The LGBT+ community in Ghana is pushing back hard as the government attempts to criminalize their activities with the controversial anti-LGBT+ bill.
Despite the backlash from a cross-section of the liberal public and international LGBT+ and human rights advocates, proponents of the bill insist on seeing it to fruition.
The resilient LGBT+ community in Ghana instead of going into hiding for fear of further stigma and criminalization should the bill go through, are standing firm and insisting that their rights matter.
Bukom is a community known for its large homos*xual population, and members have asked the government to focus on what is important to the development of the nation and stop persecuting people who have committed no crime.
According to Lawrence Doku, a smoked fish seller and a proud member of the LGBT+ community, everyone is facing hardships in the country but the government is doing nothing about it and instead is going after innocent gay people.
He proclaimed that he is so happy that he is gay and nothing will make him change and if God had not made him so he would have been really upset. “We will never say die until the bones are rotten”, he said.
Amos Shirley another gay Bukom resident said he’s gay and proud of himself. “I am gay and I like what I am doing. So if I’m walking like a woman nobody should stop me (from) doing what I want. Since my infancy, I do things like a woman so I don’t know how to stop it”.
A woman called Patience Engman who has made herself a godmother to the gays in the community, says that the government is only wasting its time in trying to pass the bill because it will not do anything to change their s*xuality.
