Cameroon President’s Daughter Boldly Comes Out
Brenda Biya, the daughter of Cameroon's president, hopes her coming out will help change her country's anti-LGBTQ laws.
Brenda Biya, the daughter of Cameroon President Paul Biya, came out in an Instagram post on June 30. In it, she posted a photo of her kissing Brazilian model Layyons Valença, her girlfriend.
“I’m crazy about you & I want the world to know,” she wrote.
Biya, 27, a musician who splits her time between the United States and Switzerland, told the French newspaper Le Parisien she has been in a relationship with Valença for eight months and has taken her to Cameroon three times without telling her family they were in a relationship.
She said she had not informed anyone in her family before publishing the post.
Despite her anxiety over her family’s response — which has not been positive — Biya says she hopes to “send love” to LGBTQ individuals in her home country who have closeted themselves for their own protection and “help them feel less alone.”
She noted that she first realized she had a crush on another girl at age 16, but said it was difficult to express her feelings due to the situation in her country.
“Coming out is an opportunity to send a strong message,” she told Le Parisien. “There are plenty of people in the same situation as me who suffer because of who they are. If I can give them hope, help them feel less alone, if I can send love, I’m happy.”
Biya said her brother was the first person to reach out about the post, angry that she had published it without warning the family first. She said that her parents later called her, demanding she delete the post.
“Since then, it’s been silence,” she said.
Neither President Biya nor First Lady Chantal Biya have publicly commented on their daughter’s coming out. A government official told the BBC that it was a “family issue.”
Brenda Biya noted that Cameroon’s law criminalizing homosexuality — which imposes a penalty of five years in prison for same-sex relations — has been in effect since before her 91-year-old father, the country’s longest-serving leader, came into power in 1982.
She called the law “unfair” and expressed hope that her personal story and public coming out may spark conversations about changing it.
“It may be too soon for it to disappear completely but it could be less strict,” she told Le Parisien. “We could first eliminate the prison sentence.”
Biya has received many messages of support, but has also has received negative reaction. One conservative group from her home country filed a complaint with the public prosecutor seeking to have her tried for violating the ban on homosexuality.
Philippe Nsoue from the DDHP Movement, which filed the complaint, said that although Biya is the president’s daughter, “no one is above the law.”
“Whenever a Cameroonian citizen or foreigner commits acts that go against the [LGBTQ] situation in our country, we must seek judicial recourse,” he said.
Critics of the law criminalizing homosexuality were pleased that Biya’s coming out spotlighted the existence of LGBTQ people in Cameroon, although they noted that she enjoys a position of privilege, reports NBC News.
“I love this for Cameroon’s First Daughter, Brenda Biya!” Bandy Kiki, a Cameroonian LGBTQ rights activist based in Great Britain, said in a Facebook post. “However, it highlights a harsh reality: Anti-LGBT laws in Cameroon disproportionately target the poor. Wealth and connections create a shield for some, while others face severe consequences.”
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