A History of the LGBT Movement in Maputo

Abstract

Based on ethnographic and archival research, this article presents a genealogy of the Mozambican LGBT movement from its origin to the present. Thus, it addresses the first homosexual parties; the movement’s first newspaper; the movement’s institutionalization via the organization known as “LAMBDA”; and the latter’s relationship to the Mozambican state. Two arguments are presented here: first, responding to debates about discourse on the exogeneity of homosexuality in Africa, I argue that the history of the local LGBT movement is one of the reasons that the predominating discourse in Mozambique identifies “homosexuality” with foreigners, with whites and with urban settings . Second, the article takes issue with Africanists that emphasize homophobia on the continent, showing that there is a certain ambiguity in the relationship between the Mozambican state and the local LGBT movement.