

African businessman and his chauffeur holding hands (as you do).

His boss said that he was busy planning for their extended weekend trip up north, visiting customers and handing out awards to their various top distributors. It was something they did together every month or two. Sharing the same hotel room at each leg of…