Portraits of a movement: The activists bringing radical change to LGBTQ+ Namibians

May 20, 2021: Campaigners and allies march to the High Court in Windhoek, Namibia’s capital, in support of married couples Daniel Digashu & Johann Potgieter and Anita & Anette Seiler-Lilles’ case appealing for recognition of their same-sex marriages at the country’s High Court. The two couples’ cases were combined due to their similarity and were heard together in both the High Court and later in the Supreme Court on March 3, 2023.

Although a 2019-2020 study ranked Namibia as the third most tolerant of homosexuality in Africa, anal sex between men remains illegal, if rarely enforced, under a colonial-era “sodomy law.” Namibia’s post-independence Constitution is remarkably liberal, but queer activists were “silenced and erased” from the post-independence process, explained 26-year-old activist Omar van Reenen.

Photo by Chris de Beer-Procter

May 20, 2021: Namibia’s LGBTQ+ community has taken steps to reclaim terms that traditionally carry derogatory meanings. Slogans such as “Omashenge Ovanhu” (“queers are people” in Oshiwambo) or the Afrikaans term “ ‘’n moffie is ook ‘n mens” (literally “a f*g is also a person”) emphasize queerness as legitimately African.

“We are more visible than ever, and they will never be able to push us back into the closet. Not again,” says 26-year-old activist Omar van Reenen.

Namibia’s first Pride parade, held in 2013 in the township of Katutura, included about 100 people. Bolstered by the court cases, the 2021 Pride was the biggest in the country’s history.

The May 2023 Supreme Court ruling on foreign same-sex marriages was an historic victory for the community, but it also brought an unexpectedly violent backlash. While President Hage Geingob hasn’t explicitly criticized the ruling, many members of his party, Swapo, pushed for a bill explicitly defining the term “spouse” in order to rule out same-sex marriage.

Photo by Chris de Beer-Procter

May 28, 2023: Activist Omar van Reenen poses in a street in their home town, which was named after their grandfather, Harry van Reenen.

Omar grew up in Narraville, a neighborhood of the coastal city of Walvis Bay that was historically reserved for “Coloured” people – a racial category established by the Apartheid government in South Africa to designate a mixed-race group descending from aboriginal communities and slaves brought mainly from South-East Asia.

Omar’s grandfather founded the first hotel for Coloured people, which became a meeting place for the liberation struggle.

Photo by Chris de Beer-Procter

May 28, 2023: Omar van Reenen with their grandmother in the family home in Narraville, Walvis Bay. 

Van Reenen’s commitment to the fight for queer rights is intimately linked to their grandfather’s history in the liberation movement.

“Growing up queer in Namibia made me realize that LGBTQ+ rights are the civil rights issue of our generation, just like racial justice and ending Apartheid were the civil rights issues of my parents and my grandparents’ generation,” they say.

“We were always told we were the ‘born free generation’. But if I am born free, I should be free to love who I want to love, to express my gender and sexuality in any way.”

Photo by Chris de Beer-Procter

May 28, 2023: Omar van Reenen poses in front of a portrait of their grandfather (left) and their high school jersey which is adorned with prizes, in their family home.

“Watch out for this kid, he will be President someday,” Harry van Reenen used to say about his grandchild. Van Reenen was active in student councils and movements from childhood.

In 2015, they received a scholarship to study in the United States. “I saw that as my ticket out,” they say: “Up until then, I tried everything to suppress my gender expression, I had not told anyone I was gay. Now for the first time in my life, I could be an authentic leader and student activist and fight for other people while also being my true self.”

Photo by Chris de Beer-Procter

May 28, 2023: Political posters and keepsakes from Omar’s time studying in the USA adorn their work desk in their bedroom. The experience heavily influenced their activism today.

They didn’t come home once during the five years of their studies, but they felt “hypocritical.”

“Here I was, fighting for Black Americans, for undocumented students, for women’s rights and gay rights in America. But in my own country, the queer community is still far behind.”

Photo by Chris de Beer-Procter

May 20, 2021:  As the co-founder of the NGO EqualNamibia, Omar van Reenen leads a protest march towards the High Court in support of the Digashu-Seiler-Lilles case.

The organization was started in 2021 and was inspired by the struggle of married couple Philip and Guillermo Lühl-Delgado, who sued the Namibian Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration for refusing to grant citizenship to their three children, who were born through surrogacy in South Africa. 

When their two youngest, then-newborn twins Paula and Maya, were denied entry into the country, the couple reached out to van Reenen, who became involved in their campaign online. “I realized: ‘Wow, there are actually gay couples living in Namibia, married and wanting to start a family!’ It showed me that I should come back home and continue the work back in Namibia,” Omar remembers.

