12

Kuchu resilience and resistance in Uganda: a history

Richard Lusimbo and Austin Bryan

Uganda has been called ‘the world’s worst place to be gay’ (Mills, 2011), but this has not always been the case, nor does it reflect the current situation for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex (LGBTI) people and the work to advance their rights in the country. Prior to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill’s (AHB) introduction into the Ugandan Parliament in 2009,¹ the LGBTI community was already pushing back against the anti-homosexuality movement. Although LGBTI people are persecuted by some religious groups and traditional leaders who argue that homosexuality is ‘un-African’ and immoral, a plethora of historical and anthropological evidence debunks this claim (see, for example: Murray and Roscoe, 1998; Epprecht, 2004, 2008; Van Zyl, 2011; Cheney, 2012; Nyanzi, 2013). What is actually ‘un-African’ is homophobia not homosexuality.

As early as 1999, in response to growing societal discrimination, Ugandan LGBTI people, locally known as kuchus,² began organising formally and informally. But it was not until 2002 that Ugandan LGBTI activists started a campaign to raise awareness about their community, their experiences and the difficulties they face in daily life, following a statement by the country’s President Museveni. In March 2002, while accepting an award for Uganda’s HIV/AIDS prevention programmes, Museveni stated, ‘We don’t have homosexuals in Uganda’ (New Vision, 2002; Human Rights Watch and IGLHRC, 2003, p. 51). The growing visibility of kuchus in the country seemed to anger many traditional leaders and religious groups, including US-based evangelicals from the Christian right such as the Family Research Council³ and The Family (also known as the Fellowship).⁴ Many activists believe this helped to create a moral panic in Uganda in which local leaders began openly demonising homosexuality and seeking to increase criminal penalties against it and its ‘promotion’.⁵

Perhaps the most infamous example of the influence of US-based evangelicals is Scott Lively, a pastor from Springfield, Massachusetts. Lively came to Kampala in 2009 and addressed hundreds of Ugandan religious leaders, teachers and social workers to brainstorm anti-gay efforts at a conference entitled, ‘Seminar on Exposing the Homosexual Agenda’.⁶ Afterwards, Lively was invited to private briefings with political and religious leaders, and addressed the Ugandan Parliament for four hours. His speech at the seminar conflated homophobic rhetoric and holocaust revisionism as follows:

The gay movement is an evil institution thats [sic] goal is to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of promiscuity. [There is] a dark and powerful homosexual presence in other historical periods: the Spanish Inquisition, the French ‘Reign of Terror’, the era of South African apartheid, and the two centuries of American slavery. This is the kind of person it takes to run a gas chamber or to do a mass murder … the Rwandan stuff probably involved these guys.

Just a few days later, as a consequence of the Family Life Network conference, the National Anti-Gay Task Force,⁷ whose mission is to wipe out gay practices in Uganda, was formed and the Ugandan MP David Bahati unveiled his AHB. The bill included the death penalty and other severe punishments for consensual same-sex acts. The international Western media called it the ‘Kill the Gays Bill’.⁸

Uganda’s President Museveni signed the AHB into law on 24 February 2014, when it became known as the Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA).⁹ Although the death penalty had been removed, many other provisions remained the same as in the original bill. After the AHA came into effect, Ugandan human rights activists reported an increase in anti-gay harassment, detailing evictions, threats of violence and death, unlawful raids, arrests and ‘corrective rape’. A Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) Report (2014) documented 162 cases of human rights abuses based on sexual orientation or gender identity during a period of just four months following the passage of the law. An additional 89 cases of human rights abuses were verified in a report released by the Consortium on Monitoring Violations Based on Sex Determination, Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation – violations that went unprosecuted (Consortium, 2015).

Almost overnight, the introduction of the AHB focused an international spotlight on Uganda. Many in the West inaccurately thought that this was when the LGBTI movement started in the country. However, Uganda’s resistance to the anti-homosexuality movement began before the bill’s introduction, and has been characterised by much more than the single tragic story concerning Uganda often presented by Western mainstream media, with headlines such as: ‘They want to cut my throat’ (Hamrud, 2015), and ‘Uganda’s anti-gay witch hunt has officially begun’ (Markham, 2014). Kuchus across the country have resisted the anti-homosexuality movement propagated by Westerners and sustained by local religious and political leaders. Kuchus have thrived against all odds, creating a community of sexual and gender minorities and developing a systematic method of fighting for inclusive government – a significant and unique resistance movement against oppression.

This chapter draws on the testimonies of individual activists and LGBTI persons, gathered from a rich body of empirical data that includes 50 semi-structured interviews conducted between May 2012 and December 2015 by a team of one researcher and two videographers as part of the Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights project (Envisioning) with SMUG. After gaining informed consent from all participants, interviews were video-recorded, transcribed and added to a password-protected online database. The research and documentation also resulted in the production of a number of video shorts and the feature documentary film, And Still We Rise (2015).¹⁰

The history of homosexuality in Uganda is also explored in this chapter, and the influence of Western stakeholders in the anti-homosexuality movement, alongside evidence that a thriving community of kuchus exists in the country which is developing its own initiatives for Africans by Africans, and is leading the fight for the human rights of LGBTI Ugandans.

Western influence, persecution

Contemporary African opponents to homosexuality continuously cite it as ‘un-African’, even though this claim has been repeatedly debunked through historical and anthropological evidence demonstrating that homosexuality existed on the continent prior to colonisation (Murray and Roscoe, 1998; Epprecht, 2004, 2008; Van Zyl, 2011; Cheney, 2012; Nyanzi, 2013). Moreover, early 20th-century ethnographies contain brief and subtle accounts of same-sex activity or gender non-conformity across the African continent (although such reports are often problematic because of their historical utility in justifying racism while propping up colonisation).

Jack Driberg (albeit from his Western imperialist perspective) observed that some males among a group of agriculturalists north of Lake Kwania in Uganda were called mudoko daka and ‘treated as women’ but ‘could carry as men’ (Murray and Roscoe, 1998). Although Driberg thought this was rare, Lango people informed him that the behaviour was quite common and also practised among other pastoralist people to the East, including the Iteso (Teso) of Eastern Uganda and Western Kenya and the Karamojan (Karamojong) of Northwestern Kenya and Northeastern Uganda (Driberg, 1923). Similarly, some among the Nkole, in what is now Southwestern Uganda told Mushanga (1973) that the Bahima of Western Uganda and Northern Rwanda also engaged in same-sex practices.

