[LINK] "Prominent Abidjan Gay Bar Shuts Its Doors"

[rfmcdonald]

In a followup to an article of his I noted last week which described how the relative tolerance of Côte d'Ivoire and its capital of Abidjan attracted GLBT migrants from across western Africa, Robbie Corey-Boulet has another article. This Voice of America article describes the closure of Abidjan's main gay bar and its effect on the community.

It was one of the last nights Ivory Coast’s most prominent gay bar was open for business. It closed its doors this past weekend after an eight-year run as the main attraction of the city's gay scene, one of the most permissive in conservative West Africa. The bar was both a symbol of Ivory Coast's live-and-let-live approach to LGBT rights, as well as an occasional flashpoint highlighting latent homophobia among the general population.

The bar opened in 2005, and for most of the past eight years, was the only place in the city where gay men, lesbians and transgender women all gathered together. It was an anomaly in West Africa, where homosexuality is widely banned.

Such laws were often inherited from colonial powers, but they still have significant support in the region. For example, lawmakers in Nigeria and Liberia are currently reviewing legislation that would make their anti-gay laws even tougher.

Ivory Coast has no laws on homosexuality, and the bar was allowed to operate with few problems. But the owners of the building announced earlier this year that it was being repurposed, meaning all tenants had to leave. The bar was set to close at the end of March.

A regular named Charles said he did not know what the city’s gay community would do once it closed. “We’re a family, and everyone can do what they want when they’re here. But we don’t have very many places to enjoy ourselves. You cannot have fun everywhere. If you go to a straight bar and act like we do here, they’ll throw you out.”