Pictured above: Selly Thiam, executive producer of AfroQueer.

Queer Africans don’t have many chances to see themselves depicted in media. Kenya made international headlines last year after its film classification board banned Rafiki, a lesbian romance which was required to screen in its home country for a week to qualify for Oscar contention. After a court ruling overturned the ban, the film’s reception proved the demand for stories like these among LGBTQ Kenyans. During the one week it screened at a single theater in Nairobi, every showtime was sold out; ticket lines reportedly poured out the doors of the theater and down the block.

As the country’s top court weighs the decriminalization of homosexuality, the AfroQueer podcast hopes to expand those already rare opportunities to queer and trans people outside the Kenyan capital. Ahead of its second season premiere in September, executive producer Selly Thiam sat down with NewNowNext to discuss its groundbreaking approach to LGBTQ storytelling across the African continent and what it means to challenge stereotypes about who queer Africans are.

How did the idea for a podcast telling the stories of LGBTQ Africans come about?

None on Record, the parent company that produces AfroQueer, produces as much content as possible to talk about African LGBTQ issues on the continent. When we met sometime last year, we wanted to do some documentary-style work, but the issue is that our main office is based in Kenya and we face so much censorship because of the laws here. We were trying to produce something that we wouldn't get arrested for making.

That's one of the reasons why the podcast medium was so great. Films that come out here in Kenya get banned right away. There is a film board here that will ban any kind of LGBTQ content. We realized that podcasts are actually legal; it's the one medium they don't actually have the right to censor.

For people who haven't listened to the podcast, if they were going to tune into a typical episode, what would they hear?

It’s a narrative and reported podcast. We wanted to find a way to tell queer African stories in a way that was really human, and a lot of us are journalists. Our local reporting right now on LGBTQ issues just demonizes the LGBTQ community. There's been so much work done here in Kenya just to educate journalists on how to report about LGBTQ issues. And then if you look at foreign reporting, it's almost like we're passive victims of homophobic violence. On one side, we’re victimized, and then the other side, we’re monsters.

This podcast was really about staging an intervention, to say: “How can we create something where we are human beings?” We don't always have to be heroes, but we have to be human. It’s all about telling our stories in fair ways, while also being critical of what's going on in the community. Season 2 is really great because we have a couple of stories where the queer people are not heroes. We need diversity and complexity in our storytelling as queer people here on the continent.

Of the stories that you've gotten to tell on the podcast thus far, is there one in particular that you felt either resonated with your own experience or taught you something new about your own community?

The first story is about the Pride parade in Johannesburg. I interviewed one of the organizers of that march back in the 1990s at the end of apartheid. I’ve watched how that parade has changed. It was bought out by corporations, and activists felt they didn't have a space anymore. This is a story I really wanted to report because I felt like it was a story that wasn't just specific to South African pride, but about prides everywhere in the world. It was about when pride stopped being a political protest and became about like alcohol sponsorships and corporate sponsorships.

As an African person and a queer person, one of the stories that really resonated with me and one that was really difficult to report was about the rape and murder of masculine-presenting women in South Africa—what happens in communities when masculine women are out being themselves and are targeted by friends, family, and people they knew. We've been talking about corrective rape in our communities for years, but when you really look at the statistics of violence against women in South Africa, it was so horrific and daunting to me.

But people ask me all the time, “What's your favorite story?” It’s so hard for me to say. You put your heart and soul into every story. They all have so much weight and resonance. We did a story on Grindr and its impact on Africa—how it's being used to blackmail gay men here. How do you hold Grindr accountable to that? What are they doing about that? What are the safety protocols? That was an app that was developed for a space that is very different than the space is like here on the continent.

We all should care about these things, but I think every story means something to someone when they can see themselves in it.

What has it meant to the community there to have the diversity of their stories represented?

A lot of people have said they don't feel so alone. It's so difficult to get queer content that comes from here, from Africa. Because we have such strong censorship laws, you can’t—outside of South Africa and some other places—see queer films in theaters. And even then, you’re consuming content that's most likely from other parts of the world. We wanted to make something also to where you could download it and listen to it. If you’re riding on a Matatu or you’re somewhere out in public, people can't see what you're consuming, and you can still have this experience.

I don't think that the continent will always be this way. We have decriminalization cases in the courts in Kenya and Botswana. Angola decriminalized homosexuality at the beginning of this year. Things are changing, and it means a lot—not only for people's ability to live their lives, but also the content that they can consume.

What would it mean to you to see homosexuality legalized in Kenya?

People can be kicked out of their homes. People can be kicked out of schools. People's children can be taken away. It’s a baseline for greater change. I think the opposition knows that. A lot of the ways people are discriminated against because of their gender identity or their sexual orientation are not going to be able to be held up by the laws. It means a lot to me as a media-maker because it means there can’t be this idea that isn’t it morally right to tell LGBTQ stories. If homosexuality is decriminalized, it means our stories can be told, and that opens up the door for so many things.

Decriminalization is a touchstone and a point from which all other things can build to create a more equitable society. That's what we all want.

For the second season, what can listeners of the AfroQueer podcast expect that they didn't get in the first season?

We’re going to make longer episodes, and you're going to have stories from more countries. We have stories coming from Zimbabwe and Somalia. We’re going to be charting the decriminalization process here in Kenya and all over the continent. We’re going to have some love stories finally.

Gay marriage is not legal in most countries here on this continent, outside of South Africa. It's a really important thing when people can hear examples of relationships thriving despite what they have to go through to exist. I'm excited to tell love stories because I think telling stories of how couples overcome adversity to stay together is important for a lot of listeners to hear, particularly in the context in which we live. A lot of people don't always know that is possible.

Subscribe to AfroQueer here.

This interview has been edited and condensed from a longer conversation.