When I Cast My Vote, I Did So With a Quiet But Stubborn Hope of Freedom: Freedom From Homophobic Leaders! Everything with a beginning comes to an end; even the strongest thunderstorms eventually settle. The year has barely begun, yet chaos already hangs over it. Another long ride? Maybe. But this too shall end. On […]
Opinion Piece
This Thursday, Uganda goes to the polls. Streets fill with posters, rallies buzz with promises, and the weight of choice hangs in the air. Elections are often framed as moments of division, but they are also moments of collective ownership. They ask us a simple question: what kind of country do we want to live […]
As the world marks Human Rights Day under the theme “Building Our Future Together,” Uganda’s LGBTQ community finds itself at a critical juncture, grappling with intensified legal persecution and systemic discrimination that threatens the very foundation of universal human rights. For decades, the community has existed under the shadow of colonial-era penal code provisions that […]
Election season is here, and like clockwork, Ugandan politicians have dusted off their favorite campaign strategy: screaming about the gays. It’s so predictable you could set your watch by it. Speaker of Parliament Anita Among, campaigning in Bukedea, recently declared that Museveni is the hero who decreed “a man should marry a woman,” while “these […]
LOVE WON AGAIN — EVEN AS RIGHTS FALL In a world increasingly defined by the rollback of hard-won freedoms, a quiet but powerful victory for equality emerged this week from the United States. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to revisit Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark 2015 decision that recognized same-sex marriage as […]
In our previous article about the Makerere University row that ensued at Mitchell Hostel, when holier-than-thou boys turned against their fellow students, accusing them of homosexuality, thus subjecting them to mob justice before the university police operatives quelled the situation, we discussed the deteriorating academic values—tolerance and independent thinking—at the institution. Of course, many people […]
Before organizations had names. Before we had the words to call ourselves a movement. There was music. There was a place to breathe. There was DJ Rachael. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Uganda’s queer community was scattered, hidden, and surviving however we could. There were almost no safe places to just exist. But […]
Over the weekend, leaked nude videos of a TikToker called “Chicken, Chicken” hit X and TikTok, and Uganda’s internet lost its collective mind. Thousands of amateur detectives started examining birthmarks, analyzing rooms, comparing body types like they were solving a murder mystery instead of participating in someone’s public humiliation. Fun times. Then Minister of State […]
Makerere University is the oldest and largest institution of higher learning in Uganda, established in 1922, and for so many years, it has produced great minds, including political, academic, professional, and literary people. Yet with such an interesting history, the university has regressed more than it has progressed. While education’s sole essence is to unlearn […]
Look, I get it. You hear “2026 elections” and your immediate response is to check your savings account, stock up on airtime before the inevitable internet shutdown, and mentally prepare for another season of politicians competing for who can say the most unhinged things about gay people on NBS. Your survival instinct isn’t whispering “civic […]