“At one point, I walked away and burst into tears …. I cried like a little baby from just the joy of it. I felt like I’d just been born. I think a lot of us were screaming because of that realization that we are out in the street saying: ‘We’re here, we’re queer, we’re everywhere!’”
Beverley Ditsie
Ditsie is a founding member of the Gay and Lesbian Organization of the Witwatersrand (Glow), and one of the organizers of the first Pride March in Africa.
“Somebody has to do this work. I am black, I am a woman, and I am a lawyer, and I speak loudly. I am a result of the battle of former generations that engaged to free me today, and it’s a very heavy debt I owe to new generations.”
Alice Nkom
She is a Cameroonian lawyer, well known for her advocacy towards decriminalization of homosexuality in Cameroon.
“How I live as an out lesbian in the fight for the rights of my community reverberates from New York, through social media, back to Uganda, and all over the world.”
Leilah Babirye
A Ugandan sculptor who fled Uganda in 2015 after being publicly outed in a local newspaper.
“I’m seeing changes in the community, [and] people now realize they’re not alone. …Now no one can ever say we [the LGBT community] don’t exist.”
Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera
She is a Ugandan LGBT rights activist and the founder and executive director of the LGBT rights organization Freedom & Roam Uganda.
“If trans people do not pay attention to politics, how can they know the laws that make it hard to live their lives normally and then try to change them?”
Malak al-Kashif
Malak is an Egyptian activist who defends transpeople’s rights and counters transphobic discrimination.
“When I came out, I came out to free myself. I didn’t come out because I wanted to be an activist or because I wanted to prove a point. It was really about me.”
– Pamela Adie
A Nigerian LGBT rights activist, public speaker, screenwriter and filmmaker, Pamela is the executive producer of the lesbian romantic film Ìfé, which is considered to be the first full-fledged lesbian film in the history of Nollywood.
“If I wait for someone else to validate my existence, it will mean that I’m shortchanging myself.”
Zanele Muholi
She is one of the most prominent lesbian activists in South Africa and a world-renowned, award-winning photographer.
