ABSTRACT
From Senegal to southern Africa, outside of LGBT organizations and their inevitable ideological links with Western liberation struggles, many African gay men invoke the animistic belief in ancestor spirit possession. A Shona gay man in Zimbabwe claims that he is inhabited by his “auntie” (Hoad 77) whereas the Senegalese gor-djigeen (male-female in Wolof) claims to be haunted by the primordial severance between male and female in the Creation of the Universe. In a Senegalese novel, the gor-djigeen’s sexual preference is even sanctioned by some sort of amputated ancestor (Doumbi-Fakoly). Ancestral beliefs and local naming practices often vie with Western-influenced parlance for the ownership of African sexualities and, of late, transgenderism as a form of gender-crossing that may or may not be directed toward a sex change.
