“Some Africans Gave Full Approval of Homosexuality”: Representations of Africa in the U.S. Homophile Press, 1953–1964

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis essay explores representations of Africa in the three primary U.S. homophile periodicals of the 1950s and early 1960s. It considers 130 articles, letters, and stories in Mattachine Review, ONE, and The Ladder that mentioned Africa or Africans. In doing so, it explores and analyzes the ways that Africa was referenced and represented to understand how those periodicals, their writers, and the U.S. homophile movement understood and were influenced by Africa (or by their perceptions of Africa). The essay argues that views expressed in The Ladder, Mattachine Review, and ONE reflected broader thinking about Africa in the 1950s and early 1960s in focusing on Egypt, relying on U.S. accounts of Africa, and eroticizing the bodies of Africans. But homophile publications also differed from their mainstream counterparts by presenting various African cultures as superior to U.S. culture in their liberal views of and approaches to sexual and gender variance.