**2. Being queer in Nigeria**

Representation is critical to marginalised communities, including those who identify as queer. Halperin [10] perhaps best captures this use of 'queer' when he states that:

#### *Weaponising Digital Architecture: Queer Nigerian Instagram Users and Digital Visual Activism DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108760*

Queer is by definition whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant. There is nothing in particular to which it necessarily refers. It is an identity without an essence. 'Queer' then demarcates not a positivity but a positionality vis-àvis the normative – a positionality that is not restricted to lesbians and gay men.

Although Dreger [11] affirms that "anatomy is not going to tell us for sure what sex is all about" especially in view of the identification of the fluidity of sexual categories, in most contemporary Nigerian societies and cultures, male and female exist as the recognised gender dichotomies while heterosexuality is represented as the normative sexual identity. Consequently, gender categories and sexual identities that extend those earlier identified are regarded as 'abhorrent' ([12]: 128), unacceptable and non-normative. The marginalisation stems from the need to control the performance of sexuality since it is regarded as a 'highly value laden terrain' ([13]:36). This identification is in line with the above excerpt from Halperin on the definition of queerness. The consequence of this definition and typecasting is that such queer individuals are disempowered and their identities are made illegitimate since they are repressed by the dominant groups.

While the identification of marginalisation and repression of people who present as queer is not restricted to the Nigerian socio-cultural space, advocacies have contributed to the recognition of these alternative gender and sexual identities and to the legalisation of queer existence in many hitherto queer-phobic spaces abroad. In Nigeria however, the noose of queer-phobia continues to be tightened as legislation through the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act (SSMPA) of 2014 [14] as well as through the opposition posed by socio-cultural and religious tropes which are weaved into the public discourses around queerness [15, 16]. Unsurprisingly therefore, Nigeria is categorised among the most homophobic nations and continues to be a hot spot for queer silencing and invisibility.

Contemporarily – and by this I mean the last ten years – many studies have engaged queerness in Nigeria [17, 18]. While some of these studies toe the line of the traditional by moralising against queer identities [19], many of the studies have indeed drawn attention to the plight of the Nigerian gay and lesbian community [20–22]. Many of these studies have been sociological in orientation, drawing attention to the social attitudes, health outcomes and psychological effects of the prevailing societal orientation on the wellbeing of Nigerian queers. In addition, there have been interrogation of queerness from the literary and filmic angles [23–25]. This viewpoint has also been richly explored as more creative ventures continue to engage the reality of queerness in Nigeria. From the linguistic perspective however, more needs to be done. This is because language is critical to representation. Language is also a tool for the propagation and fossilisation of identities and ideologies, largely determining social attitudes and behaviours. For instance, Adegbola's [26] study indicates that Nigerian gay people are negatively evaluated and ideologically portrayed as criminals and dangerous in media reports. These findings emanated from a discourse analysis of news reports from 'three popular Nigerian newspapers (*Vanguard, Nigerian Tribune* and *The Punch*) within three years (2013–2015, being the period of intense debate on the legalisation of the anti-gay bill in Nigeria' ([26]: 80). Onanuga [27] also engaged language use within queer-oriented tweets by Nigerians. The study focused on the #ArewaAgainstLGBTQ hashtag and evaluated the ideological contestations (pro- and anti-) expressed in the digital platform, Twitter. A critical identification from the study is that the digital space provides robust participation and interaction among Nigerians on the potentially combustible topic of queerness. This realisation could however be hinged on the provision of anonymity owing to the level of self-disclosure by participants, which in turn nurtures a lessening of perceived risk online [28]. It is from the springboard of digital affordance that the current study interrogates visuality on Instagram as an activist tool in Nigerian queer narratives.
