Africa
Hundreds attend southern Africa LGBTQ development conference
Activists from Namibia, Botswana among participants
A number of LGBTQ rights groups from across southern Africa participated in a recent conference in Cape Town, South Africa, that focused on how to advance equality in the region against the backdrop of the pandemic.
More than 300 people participated in the conference, titled Kopano, which means “gathering” in Sesotho, the Other Foundation, an NGO that advances equality and freedom in Southern Africa, organized. The themes were rollbacks, resilience, reinvention, reinventing relationships and renewal of connections.
Many of those in attendance acknowledged the harsh realities facing community members that include gender-based violence and other barriers to making a living.
The Namibia Diverse Women’s Association sent 10 representatives to the conference that ended last week.
“Our diversity in representation manifested the comprehension of our national diversity,” it said. “Kopano continues to empower and critically challenge our ways of working.”
“Delegates raised issues such as the importance of collaboration and inclusion in advocacy work in the 2LGBTQIA+ sector,” said Gender DynamiX. “Discussants flagged concerns about businesses and organizations from other sectors engaging in work for their own financial benefit, rather than addressing the underlying problems affecting community members. The current funding system is problematic, as it seeks to profit with the lives of 2LGBTQIA+ people and makes it difficult for smaller organization to get funding.”
Gender DynamiX noted its members “suggested an online toolkit for both business and organizations, setting out how partnerships can help support and sustain the cause without exploiting beneficiaries in the process.”
“Nevertheless, 2SLGBTQIA+ people should also be empowered during these business collaborations, and 2SLGBTQIA+ people in workspaces should use their power to push for the representation and values based on inclusion and equity,” said the group. ” 2SLGBTQIA+ organizations also need to hold themselves accountable. Toxic work environments, internal power-plays, overworking, hierarchal flow of work and lack of compensation undermine the wellbeing of 2SLGBTIA+ activists in organizations.”
Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals of Botswana (LEGABIBO) also welcomed the conference, and even took note of their visit to Robben Island where former South African President Nelson Mandela spent 18 years in prison.
“We had such an eventful day on Africa Day at the Robben Island Museum,” said LEGABIBO. “This visit was a reminder of how Black people have always had to be resilient in the face of adversity, something that black 2SLGBTQIA+ communities can relate with.”
Kopano organizers also thanked those who attended and paid tribute to activists, especially South African advocate Phumi Mtetwa.
“Thank you all, for making Kopano 2022 a great moment to reconnect and renew our movement,” they said. “As Kopano 2022 came to a close, the southern African 2SLGBTQIA+ activist community gathered in Cape Town paid tribute to our living legend, Phumi Mtetwa. There are a few activists about whom this is truer than Phumi. Her entire being sings, vibrates, reverberates with unbridled love for humanity. Never flinching from dissenting or being critical or questioning but always moved by a great love of justice, fairness, and equality, accompanied by huge doses of laughter and a welcoming smile. She represents for many of us, a bridge over troubled waters and always will. Fearlessly but humbly leading from the front, the side and the rear.”
“To know Phumi is to taste, smell and to touch the society so many of us are struggling for,” added the organizers. “From her work in the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality (NCGLE) in South Africa, the Equality Project, and in various international organizations and in her personal relations Phumi tirelessly and relentlessly tries to bring everyone on board, sometimes at great cost and sacrifice to herself and her interests. Self-sacrifice is not what she is known to shy away from, giving, sharing and genuinely caring for her comrades, friends and family is what Phumi excels at. Organizing is in her DNA, so she is never satisfied to stop at merely strategic thinking which she has shown herself to be very capable of. We honor you, Phumi Mtetwa, for all that you have done to advance our organizing freedom and wellbeing in southern Africa as 2SLGBTQIA+ people.”
Jholerina Timbo, co-chair of the Transgender Movement of Namibia, was also honored.
Timbo founded Wings to Transcend Namibia in 2015 and was involved in the creation of the Southern African Trans Forum, the International Trans Forum and the African Trans Network. Timbo has also worked with PEPFAR-funded programs and is currently a senior advisor for groups on how they can expand their health programs to better reflect human rights needs.
