#SAYNOTOHOMOPHOBIA | SMUG🏳️‍🌈 @SMUG2004

Happy Pride Month ❤️🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ This week, we asked members of our community what queer joy looks like in their lives and why celebrating it matters. Here’s what they had to say. Queer joy is sitting at a fireplace sharing stories, hearty laughter and healing your inner child as you bask in the parts you kept closeted for so long; finally feeling like you belong. It’s having a community that sees and affirms your identity and never requires that you dim or mask it. Our stories are often told for us through a prejudiced lens. It’s important that we celebrate and tell stories that remind us that queerness is love, belonging and acceptance. -Shadè

Happy Pride Month ❤️🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ This week, we asked members of our community what queer joy looks like in their lives and why celebrating it matters. Here’s what they had to say. As a gay man webbed in patriarchy, queer Joy for me is simply accepting myself to love regardless of the fetters the world around me places upon how to love. Celebrating Pride is a bold statement of protest to the boxes society places around us and themselves. Post pride, bigots come to the realization that they didn’t die at the wake of queerness.

Happy Pride Month ❤️🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ This week, we asked members of our community what queer joy looks like in their lives and why celebrating it matters. Here’s what they had to say. This Pride Month, I’m reminded that joy itself can be a powerful form of resistance. As a Ugandan queer woman, I have learned that choosing joy in the face of exclusion, fear, and discrimination is not an act of denial—it is an act of defiance. Joy helps us endure, connect, and imagine futures beyond survival. Every shared laugh, every new connection, every moment of queer love and community becomes a reminder that our lives are more than the challenges we face. Pride is more than a celebration; it is a declaration that we deserve happiness, belonging, and the freedom to live authentically. Through joy, we reclaim our power, nurture hope, and hold on to the possibility of futures where our communities can thrive with dignity, love, and justice. And so, my wish this Pride Month is simple: that something gay happens—in the old sense of the word, something happy, bright, and full of joy. Samantha

Happy Pride Month ❤️🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ This week, we asked members of our community what queer joy looks like in their lives and why celebrating it matters. Here’s what they had to say. Queer joy to me to looks like being able to hold hands and kiss my partner in public without having to look over my shoulder. Being secure in the knowledge that my existence is not a crime, abomination or as they call it 'a sin'. Living peacefully in my society without the worry of misconceptions about me. Being able to be a parent without it being a stain to societal norms. Just being queer without having to worry about society calling it queer and unusual. Dracula

Happy Pride Month 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️❤️❤️ We asked; What does Pride mean to you as an LGBTQ+ person living in Uganda, and how has that meaning been shaped by your experiences. Pride, to me as a queer person living in Uganda, is not a parade or a party , it is a profound and deeply personal act of survival, resistance, and self-reclamation. Growing up and living in a context where my existence is criminalized, where my queerness and my faith are weaponized against me, and where visibility can cost you your safety, your family, and your community, Pride has come to mean the radical courage to say I am here, I am whole, and I refuse to disappear. My identity as a queer faith activist has been shaped by the specific tension of navigating spaces (religious social, and legal) that were never built to hold me, and yet I have had to find belonging within and beyond them. Self-acceptance, for me, has not been a moment of celebration but a long, sometimes painful excavation of my own worth from beneath layers of shame imposed by a society that continues to debate whether I deserve to exist. And yet, every time I show up openly in activist work, in faith spaces, in public life I am not just surviving; I am holding a door open for every young Ugandan queer person who believes they are alone. Pride, shaped by my experiences here, means choosing, against every pressure to shrink, to live loudly, love faithfully, and belong unapologetically to myself first.

