How colonialism erased a Swahili gender role

On the East African coast, Swahili women historically included men known as shoga, individuals accepted as members of women’s society, until European colonialism reshaped understandings of gender and sexuality.

The shoga emerged from interactions between Bantu-speaking Africans and Arab traders, within a framework of Islamic tolerance that differed from strict Christian condemnations of same-sex relations.

Swahili women used the term shoga as a term of endearment, eventually applying it to men who took on women’s roles and were integrated into women’s communities. These individuals were defined by their social functions, not necessarily by sexual desire. European intervention changed this. Johann Krapf, a German missionary, redefined shoga in his Swahili dictionary to mean “catamite” or “impotent” man, framing gender variance through a sexual lens.

Later, British colonial administrators imposed Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, criminalizing “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” across their African colonies. This legal crackdown, combined with Western theories of sexuality, led to the disappearance of the traditional shoga role. While LGBTQ+ Swahili people now use the term gei ("gay") to express identity, this new framing is often rejected by other Africans who see it as a foreign import.

The historical shoga, whose voice was never recorded, was lost both to colonial repression and to the imposition of Western identity politics.