**7. Decrypting marginality and mainstreaming queerness in Instagram narratives**

A recurring trope in the othering of queer identities is the assertion that they are non-natural and depraved expressions of sexuality and gender. This viewpoint seems to have its roots in British Colonial antigay laws in Nigeria between the 1860s and mid-1950s which regarded non-heterosexual orientation as *unnatural offences against the order of nature* [63]. Consequently, one witnesses cultural and religious moralisations against as well as psychiatrisation/medicalisation of queer identities, ideological perspectives that eventually culminated in the Nigerian anti-queer legislation (Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act of 2014). These negative expressions manifest in the deprecative rendition of queer portrayal, and represent societal weapons harnessed by the Nigerian community against non-heteronormative identities. For queeridentifying individuals, the need to counter such claims and perceptions are critical to queer agency, especially as they have immediate implications on their survival [64]. This is because public narratives on identity feed into and influence the perception of and attitudes to minority sexual and gender identities. The queer Instagram users whose public posts are engaged in this study have therefore taken up the gauntlet as they are often ready and charged to counter oppositional narratives and to push queer-positive advocacies. Some of such visual activist renditions are presented and discussed below:

**Figure 8** employs a short narrative to contest the perception that people who identify as queer were either influenced by some depraved experiences or are products of some unnatural tendencies. In the narrative, the poster equates, through the use of a simile, the reality of being left-handed to being queer – *some people are, most people aren't and nobody really knows why*. The poster thus draws attention to the fact that the presence of left-handed people has not led to their minoritisation; instead, other people only acknowledge their difference without any resultant discrimination. There is an equivalence sought through the post – that the same reaction should be extended to queer-identifying people since their 'difference' is also a natural one. The frustration with the largely homophobic leaning of the Nigerian public further manifests in the comment that follows the post: *Fuck homophobic (sic) do not bring that disease to me….* Through this, the poster-commenter rejects the estrangement which is visited

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

#### **Figure 8.**

*The naturalness of queerness.*

upon queer Nigerians as a result of their sexual and gender identities. Interestingly however, the comment also falls into the prejudicial rut which it seeks to reject. This is embedded in the reference to homophobes whose perceptions and attitudes are also regarded as a disease. By regarding homophobic attitudes as 'disease', the commenter upturns the balance of representation which has been in favour of heteronormativity and latches on the affordance of power as they maximise the social media space as well as their Instagram page as a domain for the exercise of agency.

Building on the narrative which seeks to shift queerness and queer identities from the margins, **Figure 9** asserts through the simple sentence – *It's not a phase* – that identifying as queer is a form of being and that it is not an unstable identity. Through the submission, the poster makes an interventionist venture which counters widelyheld perceptions that queer-identifying people are only pushed by a fleeting desire to explore. Such viewpoints reject the possibilities of the naturalness and intrinsicality

#### **Figure 9.** *Being queer is not a phase.*

of queerness, positing instead that queer tendencies are deviant signals of depravity and moral decadence. The recrimination in **Figure 9** thus constitutes a rebuttal of heterosexual propaganda, one which deprecates and 'others' queer identity.

In addition, **Figure 9** can be perceived as exhortative to members of the queer community who may not be confident about their sexual identities or who may have doubts in accepting their orientations. Existing literature indicates that, because of the suffusing influences of heteronormativity, many closet queers vilify themselves for being 'different', with some hoping that they may be able to repress their closet identities and ultimately conform to societal expectations [65–67]. **Figure 9** is therefore an importunate expression for closeted queer people to be accepting of
