(Image: European Pressphoto Agency b.v./Alamy)

A step forward for equal LGBT rights in Africa. Last week, the influential Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) published a study on the science of human sexual diversity.

A comprehensive review of recent scientific papers on the subject, it concluded that sexual behaviour is naturally varied, and discrimination unjustified. It stated that there is no evidence that orientation can be altered by therapy or that being gay is contagious.

The report also sets straight the idea that homosexuality is a Western malaise: “There is no basis for the view that homosexuality is ‘un-African’ either in the sense of it being a ‘colonial import’, or on the basis that prevalence of people with same-sex or bisexual orientations is any different in African countries compared to countries on any other continent.”


Going further, the report asserted not only that tolerance of sexual diversity benefits communities but it positively affects public health, civil society and long-term economic growth.

Zero tolerance

Launched at the Seventh South African AIDS Conference in Durban, the study comes a year after the Ugandan government passed a law imposing a life sentence on anyone who has sexual relations with someone of the same sex. Other countries, including Burundi, Cameroon and Nigeria, then passed similar anti-gay laws.

ASSAf president Daya Reddy is hopeful that the report may be a step towards change on the continent. “I expect there to be interest not only among policy-makers but also from across civil society,” he says.

African voice

The report also calls for more research, including a large-scale study looking at “the prevalence, genetic patterns and familial association of gender and sexual diversity”.

“By doing science in Africa on sexual diversity, we will get an authentic African voice,” says co-author Glenda Gray of the South African Medical Research Council.

It’s not surprising that the report is a South African initiative. The country’s post-apartheid constitution was the first in the world to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Gray hopes the report will have a similar impact to earlier ASSAf consensus studies, like the one debunking the notion that HIV infection could be treated with diet rather than drugs, which pushed the South African government to take a more scientific stance on the issue.