Oliver Barker-Vormawor Esq. shares detailed information on the bill on his Facebook wall today. Take a read below:
I have been following the discussions around the New Anti LGBTQ Bill.
I note Rev. John Ntim Fordjour’s position that the Bill that was passed made 31 changes to the version that they introduced in Parliament.
His claim is that the NDC has weakened the version that was given to Nana Addo to sign. None of this is true in substance.
But I want to show you something interesting. Sometime in March 2026, my firm Merton & Everett LLP analysed the new Bill when it was introduced by the sponsors.
We noticed that they didn’t present the same thing they gave to Nana Addo. They made several changes.
So it’s not true that they brought back the same thing.
Counted at the level of individually identifiable textual or structural departures from the 2024 Act, I would put the number atleast 27 discrete changes, which break down below. If we counted it the way they are doing now, we will be looking at atleast 64.
Structural and formal changes
1. The instrument was reduced from 20 sections to 19 clauses.
2. An expanded explanatory memorandum of approximately nineteen pages was added, covering legislative history, constitutional justifications, international law arguments, and a clause-by-clause explanation.
3. The standalone prohibition against subverting family values (section 3 of the 2024 Act), together with its specific penalty of 750 to 2,000 penalty units or 2 to 4 months imprisonment or both, was deleted.
4. The broadly worded offence of instigating, commanding, counselling, procuring, eliciting, soliciting, or otherwise aiding an act that subverts the family values defined in section 19 no longer exists as a distinct criminal charge.
Reformulation of offence-creating provisions
5. The procuration provision (section 5 → clause 4) was reformulated from a direct offence-creating structure ("A person who [...] commits a misdemeanour") to a prohibition-style provision ("A person shall not") with a separate penalty subsection. The penalty was unchanged: 25 to 500 penalty units or 3 months to 3 years imprisonment or both.
6. The detention provision (section 6 → clause 5) was reformulated in the same manner. A minimum sentence of three months was added, where the 2024 Act had prescribed only a maximum of three years with no stated minimum.
7. The brothel provision (section 7 → clause 6) was reformulated as a prohibition. The "second degree felony" classification applied to the owner/occupier offence in section 7(2) of the 2024 Act was removed. A single penalty provision now covers both subsections (1) and (2), with the penalty of 3 to 6 years imprisonment unchanged.
8. The gross indecency provision (section 8 → clause 7) was reformulated with minor drafting changes ("A person shall not publicly and wilfully undertake a grossly indecent act"). The penalty of 6 months to 1 year imprisonment was unchanged.
9. The void marriage provision (section 9 → clause was restructured. Subsection (3), which criminalised administering, witnessing, abetting, solemnising, or aiding the solemnisation of a void marriage and issuing or procuring a certificate in respect of one, was reformulated as a prohibition ("A person shall not") with a separate penalty subsection (clause 8(4)). The penalty of 1 to 3 years imprisonment was unchanged.
10. The funding, sponsorship, and promotion provision (section 12 → clause 11) was reformulated as a prohibition ("A person shall not fund, sponsor or promote"). The penalty of 3 to 5 years imprisonment and the corporate liability provisions were unchanged.
Substantive amendments to the application and operative provisions
11. “Queer" was added to the list of identities in the application provision (clause 1(a)(vi)). Section 1(a) of the 2024 Act had listed lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, ally, and pansexual; it did not include queer.
13. A new sub-paragraph (e)(x) was added to clause 3(1), creating a catch-all category criminalising holding out as a person of "any other sexual or gender identity that is contrary to the binary categories of male and female." This expanded the enumerated list in section 4(1)(e) of the 2024 Act, which had ended at sub-paragraph (ix).
14. The propaganda provision (section 10 → clause 9) was restructured into clearer subsections. The penalties were unchanged at 5 to 10 years imprisonment.
15. The propaganda-directed-at-children provision (section 11 → clause 10) was similarly restructured. The penalties were unchanged at 6 to 10 years imprisonment.
16. A residual category was added to the adoption prohibition (clause 14(i)), disqualifying "a person of any other sexual orientation or in a sexual relationship that is contrary to the sociocultural relationship between a male and a female." This catch-all extended beyond the enumerated LGBTTQAP+ identities that had appeared in section 15 of the 2024 Act.
17. The extra-judicial treatment provision (section 17 → clause 16) was substantially restructured. Section 17(3) of the 2024 Act had applied sections 84 to 87 of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29) as the penalty regime for abuse, assault, or harassment of persons accused of offences or suffering from gender or sexual identity challenges. Clause 16 of the 2025 Bill reformulated this as a direct prohibition (clause 16(3): "A person shall not verbally or physically abuse, assault or harass") with its own self-executing penalty of 3 months to 3 years imprisonment (clause 16(4)), referenced sections 84 to 87 of Act 29 separately in clause 16(5), and preserved the graphic-description defence in clause 16(6).
18. The order of consulting Ministers in the regulations provision (section 18 → clause 17) was reversed: "Gender, Children and Social Protection" was listed before "Health," where the 2024 Act had listed Health first.
19. The combined effect of the new definition of "intersex" (clause 18) and the retention of clause 3(1)(e)(ix) and (x) was a functional expansion of criminal liability to intersex persons who do not undergo surgical correction. The intersex exception throughout the Bill remained confined to permitting medical procedures "to correct a biological abnormality including intersex." It did not protect intersex status as such. An intersex person who declined surgery, or for whom surgery was medically inappropriate, and who acknowledged their anatomical reality could be characterised as holding out as non-binary or as holding an identity contrary to the binary categories of male and female. The 2024 Act had contained this vulnerability in latent form because it used the phrase "including intersex" without defining the term. The formal definition in the 2025 Bill sharpened the vulnerability by making the category legible and, for a prosecutor, easier to operationalise.
Changes to definitions (Interpretation provision)
20. The definition of "gay" was expanded from "a man who is primarily attracted to men and engages in sexual activities with men" to include romantic activity ("engages in a sexual or romantic activity with another man").
21. The definition of "lesbian" was expanded in corresponding fashion, from "a woman who is primarily attracted to women and engages in sexual activities with women" to include romantic activity ("engages in a sexual or romantic activity with another woman").
22. A definition of "intersex" was introduced: "a person whose sexual anatomy or chromosomes does not fit the traditional markers of 'male' or 'female' determined at birth."
23. A definition of "non-binary" was introduced: "a sex categorisation other than male and female."
24. A definition of "pansexual" was introduced: "a person who engages in a sexual or romantic activity with persons of any gender identity or expression including a person who does not fit into the binary sex categorisation of male or female."
25. A definition of "pansexual activity" was introduced: "a sexual or romantic activity engaged in by a person with another person of any gender identity or expression including a person who does not fit into the binary sex categorisation of male or female."
26. A definition of "queer" was introduced: "an all-inclusive identity of the various identities or variations that constitute the LGBTTQAP+ community."
27. The definition of "marriage" was updated in its reference to the Marriages Act 1884-1985 (CAP 127). The 2025 Bill specified that it is a union between a man and a woman "whose sexes are determined at birth," where the 2024 Act had used the formulation "whose sex is determined at birth."