In Uganda, Kabaka Mwanga, the king of Buganda who ruled from 1884 to 1897, is infamously known as the ruler who killed 45 of the pages from his royal court who had converted to Christianity (now called the Ugandan Martyrs). The group is widely commemorated across the country through memorials, schools, a national holiday, and notably, a papal visit. However, accounts of Mwanga’s life largely gloss over the specifics behind why these Christian converts were killed. Prior to converting, the pages had engaged in some form of pederasty with Kabaka Mwanga (Faupel, 1962). According to Faupel, the king viewed them as property and expected them to be sexually submissive. The homosexuality of Kabaka Mwanga is still a taboo subject in Uganda; however, some historians and scholars in the region have tried to address it. One notable example is a popular biography of Mwanga’s life by Ugandan scholar Sawmill Lwanga-Lunyiigo (2011), who wrote:

There were also accusations that Mwanga was addicted to the weed and practised unnatural acts. Let us look at the unnatural acts. Surely the British could not have been shocked if Mwanga, indeed performed unnatural acts. Paxman writes that the English refer to homosexuality as the usual thing and some British contemporaries of Mwanga were greatly addicted to it namely General Gordon of Khartoum, and the famous poet and dramatist Oscar Wilde who was romantically linked to a fellow poet, Lord Alfred Douglas ‘who became the love of the author’s life’.

To the Baganda homosexuality was unheard of and was therefore bound to shock them, isolate and alienate whoever was accused of practising it. This accusation was leveled against the Kabaka simply because he surrounded himself with many unmarried young men. Mwanga had no shortage of buxom girls from Buganda and Busagala (Nkore). In Buganda the beauty of Basagala women was legendary and powerful men such as Mwanga had a bevy of belles from there. So, homosexuality was used to make him appear despicable to the Buganda. The missionaries who rejected his requests to be baptized refused to grant him the sacrament on the account of his polygamy! (p. 83)

Lwanga-Lunyiigo’s implication that homosexuality is somehow Western is neither subtle nor surprising. Likewise, the sexualisation and objectification of the female body as evidence for Mwanga’s heterosexuality is extremely problematic. The passage exemplifies the way that opponents of homosexuality struggle to find actual evidence for their claim that it is ‘un-African’, relying on hyperbole, myths and scriptural references. Continuing to deny Mwanga’s homosexuality, as Lwanga-Lunyiigo does, supports the claim that homosexuality is ‘un-African’, and works to prop up the anti-homosexuality movement.

It is important to note that prior to colonialism same-sex sexual expression was never criminalised in what is present-day Uganda. Originating in British colonial law, Sections 145–7 of the Penal Code of Uganda criminalise ‘carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature’, which has been interpreted as criminalising homosexuality.¹¹ Since that time this vague language has been used to justify human rights abuses against sexual and gender minorities, including arrests and torture by state actors. Criminalisation might never have happened if colonisation had never occurred. The regulation of sexuality became a pressing issue for the colonial administration largely due to Victorian Britain’s conservative and conventional views on sexuality and the family.¹² Western interference was thus actively involved historically in the repression of homosexuality, and remains a dominant force shaping the loud homophobic discourse that has arisen in the past decade.

‘Let Us Live in Peace’: the beginning of a visible movement

In 2007, for the first time in Uganda’s history, LGBTI activists stepped out of the shadows and into a room full of international and local media representatives. Disguised by hand-made manila masks, four LGBTI activists sat at the front of a conference room in Speke Hotel in Kampala, waiting to give their testimonies. The tension in the air was thick. The first masked activist said:

No person should be deprived of their constitutional rights, and homosexuals and transgender people are no exception. All people are equal under the law. Therefore, we step into the public today to give a face to the many who are discriminated against every day in our country. Some of us have brought our faces before you for you to know us. But many of us come before you today with masks to represent the fact that you see homosexuals and transgender people every day without realising that it is what we are. We do not harm anyone. We are your doctor, your teacher, your best friend, your sister, maybe even your father or son.¹³

And so began the 45-day media campaign, called ‘Let Us Live in Peace’, fighting for the rights of LGBTI Ugandans. The audience began shouting out questions: ‘Why would you decide to speak now?’ ‘Aren’t you scared of being attacked?’ ‘Who is making you do this?’ But the testimonies continued:

Across East Africa, we are many who were born like this. We are lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, and intersex Africans who come from villages that are very far, who come from trading centres, and some who even come from large cities like Kampala, Dar es Salaam, and Nairobi.

But our traditions of loving each other come from very far back in our African history, before the colonialists ever entered our land. Many of our ancestors in our tribes across East Africa were the way we are. They were born like this. We were accepted in our communities before the colonialists came, and we come before you today to ask you for that same acceptance that was part of our African culture before we were destroyed by laws from the west. Because of the prejudice brought by the west, we have been threatened, intimidated, and harassed.

I stand today from Kenya in solidarity with the LGBTI people in East Africa to proclaim that these human rights violations are completely unacceptable. We have had enough of the abuse, neglect, and violence. In fact, our leaders have recognised this and made our East African countries signatories of international agreements to end such discrimination.

There is need for liberation in East Africa as a whole. Just as if people were starving in Kenya, but had plenty to eat here, we would still fight against poverty in our region.

In the years before the media campaign began, activists mostly did their work behind closed doors and out of the spotlight. Several activists wrote opinion columns in local newspapers to spark discussion about homosexuality. To protect their identities, they used pseudonyms. But slowly the movement became increasingly more visible.

The media campaign ‘Let Us Live in Peace’ was prompted in part by the murder of a lesbian student in a Kampala suburb, and a court case brought by two trans activists, Victor Juliet Mukasa and Yvonne Oyo in 2008.¹⁴ The police and a local council chairperson forced entry into and ransacked Mukasa’s home, abducted Oyo and forced him to undress at the police station, and denied him access to toilet facilities (Jjuuko, 2013). The case was heard by Justice Stella Arach Amoko, who, after referring to international human rights precedents, found that Mukasa and Oyo’s right to privacy had been violated. The case represented an important victory in fighting for the rights of sexual and gender minorities and guaranteeing the right to privacy for all persons.

The campaign attracted much attention both domestically and internationally – a focus that according to Frank Mugisha, SMUG’s executive director, activists ‘did not anticipate’.¹⁵ Newspaper articles, radio talk shows, and church sermons began responding to this new recognition that human rights abuses were being perpetrated against sexual and gender minorities. One of the most high-profile articles published the week following the case was an interview, in the Sunday Vision, with minister for ethics and integrity, James Nsaba Buturo. To the question ‘What about the argument that it [homosexuality] is one of the fundamental rights’? he replied,

Of course that is the argument that someone should feel free to do what they choose. Well, clearly, then people will start sleeping with animals, dogs and of course commit bestiality, which is another crime, and then they will quote human rights issues. Human rights must have a limit and it is part of society to decide what its values are and sticking to those values strictly. (Tamale, 2007, pp. 35–8).

In response to this, LGBTI activists began to consider strategies to raise awareness and challenge homophobia and transphobia. According to Frank Mugisha:¹⁶

We looked at very many strategies. We looked at ‘Do we go out on the streets and start marching every day?’ and ‘Do we go and talk to people silently?’ ‘Do we go up to people’s offices and talk to them one-on-one?’ ‘How do we get the media?’ For us, we are trying everything – because we do not have a lot of exposure on advocacy itself. We did not have a lot of skills in campaigning, and let alone, we did not know how to go about campaigning for LGBT rights. But the process, that was making SMUG stronger.

