Gay And Lesbian Club On Legon Campus

Information reaching the Statesman newspaper indicates that a new gay and lesbian club night on the campus of Legon has drawn unprecedented numbers, indicating a growing sexual liberalism amongst students at the nation’s premier University. What the gay social event, which was attended by non-gay liberal students, shows is that the gay scene is getting big in Ghana.

Predictably, it has also angered several students, who see it as a sign of ‘growing moral degradation.’

The first night occurred last month at the Pentagon hostel on the Legon campus, a hostel for students with rich and middle-class backgrounds, and since then it has by all accounts turned a haven of fun for students, with an attendant rise in patronage of Pentagon hostel accommodation facilities. The Statesman can also report that the gay scene is really big in Accra with underground parties regularly attracting about a 100 men. One such party at the capital at the weekend, had scores of men doing the catwalk, half naked.

According to James, a 26-year-old gay bartender, “there are networks, with some boasting as many as 3,000 gay men here in Accra. The good news is that Ghana is more liberal than you may think.” The Pentagon hostel gay party was just one of many regular gigs.

According to Statesman’s campus sources - that Legon event took place at a Chinese Restaurant within the hostel, which can hold 100 to 150 people and was attended by gay students from other universities. The creation of the gay and lesbian club was arranged by a gay diploma student who is pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drumming and Dancing at the University of Ghana, Legon. The student, name withheld, applied for the use of facilities in the Chinese restaurant inside Pentagon hostel to hold his 23-birthday party.

Around 5pm, students from both Legon and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology started trickling in, and by 9pm, the party was rocking – with the blaring music audible in the whole vicinity. Flamboyance characterized the outfits of the partygoers, with men and women alike donning high heels, painted nails and weave-ons for the birthday celebrations.

But by 12pm, the party had wound down with just a few stragglers staying until 1pm whilst others went elsewhere to continue the party. Some students who we spoke to said that this was just the latest in number of such events at the University in recent times. Homosexual activity remains illegal in Ghana, although the criminal code, which makes a crime of ‘unnatural carnal knowledge’, makes no specific mention of same-sex relationship, per se. Gays and lesbians (to a limited degree) have typically been met with a fierce public condemnation. But whilst there are no reports of actual homosexual activity taking place at this or any of the other events, it nevertheless suggests a softening in public attitudes towards homosexuality – at least amongst the brightest of the nation’s youth. When the supervisor of the restaurant was confronted by some people unhappy with his place being used for a gay party, he said he was not aware that it was a gay bash.