Marnell, J., Camminga, B., Bompani, B., & Wairuri, K. (Eds.). (2026). East African Queer and Trans Displacements. Bloomsbury Academic. 

The last decade has seen a sharp rise in state-sponsored homophobia and transphobia in East Africa. This includes discriminatory legislation, such as the widely condemned Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda, and government-initiated crackdowns, such as the ‘anti-gay taskforce’ launched in Tanzania in 2018. The politicisation of sexual and gender rights in the region is often presented as a moral crusade (i.e. a return to traditional/family values) and is enacted with the support of many religious and cultural leaders. It is within this context that an ever-increasing number of LGBTQI+ people are leaving their homes and seeking protection elsewhere.

But East Africa cannot be reduced to a site from which LGBTQI+ displacement emanates. Several countries in the region act as either host countries or transit points, even as they produce LGBTQI+ refugees of their own. These complex social, political and legal dynamics make East Africa a productive site for theorising queer and trans displacement. The region offers insights into how, when and why LGBTQI+ Africans move, the social obstacles they face, and the different survival strategies they deploy. Despite this, research on East African queer and trans displacements remains sparse.

Bringing together diverse case studies and interdisciplinary perspectives, this open access collection serves as the first in-depth examination of queer and trans displacement in East Africa. The collection features original creative works by queer and trans diasporic writers and artists with first-hand experiences of displacement.

“This volume is nothing short of brilliant. It makes canonical contributions to the emergent field of the study of queer and trans displacement specifically, but also to broader multidisciplinary efforts seeking to sharpen scholarly conceptualization of displacement, its governance and its resistance. The volume illuminates the conditions of LGBTQI displacement and does so with close attention to the worldmaking agency of queer and trans refugees under conditions often tailored to erase their existence. Its contributions are many challenging conventional portrayals, while nuancing the conceptualisation of displacement, including to accommodate different practices of self-identification of those forcibly moved or immobilized. This is essential reading for anyone grappling with the meaning and reality of international borders and migration because of how it carefully maps the different ways of knowing, wielding and contesting borders among queer and trans displaced persons and communities in East Africa.”

E. Tendayi Achiume, Stanford University, USA, and University of Pretoria, South Africa.

“East African Queer and Trans Displacements is not just rigorous scholarship – it is testimony, archive, and act of resistance. This volume offers empirically rich analyses on displacement, belonging, protection, and everyday lives in exile, centering lived experience of queer and trans people. At a time increasingly dangerous conditions, this powerful book is an urgent and necessary contribution.”

Ulrike Krause, University of Münster, Germany.

Join us for the online launch of this book collection on Monday, 2 March, 15:00 (UK time). The launch will feature short reflections from contributors on their chapters, followed by an open conversation about the intellectual, political, and personal stakes of researching and writing on queer and trans displacement in the region. The event is intended as both a celebration of the book and a space for collective reflection, dialogue, and connection across disciplines and locations. Click here to RSVP.

The electronic editions of this book will be available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com, from 25 February 2026. Open access was funded by the Bloomsbury Open Collections Library Collective.