A report unpacking anti-gender politics across West Africa. Designed to balance political urgency with emotional grounding.

Anti-gender campaigns are gaining ground across the world—and West Africa is no exception. In recent years, rising hostility toward LGBTQ+ people has been fueled by a mix of religious, political, and nationalist actors who use the term “gender ideology” as a catch-all threat to family, tradition, and society.

To document and resist this rising tide, QAYN and ISDAO commissioned a comprehensive study on how anti-gender rhetoric is showing up in Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Senegal. The research unpacked the language, strategies, and power structures behind these campaigns, and surfaced the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ leaders who are organizing under threat.

We were invited to bring this urgent, complex story to life—through design that could hold both hard data and deep emotion.

The report didn’t just need to be read. It needed to be felt.
This wasn’t only about facts and actors. It was about fear, surveillance, mental health, resilience, and the everyday work of staying alive. We knew the visual tone needed to carry the seriousness of the research, while also respecting the courage of those whose stories made the report possible.

We worked closely with the research team to create a visual narrative that moved between analytical clarity and human connection. The design was guided by three anchors: safety, precision, and power.

The title “Who Is Afraid of Gender?” asks a question that is both political and personal. We responded with a design system that was bold, grounded, and stripped of excess.


• Color palette: We used deep purples, dusk reds, and charcoal greys as base colors—evoking resistance, gravity, and mourning. These were softened by warmer neutrals and pale pinks that introduced breath and reflection into denser pages.
  
• Illustrations: Hand-drawn motifs wove throughout the report, inspired by protest placards, fragmented maps, and shadowed silhouettes. These weren’t decorative—they added emotional rhythm to long sections of text.
  
• Typography: We used strong, readable fonts to ensure accessibility in print and screen formats, with intentional spacing and pacing for long-form reading. Pull quotes were highlighted to allow voices to stand on their own.

The content demanded care. This was not a general report—it named specific actors, outlined strategies of persecution, and shared stories of assault, exile, and fear. It also documented community strategies for survival: clandestine organizing, legal support networks, and quiet acts of resistance.

We made sure the layout helped readers navigate this layered terrain. Chapter openers carried soft visuals and framing questions. Dense data tables were broken up with intuitive navigation and space. Quotes from LGBTQ+ activists were given visual weight to disrupt the policy-heavy flow with lived reality.

The goal wasn’t to make the report feel lighter. It was to make it readable without losing its emotional core.

Who Is Afraid of Gender? is one of the few regionally grounded reports to map the architecture of anti-gender politics in West Africa. It is already informing the strategies of LGBTQ+ movements, allies, and funders in the region.

Our design helped anchor this research in clarity and dignity. It ensured the work would travel—to conferences, boardrooms, classrooms, and community spaces—without losing the people it was written for.

Some reports shift your lens. This was one of them. Working with QAYN and ISDAO was a reminder that visual storytelling is not neutral. It can shape memory. It can offer a hand of solidarity. It can make it just a little easier for the right people to find and hold the truth.