Sexual Surveillance: LGBT Marginalization, (In)Visibility, and Queer Politics of Survival in Rwanda

In this paper, I investigate the overlapping modes of religious, political, and social surveillance of queer Rwandans. I argue that such surveillance of sexuality in the centralized public sphere in Rwanda pushes queer sexuality further to the margins, eventually enabling and encouraging surveillance in marginalized public spheres and in private, domestic, and intimate spaces. In a post-genocide context that prohibits LGBT visibility, these layers of surveillance result in LGBT Rwandans somewhat paradoxically participating quite visibly in hetero-marriage and reproduction as forms queer survival, creating networks of hidden love and clandestine relationships while attempting to skirt social stigma. My work expands scholarship on sexuality, gender, and race by arguing that Rwanda’s queer politics of invisibility can provide an alternative to the queer politics of representation and visibility so prized in the Western discourse.