The campaign was a key turning point in what is now one of the most visible LGBT movements in the world. But even in the late 1990s, kuchus had begun informally organising in bars and social settings to meet one another and create a sense of community. From this, the movement grew slowly from strictly social gatherings to peer-to-peer groups that would later become formally organised and politically active. Two of the first groups to grow out of these gatherings were Freedom and Roam Uganda (FARUG), and Spectrum Uganda Initiatives. Founded in 1999, they now operate as two of the oldest LGBT organisations in Africa and the first to exist in the country.

Spectrum Uganda was formed by a group of 40 gay-identifying men who began meeting regularly in local bars to drink and to create a safe space for kuchus. Its purpose was to serve those it was created by: marginalised men who have sex with other men (MSM). Because many of the founding members saw that people in their community were increasingly becoming infected with HIV and were being denied access to health services, Spectrum made it its goal to end this marginalisation. Spectrum Uganda registered as a human rights non-governmental organisation (NGO) in the country without mention of serving LGBT persons. In subsequent years, as other LGBT bodies were founded, Spectrum decided to focus its work on providing services specifically to MSM.

The lesbian community in Uganda also worked to form their own organisation (FARUG), after some felt that kuchu women were being overlooked in LGBT programming. One of the movement’s most notable activists, Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera, says about the founding of the group, ‘The issue of some of us has always been feminism. The LGBT organisations we were seeing around the world were being led by men, and we said, “Where are the women’s voices?” So we said, “We are women, let’s advocate for our own rights.”’¹⁷

Wearing green or purple to identify one another, FARUG’s first members began meeting regularly at a local bar in Kampala. After people in the community heard that women suspected of being lesbians were frequenting the bar, Kasha noticed that people were visiting the bar to ‘look at lesbians’. ‘After drinking, we would just meet to talk about sex, hang out, smoke, but when we were leaving home, people would attack us’.¹⁸ Unfortunately, even these simple attempts to create meeting places were repressed. Eventually, many of the lesbians frequenting the bar were exposed in the local newspaper as homosexuals and subsequently lost their jobs, family or housing.

In November 2007, a 16-year-old lesbian was killed in Nsambya. There was no coverage of the murder on local or international news outlets. However, many in Uganda actually praised the murder because, as reported in local tabloids, they had got rid of a lesbian. The organisation decided to condemn the action publicly but not all FARUG members were happy with this decision, fearing they would be exposed. Speaking about this critical turning point in FARUG’s history, Nabagesera says, ‘So we sat down and negotiated and said, those who still want the organisation to be just social can go ahead. But those who want to make a change, should also be allowed’.¹⁹ As a result, FARUG shifted its goals from those of a social group to include activism, and moved on to its current location at the centre of the fight for the human rights of LBTI persons in Uganda, albeit with ongoing challenges.

The movement was expanding and experiencing growing pains. Spectrum and FARUG were still for the most part informal organisations. From the early 2000s until 2005, funding for LGBTI programming was sparse, untransparent and channelled largely through individuals rather than formal bodies. This resulted in a person-centred leadership structure in the community, whereby certain individuals became the face of the movement. This created tension and resulted in a drastic decrease in funding. Because there was lack of transparency, accountability and structure, donor funding for LGBTI programming in Uganda was almost completely cut in 2005. It was not until 2007 that a proper flow of funding and accountability structures returned to Ugandan LGBTI organisations.

Spectrum and FARUG inspired the many other LGBTI organisations that were soon to be created across the country. For example in May 2012, activists opened the first LGBTI-specific health clinic at Ice Breakers Uganda (IBU). Between 2012 and 2015, IBU reached 3,646 clients, both at the clinic and through outreach programmes nationwide. In 2015 alone, they reached 2,179 people and distributed 15,000 lubricants and 23,000 condoms. Similarly, LGBTI organisations began popping up across the country, both formally and informally. A research mapping done by UHAI – East African Sexual Health and Rights Initiative – shows that the number of groups working on LGBTI issues in the country increased from two in 1999 to more than 31 in 2013 (Magezi and Nakaweesi-Kimbugwe, 2013).

But the boom of LGBTI organisations in Uganda would not have happened if SMUG had not been developed and founded. In 2004, a pan-African LGBTI meeting was convened in South Africa. Among its goals was to centralise funding for LGBTI programming and to generate a common agenda for LGBTI human rights on the continent. As a result, a resolution to form the African Solidarity Alliance was passed. This alliance connected LGBTI activists and kept them up to date on LGBTI issues occurring on the continent – from human rights abuses to event programmes. While there, the conference participants decided that it would be useful to set up subregional groups and coalitions similar in structure to the African Solidarity Alliance.²⁰ When the Ugandan delegates returned home, they arrived with the mission to do just that, which led to the founding of SMUG, an umbrella coalition of organisations dedicated to fighting for the liberation of LGBTI persons across Uganda.

Also in 2004, the National AIDS Commission was drafting the national AIDS policy. Dr Sylvia Tamale and Shimsher Reuben Deoprado (the country director of UNAIDS) who were involved in drafting the national policy, realised that for the first time in Ugandan history, MSM had been included in the programming. LGBTI and human rights activists met this news with much shock and surprise. Although including MSM in the national policy was an obvious step in the right direction, local activists knew that there was no actual implementation of HIV funding targeted at sexual minorities. Instead, they surmised that including MSM in the draft policy was meant to appear progressive in order to attract increased funding. This left many in the LGBTI community asking where exactly the money was going, and led to concerns that the funds might lead to the opportunity for government officials to line their pockets. This presented an opportunity for the LGBTI community to raise their voices for the first time and demand accountability for funding. Victor Mukasa,²¹ SMUG’s founding chairperson, describes this history as follows:

Once we started concentrating on this, we decided that we are going to write a petition to the Commission and thank them; [and] express our gratitude for remembering MSM but also ask them to include other sexual minorities, like lesbians and bisexuals. But [we asked] ‘how were we going to send it?’ ‘Who was going to send it on behalf of the LGBT community?’ So that is when we thought, ‘Why don’t we start a national coalition that involves everybody, and that speaks for everyone?’ And then it was agreed upon, there and then at the table. We decided we are going to form a coalition [and] we are all going to be members. But what were we going to call it?

The result was the creation of SMUG in 2004 with ten member organisations. Two representatives from each were on its first board. Victor Mukasa was the first chair, and under his leadership HIV/AIDS programming formed SMUG’s backbone. Its first task was to petition the Uganda AIDS Commission to include all other sexual minorities in the national policy, not just MSM. But the petition was unsuccessful; sexual and gender minorities were never included in the final policy and MSM were removed from the draft. The Most at Risk Population Initiative (MARPI) at Mulago Hospital, one of Uganda’s national referral hospitals, is one of the only resources in a government health facility in the country to track and provide access to HIV and AIDS treatments to MSM. Even so, MARPI had to develop their own documents to ensure that MSM and other sexual and gender minorities were included as a key sector of the population.

