Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons in Sudan face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. In July 2020, Sudan removed the death penalty, which had never been enforced, as well as corporal punishment as a punishment for anal sex, leaving imprisonment as the penalty for a male perpetrator. The penalty for a third offense remains life in prison, but there are no documented cases of this being applied.
Law regarding anal sex
Anal sex is illegal in Sudan, whether the couple is same- or opposite-sex, according to Article 148 of the Criminal Act of 1991. The penalty however applies only to a male participant. The original wording of the sodomy law was as follows :
Article 148: Sodomy On 9 July 2020, Sudan abolished the death penalty as a punishment for anal sex. There are no documented cases of executions. The Sudanese Sovereign Council also eliminated the imposition of 100 lashes, and added two years to the sentence for a second offense. They changed the penalty for a third offense from death or life imprisonmentto life imprisonment. A first offense is now punished with up to five years and a second offense with up to seven years. Sudanese LGBT+ activists hailed the reform as a 'great first step', but said it was not enough yet, and the end goal should be the decriminalisation of gay sexual activity altogether.
wrote about the Nuba tribes in the late 1930s. He noted that among the Otoro, a special transvestitic role existed whereby men dressed and lived as women. Transvestitic homosexuality also existed amongst the Moru, Nyima, and Tira people, and reported marriages of Korongo londo and Mesakintubele for the bride price of one goat. In the Korongo and Mesakin tribes, Nadel reported a common reluctance among men to abandon the pleasure of all-male camp life for the fetters of permanent settlement.
Both tribes feel strongly that marriage and sex life are inimical to physical strength.... Young married men... will spend four or five nights with their wives in the village and then return for a fortnight or month to the cattle camp.... They would tell you that they "dislike living in the village". I have even met men of forty and fifty who spent most of their nights with the young folk in the cattle camps rather that at home in the village.... Behind this grudging submission to marital and adult life in general, behind the secondary sentiments of fondness of camp life and male company, we discover the primary, and quite open, fear of sex as the destroyer of virility. Not sex in the ephemeral, physical sense – the adolescent incontinence of these tribes precludes this – but sex transformed into a permanent fetter, spiritual and social. We will not probe the psychological depth of this antagonism. Let me only point out two things: first, that it occurs in a matrilineal society, that is, a society in which the fruits of procreation are not the man's. And, secondly, that it is accompanied, not only on the strong emphasis on male companionship, but also, in the domain of the abnormal, by widespread homosexuality and transvesticism.
Same-sex sexual relations have divided some religious communities. In 2006, Abraham Mayom Athiaan, a bishop in South Sudan, led a split from the Episcopal Church of Sudan for what he regarded as a failure by the church leadership to condemn homosexuality sufficiently strongly. The U.S. Department of State's 2011 human rights report found that,
The law prohibits sodomy...; however, there were no reports of antisodomy laws being applied. There were no known lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender organizations. Official discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity occurred. Societal discrimination against LGBT persons was widespread. Vigilantes targeted suspected gay men and lesbians for violent abuse, and there were public demonstrations against homosexuality.
The first LGBT association of the country is Freedom Sudan, founded in December 2006. However, no internet presence is seen from the group after 2013 on Facebook page. Another group Rainbow Sudan, was founded on 9 February 2012. Its founder, known as Mohammed, said,
A dear friend of mine gave me the idea of funding Sudan Rainbow. We started working together for it and even now he helps me a lot in this project. Now we have a couple of groups that work online and offline. We form a small network of people working in an organized way to advance as much as possible LGBTQ issues, to show who we are, to stop discrimination, to see our rights recognized. We provide sexual education, psychological and emotional support, protection.
There is also no continued internet presence for Freedom Sudan after January 2015.
