Out Laws: How Colonialism Exported "Buggery" Laws | BFI Flare 2026
Though we may all now know that colonialism is the source of Homophobia in the "developing" world, this documentary goes the extra mile to explain exactly when, and what mechanisms were and are used -- and how people are dismantling them.
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Over the past couple of years, queerness has been weaponised against taking politically moral stances - it's called Pinkwashing. Whenever people have spoken up on behalf of the downtrodden, they've thrown in some adage about how legally homophobic these countries, governments, or tribes are. The easiest way to refute these arguments has always been to say, "So if they're homophobic, they deserve to die?" – but my response has always been different, and Out Laws, the new documentary that just screened at BFI Flare, poses the same response – and who set that system up?
In the case of "Buggery Laws", we are talking about a system – an export of British Imperialism that was manifested back into the colonised communities and then grew in strength, providing adequate division and fear within these countries to continue the cycle of hate to this day. Homophobia is another tool that can be used by empire, long after the guns have returned back home, to keep a country divided, and easily manipulated. It's no surprise that the "Missionary" and "Christian Nationalism" groups and movements seize onto these systems and exploit them to this day.
To watch Out Laws is to arm yourself with information beyond the "gotcha" quip – to prepare for your Thanksgiving/Christmas/Birthday dinner conversations and to defend your Queer family (Born or Found) with the necessary understanding of history. The film may follow three activists as they attempt to, and in some cases have succeeded in, dismantling the systems that have created such division, but the film, more than anything, is an incredibly pleasant way to get caught up to speed with the history and mechanisms that are being fought, and exactly how they can be depowered.
At the end of the day, we all know our freedom is intertwined – but we don't often take the next step of educating ourselves on precisely how. Documentaries like Out Laws are so valuable to me, I feel, because I can simply just tell absolutely everyone to go and watch it, and they will come away with the tools needed to recognise how we former "colonies" have been duped – and how to truly claim our independence from "Western Powers" forever.