In April 2007 the World Social Forum was held in Nairobi, Kenya, the first time it had taken place in Africa. The event attracted more than 66,000 people from 110 countries and highlighted the continent’s many anti-imperialist struggles. It also coincided with the ‘coming out’ of the LGBTI community in Kenya, when the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya (GALCK) went public (Ismi and Schwartz, 2007). Representing GALCK, Kasha Nabagesera gave a speech to a crowd of thousands at the closing ceremony leading them in the chant ‘Respect for all! Human rights for all!’ (Barris, 2009) before continuing with these words: ‘I speak in the name of the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya, the Coalition of African Lesbians, the Sexual Minorities of Uganda, the International Lesbian and Gay Association.’ The audience fell silent and fists began to rise, with some people crying out, ‘No! No! No!’. But Kasha continued, even when the presenter tried to take the microphone from her: ‘People, people, if you do not agree, if you do not understand homosexuality, you have to at least agree with me on one principle: we have to learn to live together. Gays and lesbians also have the right to live in peace in Africa!’ Kasha then fell to her knees, crying, ‘I beg you, tolerate us!’ before leaving the stage chased by two men with raised fists, who shouted ‘Fire! fire on homosexuals!’ (ibid.). It was clear the LGBTI community was not wanted – yet activists like Kasha Nabagesera were not going to sit back and let their human rights be stripped away.

Not long after, in November 2007, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) took place in Kampala, Uganda, to focus on the year-long theme ‘Respecting difference, promoting understanding’. The British Council invited activists, like Pepe Julian Onziema,²² to represent SMUG in the ‘Commonwealth Peoples’ Space’, a CHOGM event designed to provide opportunities to share Commonwealth populations’ diversity and richness. Further, it was designated specifically as a space open to all people allowing them to interact and create social change. However, LGBTI activists were met with much hostility at the event. Pepe Julian describes the experience:

As we walked to claim safe space, we ran into a prominent anti-gay pastor, Martin Ssempa, who heads the Inter-Faith Rainbow Coalition against Homosexuality. He said ‘hello’ and hell broke loose. In less than five minutes we were surrounded by people who shouted and ridiculed us as cameras flickered and recorders pointed at us. An elderly woman asked, ‘Would you be here today had your mother been a lesbian?’ Pastor Ssempa gave a devilish smile as other twenty-somethings of his brigade from Makerere University yelled and shouted, ‘You don’t deserve to be on earth, not here! Lesbians, lesbians – where is security? Police! Security take them away and lock them up!’ (2007, p. 3)

Six members of the Ugandan police forced Pepe, along with other activists, outside the gates of the event venue, where they remained for seven hours waiting to be let back inside. They had not come to the event that day to start a protest; they came to participate. The altercation led to a shift in the Ugandan LGBTI movement. Being publicly excluded from international events and the ensuing media campaign made it clear that LGBTI people were now out and visible, like their Kenyan counterparts (Ekine, 2007). They continued fighting for inclusion in health programming, cultural events and equal protection under the law. For the next year-and-a-half Ugandan activists made progress, generated dialogue, and sensitised communities – until the AHB’s introduction forced their advocacy to take a new direction: ensuring that LGBTI people would not face the death penalty.

Criminalised lives

When the AHB was introduced in the Ugandan Parliament in 2009, it became clear that the LGBTI movement had to adjust its strategies in order to support its rights. Now, instead of focusing on HIV/AIDS programming and creating family support groups and social spaces, members had to prioritise the fight to prevent the AHB becoming law. But the LGBTI movement was not alone. Even before the original draft of the bill was introduced in parliament, civil society members became aware of it and began organising. The Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law (the Coalition) was founded, comprising more than 50 organisations ranging from women’s groups to sex worker associations. The coalition met to plan how, together, they would fight the bill. Leading Ugandan intersex activist, Julius Kaggwa, became the coalition’s first coordinator and made LGBTI rights the focus. Daily activities included producing research and documentation on LGBTI rights in Uganda, identifying which MPs supported the AHB, and lobbying them to oppose it.

The AHB was introduced, tabled and reintroduced in parliament several times, and the process of lobbying government officials became quite difficult. Often MPs would recognise co-coordinators Geoffrey Ogwaro or Clare Byarugaba from the coalition, and would try to kick them out. Ogwaro says, ‘When they realise you’re LGBTI activists and they see you in the lobby, they begin telling the security to kick you out of parliament. They are that intimidating – but of course we counter them, and tell them, “we know our rights, this is public space, you cannot just kick us out of here like that”’.²³

Religious leaders were perhaps among the most influential people to lobby government officials in support of the AHB. It was important, however, according to Ogwaro, that religious leaders be part of the coalition in order to really create change. He added, ‘We do have a few religious leaders, or clergymen, who quietly tell us that they are in support, but … they cannot come out and say it because they will be defrocked, or they will be excommunicated from their churches’.²⁴ Without religious institutions in Ugandan civil society lending support, full equality for LGBTI persons will be difficult to achieve.

At the end of 2010, Frank Mugisha began a tour in the United States to meet human rights defender partners, including the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York. Mugisha also did research on the American Christian right in an endeavour to understand what would come next in Uganda, and the best way to fight the influence of the US-based anti-homosexuality agenda in country. As a result of this work, CCR came on board to represent SMUG in the US court in a civil lawsuit against Scott Lively for ‘crimes against humanity’, for his role in fomenting hatred against LGBTI people in Uganda (Kilborne, 2016).²⁵

But in January 2011, while still on tour, Mugisha received devastating news: his friend and fellow activist David Kato had been found murdered in his home in Mukono. Many considered Kato to be the father of the Ugandan LGBTI movement because of his activist work on its behalf and his status as one of the first openly gay people in the country. For local activists and the international community there was reason to suspect that Kato was killed because of his sexual orientation and activism. Three weeks prior to his murder, he had won a right to privacy case in Uganda, which he had filed with Kasha Nabagesera and Pepe Julian Onziema against the notorious Ugandan tabloid, the Rolling Stone.²⁶ In October 2010, it had printed the names, addresses and photographs of hundreds of people ‘suspected of being homosexuals’. The front page featured David Kato with the headline, ‘100 pictures of Uganda’s top homos leak’ with a banner declaring ‘Hang them’. He received many death threats after the article was published.