Happy Pride Month 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️❤️❤️ We asked; What does Pride mean to you as an LGBTQ+ person living in Uganda, and how has that meaning been shaped by your experiences. “Pride, to me, is the choice to keep showing up as myself in a place where authenticity can come at a cost,it is resilience, survival, community, and hope. Pride is not something I perform for the world. It’s a quiet yet defiant act of refusing to disappear. It is choosing to exist fully despite fear, uncertainty, or rejection. Over time, Pride has come to mean dignity,the belief that I deserve to live, love, and belong just and in the hope that a more just and compassionate future is possible for all of us.” Inno

Happy Pride Month 🏳️‍🌈🌈🏳️‍⚧️❤️❤️ We asked; What does Pride mean to you as an LGBTQ+ person living in Uganda, and how has that meaning been shaped by your experiences. “Pride is not noise. It is knowing who you are and refusing to shrink.” Monalisa Akintole

Happy Pride Month 🏳️‍🌈🌈🏳️‍⚧️ We asked; What does Pride mean to you as an LGBTQ+ person living in Uganda, and how has that meaning been shaped by your experiences Pride to me means surviving in a world that was seemingly not built for me and still choosing to live authentically. After being outed, I learnt how quickly acceptance can disappear. But also I learned how powerful community, resilience, and self-love can be. Pride is a reminder that despite every attempt to silence us, we are still here, still worthy and still dreaming of a better future. Arnie Yana✨

Happy pride month 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🌈🌈❤️❤️ We asked; What does Pride mean to you as an LGBTQ+ person living in Uganda, and how has that meaning been shaped by your experiences? “Pride means acceptance and belonging; it might not be loud or public but it exists in more ways than one. It has helped me understand the importance of acceptance and showing up; we don’t know how much of an inspiration or ray of hope we are for someone struggling with acceptance and finding where they belong. So for each room we step in, each petition we sign, each workshop we attend, each policy and research we contribute to; each chosen family gathering we attend and above all for simply existing in love and kindness- we present the fact that we Exist, we Belong, we Matter and we are not alone.” Wan #happypridemonth🏳️‍🌈

#Happypridemonth🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ We asked; What does Pride mean to you as an LGBTQ+ person living in Uganda, and how has that meaning been shaped by your experiences? Pride, for me, is not just a celebration it is survival, resistance, and self-affirmation. As an LGBT person in Uganda, Pride means daring to exist authentically in a society that often tells me I shouldn't. It is the courage to claim space where silence is expected, and the determination to honor my truth even when it costs me family ties. Being disowned by my parents could have broken me, but my community became my adopted family. That act of love taught me that Pride is also about chosen kinship about finding belonging where blood ties fail. It shaped my resilience, reminding me that dignity is not granted by others but lived through self-acceptance. Finishing school, working in Africa's leading mental health organization, and building a life with momentum are all extensions of Pride. They show that my identity does not limit me but instead it fuels me. Pride has taught me to transform rejection into purpose and to use my voice to advocate for compassion, safety, and authenticity. So Pride to me is the rhythm of my life a refusal to shrink, a celebration of chosen love and a commitment to walk with my head high in a world that often tries to bend it low. EVE

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Happy Pride Month🌈🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 Pride to me means family, resilience, happiness, and hope for a better future. As a trans person living in Uganda, Pride is not only a celebration of who we are but also a reminder of our strength in the face of challenges. My experiences have taught me the importance of community, chosen family, and standing together in solidarity. Pride gives me hope that a future is possible where we can live openly, safely, and with dignity. It is a time to celebrate our existence, honor those who came before us, and continue working toward justice, inclusion, and liberation for all. #happypridemonth

folks, happy pride 🏳️‍🌈

PRIDE IN OUR WORDS Over the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing reflections and stories of Pride, Joy, Resilience, finding community and belonging, and imagining the future for LGBTQ+ persons in Uganda. #pridemonth 🏳️‍🌈🌈🏳️‍🌈🌈

happy pride month 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Happy Pride Month! We are celebrating love, diversity, and the identities that make our communities beautifully unique. Pride begins with being unapologetically you. Celebrate proudly. 🌈

🇬🇭 Ghana’s Anti-LGBTQ+ Bill The passage of this bill raises serious concerns about the rights, safety, and freedoms of LGBTQ+ people. SMUG stands in solidarity with LGBTQ+ communities in Ghana ✊🏾 Human rights belong to everyone. #WeStandWithGhana #LGBTQRightsAreHumanRights #SMUG.

PRESS RELEASE Rightify Ghana Raises Serious Concerns Over Exclusionary Public Hearing Process on Ghana’s ‘Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2025’ (Anti-LGBTQ Bill) The current approach creates the strong impression that the hearing process was treated largely as a...

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