“She believes that inclusive societies are the key to success for southern Africa,” said the Other Foundation. “If any country needs to show that they care about their people, it should start with the minority. We honor you, Jholerina Timbo, for all that you have done to advance our organizing freedom, and wellbeing in southern Africa as 2SLGBTQIA+ people.”
Daniel Itai is the Washington Blade’s Africa correspondent.
Ghana
Ghanaian lawmakers approve anti-LGBTQ bill
Measure that would criminalize allyship awaits president’s signature
Ghanaian lawmakers on Friday approved a bill that would, among other things, criminalize LGBTQ allyship.
Reuters reported MPs approved the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2025, in a voice vote after parliament’s Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee backed it.
MPs in 2024 approved a similar bill, but it faced legal challenges and then-President Nana Akufo-Addo didn’t sign it. Lawmakers last year reintroduced the measure after President John Dramani Mahama took office.
The bill awaits his signature.
Rightify Ghana, a Ghanaian LGBTQ advocacy group, in a series of social media posts notes MPs passed the bill days before the 4th African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Values and Sovereignty will take place in Accra, the country’s capital.
Kenya
Kenyan High Court issues landmark transgender rights ruling
Government ordered to allow trans people to amend ID documents
Kenya’s High Court has ruled the country’s government cannot refuse requests to amend gender markers on birth certificates and other ID documents.
Audrey Mbugua, a prominent transgender activist, and two other people in 2020 sued Attorney General Dorcas Oduor, the Registrar of Births and Deaths, the National Registration Bureau, and Immigration Services Director General Evelyn Cheluget after they did not receive amended birth certificates.
The Washington Blade previously reported the three plaintiffs argued documents that do not correspond with their gender identity “has denied them opportunities and rights.” Oduor, for her part, in response to the plaintiffs’ claims argued “a person’s gender is based on fact — not feelings — and the plaintiffs at birth were registered and named based on their gender status.”
High Court Justice Bahati Mwamuye ruled on May 20.
“The silence and delay cannot defeat rights,” ruled the court, according to the Daily Nation, a Kenyan newspaper. “Constitutional rights cannot be delayed over administrative convenience.”
The court in 2014 ordered the Kenya National Examinations Council to change Mbugua’s name on her academic diplomas and to remove the male gender marker from them.
Kenya’s intersex rights law took effect in 2022. The government in February 2025 announced intersex people can receive birth certificates with an “I” gender marker.
The Daily Nation notes Mwamuye ordered the Registrar of Deaths and Births and other government agencies to “begin receiving and considering applications for gender-marker changes within” 60 days.
“Access to legal identity documentation is not just a human rights issue; it is a foundational pillar of socio-economic inclusion,” said the Initiative for Equality and Non-Discrimination, a Kenyan advocacy group, in response to the ruling. Without accurate IDs or passports, individuals face severe barriers to employment, financial systems, global business travel, and participation in governance and democratic processes.”
“This ruling marks a critical step forward in reducing administrative discrimination and fostering an inclusive environment where every Kenyan citizen’s legal identity aligns with their dignity,” added INEND.
Outright International, a New York-based global LGBTQ and intersex advocacy group, in a statement described Mwamuye’s ruling as “a meaningful shift towards aligning Kenya’s legal framework with constitutional guarantees of equality, privacy, and human dignity. Outright International also applauded Mbugua and other activists who fought for this change.
“Today, we celebrate a milestone — one achieved through resilience, solidarity, and an unwavering belief in justice,” said the group. “Outright International stands with transgender and intersex Kenyans in honoring this victory and reaffirming our commitment to advancing rights, recognition, and equality for all.”
Ghana
Intersex lives, constitutional freedom, and the dangerous future of Ghana’s Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill
Lawmakers continue to consider draconian measure
There is a dangerous silence surrounding intersex lives in Ghana — a silence shaped by fear, misinformation, cultural misunderstanding, and institutional neglect. Today, amid discussions around the possible passage of the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2025, that silence risks becoming law, reinforcing exclusion and deepening the marginalization of already invisible lives.
Much of the national debate surrounding the bill has focused on LGBTQ+ identities. Yet buried within it are implications for intersex persons that many Ghanaians do not fully understand because intersex realities remain largely invisible.
Intersex persons are born with natural variations in chromosomes, hormones, reproductive anatomy, and/or genital characteristics that do not fit typical definitions of male or female bodies. Intersex is not a sexual orientation or gender identity. It is a biological reality. Ghana’s Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) has clearly acknowledged this distinction.