The persecution continued. In February 2012, just a week after David Bahati reintroduced the AHB in parliament, Ugandan police raided a training and skills-building workshop hosted by FARUG and SMUG. The workshop, which had taken place annually since 2010, was hosting LGBTI activists from Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. The minister of state for ethics and integrity, Simon Lokodo, came personally with police escorts to shut down the event in Entebbe, and 35 participants were threatened with arrest (Human Rights Watch, 2012). In June, activists challenged this raid in the Uganda High Court, arguing that in no way had they violated the law, and that shutting down the workshop was a clear violation of their constitutional right to freedom of assembly.²⁷

But on 18 June, just days after bringing the case to court, another workshop was arbitrarily shut down because of its focus on LGBTI rights. In an attempt to identify and detain its participants, police held them, as well as other guests and staff, hostage for more than three hours. Hassan Shire Sheikh, executive director of East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project, which hosted the event, commented, ‘This arbitrary closure confirms a pattern of behavior by the authorities, that LGBTI people, and those working on LGBTI issues, will not be afforded the same protections as other people in this country’ (Freedom House, 2012).

In July 2014, the Uganda High Court finally made its judgment in the case. The judge ruled that the workshop participants were promoting or inciting same-sex acts, essentially maintaining that human rights training on LGBT rights is itself a form of incitement to engage in prohibited same-sex practices, and is in contravention of the law. The case was a setback for freedom of expression and association. According to Adrian Jjuuko,²⁸ the founder of the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF):

We were surprised when the judge, instead of enforcing the right, rather applied the limitation of the right … though the applicants enjoy the right to freedom of expression and the other rights, these are limited under the constitution. One of the limitations would be if the penal law provided for it. And therefore in his view, the scope of Section 145 exceeded beyond the sexual act … organising meetings and talks … may be included under the scope of [Section] 145 [of the Uganda Penal Code]. I think that’s the widest interpretation of that section ever given.

Although at times painfully slow for those whose human rights are violated daily, there has been progress for LGBTI persons in Uganda. Perhaps these advances have been slowest for transgender persons. According to Beyonce Karungi, a trans woman living in Uganda, and the founder and director of Transgender Equality Uganda, when the LGBTI movement started in the country, both the wider Ugandan society and members of the kuchu community itself discriminated against transgender people: ‘[We] were discriminated [against] by the LGB ... the LGB doesn’t understand transgender people while the trans men were empowering themselves and leaving us out. And yet we are the people who were visible, and we have a lot of challenges’.²⁹ Karungi had experienced these violations personally: ‘People in clubs would always abuse me and beat me up, pour beer on me and burn me with cigarettes’.³⁰ It was clear to her that trans women specifically needed a safe space – which is why she created Transgender Equality Uganda in 2011.

Similarly, Nikki Mawanda, a trans man and human rights defender for transgender and intersex rights, co-founded the Trans-Support Initiative Uganda in 2007 (originally known as Transgenders, Intersex and Transexuals Uganda). As with Karungi’s organisation, the Trans-Support Initiative’s goal was to create a support network for transgender persons. Like many other LGBTI groups, it began informally, but grew into an NGO legally registered in the country. Speaking on its goals, Mawanda says:

What we are doing is we are creating awareness, because if someone lacks self-esteem they will not be able to address those issues. If you are not yourself, believing in yourself, you will not tackle other issues. So creating a safe space for them to know, Yes I’m trans. I accept I’m trans, and what are the challenges … and how can I live in this hostile environment as a trans person and survive?³¹

Transgender Equality Uganda and Trans-Support Initiative Uganda are also working to create small-scale skills-building initiatives for transgender people because many of them drop out of school or are limited in their higher education options because of social stigma or family banishment. According to Karungi, ‘The challenge I’m getting is trans women never go to school because of their lives – eviction from homes, their family’s rejection from homes, they are on their own when they find out who they are. They have family members reject them, so they never go to school’.³² It is exactly this type of systematic discrimination that makes the work of Karungi and Mawanda so difficult. Not surprisingly, Mawanda explains that challenges will persist without large-scale change:

One of the big challenges is we struggle as human beings, but also we struggle because we are different. People don’t understand. You try to fight as a person and then somebody who you think will understand, brings a big barrier – and these are people we trust. So many trans people today can’t find good partners just because they are different. You start seeing someone, she is a lesbian, you propose – but because you are different they start to say, ‘I can’t be with a man.’ … The support systems that we are having, even if it’s the government, even if it’s within the LGBT movement that we call our own, they do not cater for us. Today, we will find most of the messages we print, even if somebody is talking, we are talking so much of only ‘lesbian [and] gay.³³

But kuchus like Karungi and Mawanda have never stopped their battle before, during, or after the AHB became law. As a result, Uganda’s response to the anti-homosexuality movement has been one of the strongest when compared to that of other African countries. It has gained in strength by fighting the notion that kuchus are at the mercy of their oppressors or dependent on Western intervention to ‘save them’, while concurrently establishing one of the most organised communities of LGBTI people on the African continent.

A thriving community

Uganda’s resistance to homo/transphobia, and particularly to the AHA, has often been presented as a single tragic story. Journalists, writers, scholars and visitors are almost always shocked to learn that the country has a community of LGBTI-identifying persons and strong organisations working to advance their rights. Many even continue to claim that this does not exist. For example, in a recent interview, Isobel Yeung, who filmed the 2015 VICE documentary, A Prayer for Uganda, said, ‘There’s not much of a homosexual community in Uganda, apart from advocates who are a whole other level of brave. But people who live with others of the same sex or who live a different lifestyle to what’s considered normal are all under threat’ (Mwaluko, 2016). The lack of acknowledgement that there is an LGBTI sector in Ugandan society is common among journalists, writers and visitors alike, who often unknowingly perpetuate the notion that Ugandan LGBTI persons live in constant fear and need the West to ‘save them’.

Although it is extremely important to understand the human rights abuses that form part of the lived experience of many LGBTI Ugandans, it is equally imperative to recognise the successes that they have experienced. Many of the country’s LGBTI activists feel that the rhetoric of tragedy holds back the movement for change. A 25-year-old member of the LGBTI community living in Kampala, told us: ‘On Google they say Uganda is the worst place to live if you’re gay. But even me, I put on micro-shorts and walk around and I am OK. I even go to the beach in micro-shorts. People turn to look sometimes, but nothing else. And saying Uganda is the worst place to be gay isn’t changing anything’.³⁴

The daily work of activists and LGBTI persons in Uganda is building an LGBTI community across the region, which is perhaps what makes the movement unique. It has a strong sense of organisation, mobilisation and vocalisation that continues to resonate. One key example is the way that Ugandan LGBTI activists successfully organised a Pride event in the country for four consecutive years. Uganda, Mauritius and South Africa are the only three countries in the continent ever to have held such an event. In August 2012, the first Ugandan Pride parade was held in Entebbe to protest about the AHB and the government’s treatment of kuchus. However, the event ended in the arrest of several participants and the next day local tabloids printed the names and photos of participants, exposing them as homosexuals. Despite the societal backlash, Pride Uganda continued to be held in Entebbe annually, but state repression of such events continued. In August 2016, police raided the celebrations and the planned parade was cancelled, and, in 2017, Pride organisers were once again forced to cancel it due to the ethics minister threatening police raids and violence.

