Exorcizing the Ex-Gay Body: The Politics of Ex-Gay Testimony

This thesis explores the discursive and performative practices of Uganda's "ex-gay" movement, focusing on the public testimonies of two prominent members of the movement, in which they narrate their sexual histories. In these narratives, they describe being enticed by money or lured into homosexuality in schools or by internationally funded NGOs. These testimonies are performative rituals that seek to intervene in relations of domination and dependence that undermine individual and collective aspirations for the good life, generating publics in which these social anxieties can be named, known, and discussed. The thesis shows how the testimonies act as ritual performances of a paradoxical disavowal that animates queerphobic political discourses and the routine repression of queer people in everyday life.