With the slogan, “Bring Paula and Maya Home”, the campaign gained much traction. On March 21st, 2021 – Namibia’s Independence Day – Omar officially co-founded Equal Namibia “to breathe life into the promise of equality that this country was founded on.”

Two years later, as Equal Namibia and van Reenen have become influential forces in the movement, Omar embraces Guillermo outside the Supreme Court where they have gathered supporters for the couple’s case. On March 20, 2023, the Supreme Court ruled against the couple, denying their eldest son Yona of Namibian citizenship. In 2023, after years of exhausting battles, the family made the difficult decision to relocate to Guillermo’s home country of Mexico.

Photos by Chris de Beer-Procter

May 28, 2023: Omar van Reenen pages through various media clippings related to LGBTQ+ rights in Namibia in their family home in Walvis Bay.

They collect all articles chronicling the movement, in hopes of one day establishing a queer museum in Namibia. “I want to ensure that history knows Namibia is more equal because queer people made sure of it,” they say.

Photo by Chris de Beer-Procter

May 20, 2021: Married couples Daniel Digashu & Johann Potgieter and Anita & Anette Seiler-Lilles pose for a media photograph before their hearing in the High Court. They appealed to the government to recognize their same-sex marriages, which were legally conducted abroad. They argued they therefore had the legal right to live and work in Namibia.

The case was one of the most significant in galvanizing the queer & ally community, as well as sparking backlash from church groups and anti-LGBTQ+ political forces.

On May 16, 2023, the Supreme Court finally ruled in their favor, therefore recognizing their foreign marriages. Yet what should have been a relief after six years of battles was tainted by the violent homophobic reactions in the political and public spheres. 

Photo by Chris de Beer-Procter

March 8, 2023: South African Daniel Digashu poses with his Namibian husband Johann Potgieter and their son Lucas on their farm only a few days after their case was heard in the country’s Supreme Court.

The couple were married in 2015 in neighboring South Africa, which is still the only country on the African continent where same-sex marriage is legal. Their legal troubles started when the couple decided to move their family to Namibia in order to be closer to Potgieter’s family.

Photos by Chris de Beer-Procter

March 7, 2023: Lucas walks along one of their wildlife camps with his father, Potgieter.

“It’s always been our biggest dream to live on a farm,” says Digashu. Johann wanted his son to grow up in the bush and enjoy the same childhood that defined him. But the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration rejected Digashu’s applications for both work and spousal residency.

“We felt they were trying to break our family apart, without any valid reason,” says Digashu. “I felt forced to take a stand, because who else was going to?”

Photo by Chris de Beer-Procter

March 9, 2023: Lucas and Potgieter are emotional while saying goodbye to Digashu as he departs for South Africa for a few weeks.

Digashu was allowed to remain in Namibia while the court case and appeals were ongoing, but the family lived in constant stress of a negative verdict, as well as the sporadic and traumatic incidents which sometimes marked Digashu’s entries into the country.

“My biggest fear was to live separately from my family, that I would have to leave the country,” remembers Digashu. “For the past six years, I’ve had to live my life as a tourist, with the limitations of a visitor visa.”

Photo by Chris de Beer-Proctor

May 26, 2023: Daniel Digashu reads through the victorious Supreme Court judgement at the family’s home, located a few hours outside of the country’s capital city of Windhoek.

The Supreme Court’s ruling came surprisingly quick: Most of the litigants couldn’t even attend court. “We were expecting to get the worst phone call in our lives,” Digashu remembers. “Then my husband looked at his phone, looked up at me and said, ‘Appeal upheld, we won.’” I was in such disbelief, I completely froze.”

The victorious Supreme Court ruling is “a great tool to carry the movement towards a more free Namibia,” Digashu believes. For his family, he says, it means “everything.”

“We can travel without the fear of being questioned and treated like zoo animals, we can continue living our lives, contribute to society… Freedom, at last!”

Photos by Chris de Beer-Proctor

May 25, 2023: Daniel Digashu readies himself to give an online talk about fighting state-sanctioned homophobia and its effects on mental health. He now works as a consultant with the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC) to help support other litigants while he pursues his degree in psychology.

“The daily internal battles of not being certain of your future, the long waits when most of [the litigants] are young people who want to continue their careers and flourish… This has been traumatic for all of us,” he says.

Digashu’s work with SALC has pushed him to become more active within the wider African LGBTQ+ struggle, and he hopes the ruling will at least provide a “glimmer of light” for the African continent.

Just two weeks after Namibia’s Supreme Court ruling, the Ugandan President signed into law one of the world’s harshest anti-gay bills.

“People say homosexuality is not African – but how can it be true when I’m standing here?” Digashu says.

Photo by Chris de Beer-Proctor