In the face of tremendous challenges, the movement has created a community of LGBTI people, not just in Kampala but across the country, such as Rainbow Health in Mbarara and GEHO Uganda in Jinja. In regions without organisations, activists utilise upcountry (rural-based) focal points or non-discriminatory partner bodies to do outreach sessions with LGBTI people. The movement has also opened one of Africa’s only LGBTI-specific health clinics at Ice Breakers Uganda. The country can also lay claim to having the first LGBTI media house, Kuchu Times, which publishes an annual publication called Bombastic.

Although many LGBTI refugees fled the country after the AHB was passed, many key activists have stayed (Senzee, 2014). The international community has celebrated the deep conviction and leadership of Ugandan kuchus. Several activists were awarded international human rights awards, including: intersex activist Julius Kaggwa³⁵ (Human Rights First Award, 2010); Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera (Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, 2011); Frank Mugisha (the Thorolf Rafto Prize for Human Rights and the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Human Rights, 2011); and Pepe Julian Onziema (Clinton Global Citizen award, 2012). This has brought international recognition to the movement and worked to further establish a community of LGBTI Ugandans.

Figure 15. Opening of the first Pride in Kampala, Uganda, 6 August 2012. Left to right: Richard Lusimbo (research and documentation officer, SMUG), Dr Frank Mugisha (executive director, SMUG), Bishop Christopher Senyonjo and Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera (founder, Freedom and Roam Uganda). Photo credit: And Still We Rise (2015), SMUG and Envisioning.

Lastly, the Coalition brought together LGBTI community members and representatives from many sectors of civil society. For the first time, Ugandan LGBTI activists were able to stand up for their rights with support from organisations and groups that understood both their struggle and how the assault on LGBTI rights could undermine civil liberties for the wider Ugandan society. Through the Coalition, LGBTI groups in the country have shared ties with many members of civil society organisations and can work together to advocate for inclusiveness in national and international policies. The work of the Coalition’s legal group and the broader movement against the AHA resulted in its annulment in 2014.³⁶ And since March 2015, because of the Coalition, Ugandan LGBTI people have been represented by Kikonyogo Kivumbi on the Country Coordinating Mechanism for Global Fund, a seat that LGBTI advocates have been seeking since 2010.

Pawns of Western influence?

Many, particularly in the West, believe that locally led LGBTI initiatives by Africans for Africans have never existed. But this is simply not true. Although LGBTI movements in African countries still sometimes focus on HIV or only on health, Ugandan activists have been able to use this as an entry point for the movement, expanding its scope to include LGBTI persons’ rights within the broader human rights agenda. This has included programming to address the specific needs of sexual and gender minorities in relation to family banishment, eviction and workplace rights; and the development of LGBTI groups and coalitions and their inclusion in broader civil society organisations defending civil liberties.

A New York Times article of 20 December 2015 claimed that US funding intended to challenge institutionalised homophobia in Nigeria actually had a negative impact on LGBTI persons’ rights and freedoms there. It said that the US had ‘spent more than $41 million specifically to promote gay rights globally, along with a portion of $700 million earmarked for marginalized groups to support gay communities and causes’ (Onishi, 2015, p. A1). However, according to Andrew Park of the Williams Institute in a Huffington Post article a week later, this figure is highly inflated and, moreover, was quoted widely by anti-gay groups including the Family Research Council. Park writes, ‘While the US government funds HIV programs for vulnerable and marginalized populations in Africa, very little of that funding goes to advocacy for LGBT human rights … the US government probably spends less than $7 million of its own dollars per year on global LGBT issues’.³⁷ Park further notes that such reporting perpetuates the ‘myth of affluence’ that hinders the work of LGBTI activists around the world, and in countries that receive foreign aid, like Uganda, local and international leaders perpetuate that myth to support statements by African leaders and conservative evangelicals, such as Ugandan President Museveni and Scott Lively, about homosexuality, money and the ‘recruitment’ of children. But, as Frank Mugisha wrote in his letter of 29 December to the New York Times in response to the first of these articles, ‘LGBTI Africans are more than just “pawns of western interests”’, adding the comment, ‘Is there more violence now that L.G.B.T.I. people are more visible in Nigeria and elsewhere? Maybe, but it is homophobia, not funding, that is at fault’ (p. A18).

It has long been recognised by LGBTI Ugandans that they are up against a competing stream of support from sources such as US-based evangelical Christian groups which have put political and economic weight behind initiatives like the AHA. Yet one thing is clear: Ugandan kuchus are not just sitting back waiting for the rest of the world to step in and save them. Instead, they have organised, mobilised and led the international community to fight, support and one day liberate the kuchus of Uganda. It is exactly this resistance and resilience that is essential to fight the battle to advance LGBTI rights in the country, and the rest of the world can learn from this history of organising.

References

Amnesty International (2001a) ‘Uganda: criminalizing homosexuality – a license to torture’, 27 Jun.

— (2001b) ‘Crimes of hate, conspiracy of silence: torture and ill-treatment based on sexual identity’, ACT40/016.

Barris, S. (2009) ‘World Social Forum Nairobi 2007: Respect for All! Another world is possible for African LGBT people, too’, International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association Pan Africa ILGA, 1 Oct., available at: http://ilga.org/world-social-forum-nairobi-2007/ (accessed 8 Sep. 2017).

Cheney, K. (2012) ‘Locating neocolonialism, “tradition”, and human rights in Uganda’s “Gay Death Penalty’’’, African Studies Review, Cambridge University Press, 55: 2.

Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law (2013) ‘Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill: the great divide’.

Consortium on Monitoring Violations Based on Sex Determination, Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation (2015) ‘Uganda report of violations based on gender identity and sexual orientation’.

Driberg, J.H. (1923) The Lango, A Nilotic Tribe of Uganda (London: Thorner Coryndon).

Ekine, S. (2007) ‘LGBTs evicted from the People’s Forum in Kampala’, Black Looks, 24 Nov., available at: www.blacklooks.org/2007/11/lgbts_evicted_from_the_peoples_forum_in_kampala/ (accessed 20 Sep. 2017)

Epprecht, M. (2004) Hungonchani: the History of a Dissident Sexuality in Southern Africa (Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press).

— (2008) Heterosexual Africa? The History of an Idea from the Age of Exploration to the Age of AIDS (Athens and Scottsville, OH: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press and Ohio University Press).

Faupel, J.F. (1962) African Holocaust: the Story of the Uganda Martyrs (New York, NY: P.J. Kennedy).

Foucault, M. (1976) The History of Sexuality, vol. 1 (Paris: Éditions Gallimard).

Freedom House (2012) ‘Uganda: police raid on LGBT activists workshop in Kampala condemned’, available at: https://freedomhouse.org/article/uganda-police-raid-lgbti-activists-workshop-kampala-condemned (accessed 12 Jan. 2018).

