I don’t know if this question could be answered academically or at length because it’s pretty straightforward.

A colonial empire would apply their rule system within their colonies, and even post-independence those ex-colonies would maintain those laws as their baseline.

France and Britain made homosexuality illegal in their colonies because they made it illegal in their own countries.

If you want more details, at least regarding French law and colonialism - it wasn’t that homosexuality was illegal - it was decriminalized by the french revolution in the 18th century.

But they then labelled it as "unnatural, “immoral”, and “against the laws of nature” - the same labels that are applied in ex-colonies. So it went from a death penalty to jail time, and that’s what they applied to their colonies.

And while France was toning down it’s anti-homosexuality laws locally, they continued with oppressive laws in their colonies because control was the main driver.

Post colonialism is when religious ultra-conservative thought become more entrenched in the ex-colonies, and after decades of applying discriminatory laws, things continued and sometimes got worse with ultra-conservative interpretations of religious texts.

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