Despite this distinction, the bill mistakenly collapses intersex realities into a legal framework linked to LGBTQ+ criminalization.
Although the bill contains only limited references to intersex persons, under certain medical exceptions, these references do not amount to recognition or protection. Instead, they frame intersex bodies as abnormalities requiring regulation, correction, and institutional management. This approach is inconsistent not only with Ghana’s constitutional guarantees of dignity, equality, privacy, and liberty, but also with emerging African and international human rights standards. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Resolution on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Intersex Persons in Africa – ACHPR/Res.552 (LXXIV) 2023 affirms protections relating to bodily integrity, dignity, freedom from discrimination, and against harmful medical practices. Additionally, the United Nations has repeatedly condemned medically unnecessary and non-consensual interventions on intersex children. Rather than affirming the humanity and autonomy of intersex persons, the bill risks legitimizing systems of surveillance, coercion, violence, and institutional erasure.
This is not protection.
It is managed erasure.
A child born intersex in Ghana already enters a society shaped by secrecy and stigma. Families are often pressured to hide intersex children or seek “correction” to make their bodies conform to social expectations.
The bill risks intensifying this pressure.
Clause 17 creates space for “approved service providers” to support interventions relating to intersex persons, yet offers little protection around informed consent, bodily autonomy, confidentiality, or coercive treatment. Under the language of “correction” or “support,” harmful interventions may become normalized.
The intersex community has documented painful lived experiences of intersex Ghanaians that reveal the devastating consequences of stigma and invisibility.
One heartbreaking case involved intersex twins born in Ghana’s Eastern Region in 1993, who were repeatedly forced to move from village to village because of rejection and ridicule. After losing their father, their main source of protection and support, they became even more vulnerable and reportedly experienced severe emotional distress, including suicidal thoughts linked to years of stigma and exclusion. This is what invisibility looks like in practice.
Another painful example is the story of Ativor Holali, whose lived experience exposed the cruel realities intersex persons face in sports and public life. Ativor Holali endured invasive scrutiny, public humiliation, and social suspicion because her body did not conform to rigid expectations of femininity. Rather than being protected as a Ghanaian athlete deserving dignity and privacy, she became the subject of speculation, gossip, and institutional discomfort.
Her experience reflects a broader social crisis: when society insists that every body must fit a narrow binary definition, intersex people are forced to defend their humanity in spaces where dignity should already be guaranteed.
Intersex Persons Society Of Ghana (IPSOG)’s Ŋusẽdodo research further revealed that approximately 70 percent of intersex respondents reported depression, anxiety, trauma, or severe emotional distress linked to medical mistreatment, family rejection, bullying, and social exclusion.
The bill risks transforming these existing prejudices into institutional policy. Several provisions risk deepening surveillance, restricting advocacy, weakening confidentiality, and discouraging public education around intersex realities. Intersex-led organizations providing healthcare guidance, legal referrals, psychosocial support, and community services may face serious challenges.
This places IPSOG and other intersex-led organizations in Ghana at serious risk.
For many intersex Ghanaians, these spaces are not political luxuries.
They are survival mechanisms.
Governments derive legitimacy by protecting the natural rights of all persons, including dignity, liberty, bodily autonomy, and freedom from arbitrary interference. The bill raises concerns because it risks weakening these protections for intersex persons through surveillance, coercive interventions, and restrictions on advocacy.
Ghana’s Constitution declares that “the dignity of all persons shall be inviolable.” Articles 15, 17, 18, and 21 specifically protect dignity, equality, privacy, expression, and freedom of association. These protections should apply equally to intersex persons.
Intersex persons are not threats to Ghanaian culture.
Intersex children are not moral dangers.
Intersex bodies are not political weapons.
They are human beings deserving dignity, healthcare, safety, and constitutional protection.
The true measure of a democracy is how it protects those most vulnerable to exclusion. At this moment, Ghana faces a choice: deepen fear and silence, or uphold dignity, bodily autonomy, and constitutional freedom for intersex persons.
History will remember the choice we make.
Fafali Delight Akortsu is the founder and president of the Intersex Persons Society of Ghana (IPSOG).
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