Hamrud, A. (2015) ‘They say they want to cut my throat’, Ottar, 27 Nov., available at: www.ottar.se/artiklar/they-say-they-want-cut-my-throat (accessed 4 Oct. 2017).

Human Rights House (2007) ‘Ugandan homosexuals launch media campaign: let us live in peace’, available at: http://humanrightshouse.org/noop/page.php?p=Articles/8169.html&d=1 (accessed 12 Jan. 2018).

Human Rights Watch (2012) ‘Uganda: Minister shuts down rights workshop: LGBT group denied freedom of assembly, expression’, available at: https://www.hrw.org/news/2012/02/16/uganda-minister-shuts-down-rights-workshop (accessed 12 Jan. 2018).

Human Rights Watch and International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (2003) ‘More than a name: state-sponsored homophobia and its consequences in southern Africa’, available at: https://www.hrw.org/report/2003/05/13/more-name/state-sponsored-homophobia-and-its-consequences-southern-africa (accessed 12 Jan. 2018).

Ismi, A. and K. Schwartz (2007) ‘The World Social Forum in Nairobi African activists lead resistance to western plundering and imperialism’, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 1 Apr., available at: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/monitor/april-2007-world-social-forum-nairobi (accessed 8 Sep. 2017).

Jjuuko, A. (2013) ‘The incremental approach: Uganda’s struggle for the decriminalization of homosexuality’, in C. Lennox and M. Waites (eds.) Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in the Commonwealth: Struggles for Decriminalisation and Change (London: Human Rights Consortium, Institute of Commonwealth Studies), pp. 381–408.

Jjuuko, A. and F. Tumwesige (2013) ‘The implications of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009 on Uganda’s legal system’, Institute of Development Studies (IDS) Evidence Report, no. 44, Brighton, and Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF), Nov., available at: https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/123456789/3224 (accessed 8 Sep. 2017).

Julian, P. (2007) ‘Commonwealth peoples’ space, Kampala 2007 report’, Sexual Minorities Uganda.

Kaoma, K. (2010) ‘The US Christian right and the attack on gays in Africa’, PublicEye, winter 09/spring 10, available at: www.publiceye.org/magazine/v24n4/us-christian-right-attack-on-gays-in-africa.html (accessed 8 Sep. 2017).

Kilborne S. (2016) ‘Will hate go to trial? Following the case against anti-gay extremist Scott Lively’, Huffington Post, 6 Dec., available at: www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-s-kilborne/will-hate-go-to-trial-fol_b_13136066.html (accessed 20 Sep. 2017).

Lwanga-Lunyiigo, S. (2011) Mwanga II: Resistance to Imposition of British Colonial Rule in Buganda 1884–1899 (Kampala: Wavah Books).

Magezi, M. and S. Nakaweesi-Kimbugwe (2013) ‘Lived realities, imagined futures: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex Uganda baseline survey’, UHAI – East African Sexual Health and Rights Initiative.

Markham, L. (2014) ‘Uganda’s anti-gay witch hunt has officially begun’, Vice, 27 Jun., available at: www.vice.com/read/ugandas-anti-gay-witch-hunt-has-officially-begun-627 (accessed 23 Oct. 2017).

Mills, S. (2011) ‘The world’s worst place to be gay’, BBC, 20 Oct., available at: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00yrt1c (accessed 8 Sep. 2017).

Mugisha, F. (2015), ‘Support for gay rights in Africa’, letter to the editor’, New York Times, 29 Dec.

Murray, S., and W. Roscoe (eds.) (1998) Boy Wives and Female Husbands: Studies in African Homosexualities (New York, NY: St Martin’s Press).

Mushanga, M.T. (1973) ‘The Nkole of Southwestern Uganda’, in A. Molnos (ed.) Cultural Source Materials for Population Planning in East Africa: Beliefs and Practices (Nairobi: East African Publishing House), pp. 174–86.

Mwaluko, N.H. (2016) ‘The anti-gay movement in Uganda is still alive and kicking’, Vice, available at: www.vice.com/read/the-anti-gay-movement-in-uganda-is-still-alive-and-kicking (accessed 20 Sep. 2017).

New Vision (2002) ‘Commonwealth honors Museveni’, 4 Mar.

Nkabahona, A., S. Okuni, and B. Rukooko (2013) ‘Homosexuality and human rights in Uganda: summary report’, School of Liberal and Performing Arts, Makerere University.

Nyanzi, S. (2013) ‘Dismantling reified African culture through localised homosexualities in Uganda’, Culture, Health & Sexuality, 15 (8): 952–67.

Onishi, N. (2015) ‘U.S. support of gay rights in Africa may have done more harm than good’, New York Times, 20 Dec., available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/21/world/africa/us-support-of-gay-rights-in-africa-may-have-done-more-harm-than-good.html (accessed 20 Sep. 2017).

Park, A. (2015) ‘New York Times fuels myth of gay affluence’, Huffington Post, 28 Dec., available at: www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-park/new-york-times-fuels-myth_b_8866334.html (accessed 20 Sep. 2017).

Senzee, T. (2014) ‘Activists: hundreds of LGBT refugees have fled Uganda’, Advocate, 27 Jun., available at: www.advocate.com/world/2014/06/27/activists-hundreds-lgbt-refugees-have-fled-uganda (accessed 20 Sep. 2017).

Sexual Minorities Uganda (2014a) ‘Expanded criminalisation of homosexuality in Uganda: flawed narrative; empirical evidence and strategic alternatives from an African perspective’.

— (2014b) ‘From torment to tyranny: enhanced persecution in Uganda following the passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2014: 20 December 2013–1 May 2014’.

Stewart, C. (2015) ‘Finally, an LGBT voice on Uganda’s anti-HIV panel’, 76 Crimes blog, 5 Mar., available at: https://76crimes.com/2015/03/05/finally-an-lgbt-voice-on-ugandas-anti-hiv-panel (accessed 20 Sep. 2017).

Tamale, S. (2003) ‘Out of the closet: unveiling sexuality discourses in Uganda’, Feminist Africa: Changing Cultures, Africa Gender Institute, no. 2, available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291173660_Out_of_the_closet_Unveiling_sexuality_discourses_in_Uganda (accessed 8 Jun. 2018).

— (ed.) (2007) Homosexuality Perspectives from Uganda (Kampala: Sexual Minorities Uganda).

Van Zyl M. (2011) ‘Are same-sex marriages un-African? Same-sex relationships and belonging in post-apartheid South Africa’, Journal of Social Issues, 67 (2): 335–57.

Weigel, D. (2010) ‘Right now, inside the conservative movement and the Republican Party: Family Research Council explains: It lobbied for changes to Uganda resolution’, Washington Post, 4 Jun., available at: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-now/2010/06/family_research_council_explai.html (accessed 8 Sep. 2017).

Documentary film

And Still We Rise (2015) dir. R. Lusimbo and N. Nicol (Uganda and Canada: Sexual Minorities Uganda and Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights), available at: https://vimeo.com/178217397. Extracts cited from interviews with: Victor Mukasa, Sylvia Tamale, Joe Oloka-Onyango, Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera, Geoffrey Ogwaro, Adrian Jjuuko and Frank Mugisha.

