•Brenda with her lover/BBC
Brenda, daughter of President Paul Biya of Cameroon, has professed a curious sexual preference which runs directly in contrast with the 52-year-old anti-gay law in the country where her father is almost an emperor.
The super-rich Brenda Biya revealed that she is in a same-sex relationship with a Brazilian model and went on to share an intimate Instagram photo in which she was seen kissing Layyons Valença who she described as her girlfriend.
The 26-year-old famous for her luxury lifestyle and posh fashion taste is fully aware that her choice of sexuality is in contravention of a 1972 law which her father has vehemently pursued and for which a lot of Cameroonians are either in jail or on exile.
Brenda reportedly attended a Pride Month in the Americas where she is photographed planting a kiss on Layyons Valença, declaring in the photo caption that she was announcing their relationship to the world.
“PS: I’m crazy about you & I want the world to know,” she wrote on the Instagram photograph.
Cameroon’s law criminalizing homosexuality is as old as Brenda. It also attacks same-sex sexual activity of any kind, with many arrests leading to hefty fines to up to five years in prison.
According to Human Rights Watch, anti-LGBT+ violence and abuse have only escalated in the country, finding an 88 per cent increase in incidences from 2021 to 2022.
Brenda’s Pride Month post has garnered the support of several activists, including trans activist Shakiro, who told BBC News that Brenda’s coming out was a “turning point for the LGBTQ+ community in Cameroon.”
After having been jailed in Cameroon for five years for “attempted homosexuality,” Shakiro has since lived in Belgium, but Brenda’s post gives her hope that Cameroon will finally. face a reckoning. She believes that the president’s daughter has solidified herself as a progressive, powerful voice capable of enacting “social change in a country where taboos are deeply rooted.”
“I love this for Cameroon’s first daughter, Brenda Biya!” another LGBT+ activist Bandy Kiki wrote in a Facebook post. However, she noted that Brenda benefits from her position of power. She wrote that her freedom to post about her girlfriend with minimal repercussions “highlights a harsh reality: Anti-LGBT laws in Cameroon disproportionately target the poor.”