______________

1 The Anti-Homosexuality Bill, no. 18, 2009, Bills Supplement to the Uganda Gazette no. 47 vol. CII, 25th Sep. For an analysis of the bill’s implications, see Jjuuko and Tumwesige (2013).

2 The term ‘kuchu’ is derived from Swahili, spoken largely in coastal East Africa, where it means ‘same’. Later it was adopted by Ugandan LGBTI people as a term for sexual and gender minorities. Kuchu is used in many ways including as a password in public spaces allowing Ugandan LGBTI persons to identify one another and speak freely without other members of wider society being aware of the situation.

3 In 2010, the Family Research Council spent over $25,000 on US congressional lobbyists to advocate for US support and promotion of the AHB in Uganda (what they described as ‘Res. 1064 Ugandan Resolution Pro-Homosexual Promotion’). See Weigel (2010).

4 In 2009, David Bahati cited a conversation with members of the Family in 2008 as having inspired his anti-homosexuality legislation. Bahati first floated the idea of executing gays during the Family’s Uganda National Prayer Breakfast in 2008, as reported by NPR in Nov. 2009. Also see Kaoma (2010).

5 Sylvia Tamale and Joe Oloka-Onyango, interviewed on 29 Nov. 2014 and 3 Dec. respectively, by Richard Lusimbo, SMUG and Envisioning. Excerpts are included in the documentary And Still We Rise (2015).

6 This seminar at the Anti-Homosexuality Conference 2009 was filmed by Political Research Associates senior researcher, Revd Dr Kapya Kaoma. It is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9F9k4guN3M (accessed 20 Mar. 2018).

7 The National Anti-Gay Task Force was chaired by Martin Ssempa, one of Uganda’s strongest AHB advocates. Ssempa is perhaps best known for championing the bill by showing explicit gay pornography in his church and asking, ‘As Africans, we want to ask Barack Obama to explain to us: is this what he wants to bring to Africa as a human right – to eat da poo poo?’ His statements subsequently circulated the internet as a viral video. The task force he led was made up of the National Fellowship of Born Again Churches, the Seventh Day Adventist Church, the Uganda Joint Christian Council (which also represented the Orthodox Church in Uganda), the Roman Catholic Church in Uganda, the Islamic Office of Social Welfare in Uganda, and the Born Again Faith Federation.

8 The full text of the 2009 AHB may be found at: http://hrapf.org/laws/ (accessed 20 Mar. 2018). For a discussion of the AHB and the AHA, see also Jjuuko and Mutesi, ch. 10, this volume.

9 AHA, 2014, available at: www.refworld.org/pdfid/530c4bc64.pdf (accessed 11 Feb. 2017).

10 And Still We Rise (2015) premiered in Kampala, Uganda, on 26 Jan. 2016. For more on the documentary see Nicol, ch. 14, this volume.

11 Ugandan Penal Code, introduced in 1930 and updated in 1950, Chapter XIV Offences Against Morality, Sections 145–7. For more on the origins of Penal Code law and the AHB see: Jjuuko (2013) and Jjuuko and Mutesi ch. 10, this volume.

12 This history is deconstructed in Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality (1976).

13 This testimony and the following one are by two unknown masked activists in Kampala, Uganda, Aug. 2007. Transcript made available by Human Rights House (2007).

14 Victor Juliet Mukasa and Yvonne Oyo v. attorney general of Uganda, available at: www.chr.up.ac.za/index.php/browse-by-subject/490-uganda-mukasa-and-another-v-attorney-general-2008-ahrlr-ughc-2008-.pdf (accessed 11 Feb. 2017).

15 Interviewed on 18 Jun. 2012 by Richard Lusimbo, SMUG and Envisioning. An excerpt is included in the documentary And Still We Rise (2015).

16 Ibid.

17 Interviewed on 25 May 2012 by Richard Lusimbo, SMUG and Envisioning. An excerpt is included in the documentary And Still We Rise (2015).

18 Ibid.

19 Ibid.

20 The African Solidarity Alliance was a coalition formed by African LGBTI activists in the early 2000s to fight back against growing homophobia spanning the African continent. This coalition was instrumental in building the spirit of the LGBTI Ugandan activists to self organise.

21 Interviewed on 25 May 2012 by Richard Lusimbo, SMUG and Envisioning. An excerpt is included in the documentary And Still We Rise (2015).

22 Pepe Julian Onziema, cited as Pepe Julian, is a leading transgender activist, and SMUG’s programmes director and advocacy officer.

23 Interviewed on 8 Jun. 2012 by Richard Lusimbo, SMUG and Envisioning. An excerpt is included in the documentary And Still We Rise (2015).

24 Ibid.

25 SMUG v. Lively was heard in the US federal court. The case sought to prosecute Scott Lively for persecution, a crime against humanity under international law. For background on the case see the Center for Constitutional Rights website: http://ccrjustice.org/home/what-we-do/active-cases (accessed 11 Feb. 2017).

26 Kasha Jacqueline, David Kato Kisuule & Pepe Julian Onziema v. Rolling Stone Ltd, case no. 163 of 2010, High Court of Uganda, 30 Dec., available at: https://globalequality.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/uganda-high-court-ruling_rs.pdf (accessed 13 Feb. 2017).

27 Jacqueline Kasha Nabagesera, Frank Mugisha, Julian Pepe Onziema, and Geoffrey Ogwaro v. attorney general and Hon. Rev. Fr Simon Lokodo, available at: https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Judgment.pdf (accessed 13 Feb. 2017).

28 Interviewed on 21 Jan. 2014 by Richard Lusimbo, SMUG and Envisioning. An excerpt is included in the documentary And Still We Rise (2015).

29 Interviewed on 8 Jun. 2012 by Richard Lusimbo, SMUG and Envisioning.

30 Ibid.

31 Interviewed on 30 May 2012 by Richard Lusimbo, as above.

32 Interviewed on 8 Jun. 2012 by Richard Lusimbo, as above.

33 Interviewed on 30 May 2012 by Richard Lusimbo, as above.

34 Anonymous person interviewed on 16 Sep. 2015 by Austin Bryan.

35 Julius Kaggwa is the executive director of Support Initiative for People with Atypical Sex Development. He was the Coalition’s first coordinator.

36 Oloka-Onyango and nine others v. attorney general, Constitutional Petition no. 8 of 2014), UGCC 14, 1 Aug. 2014, available at: www.ulii.org/ug/judgment/constitutional-court/2014/14/. See also Jjuuko and Mutesi, ch. 10, this volume.

37 After Park’s article, The New York Times issued a correction on 15 Jan. 2016, saying that the figure for global US funding in support of gay rights was at least US$41 million, not over US$700 million (yet still well over Park’s figure of US$7 million).