On days like today, IDAHOBIT (International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism and Transphobia), we don’t just raise flags and hashtags. We reclaim space. We tell the truth about our lives, our love, and the quiet revolutions happening in kitchens, matatus, WhatsApp groups, and under every roof that has dared to hold difference.
In East Africa, family has never looked one way.
It’s the grandmother who lets her grandchild dress as they please, even when the neighbours stare. It’s two queer people cobbling rent, risking violence just to build a life together. It’s a trans parent braiding their child’s hair before sunrise. It’s the cousin who hides your hormones in her makeup kit, no questions asked. It is the father who holds his trans son and affirms his unconditional love for him.
But even as we celebrate these everyday sanctuaries, there’s a growing storm. Across the region, powerful forces are organising armed not with facts but with fear, cloaked in the language of “values.” They’re hosting conferences in hotel ballrooms and parliamentary halls. They speak of “family values”, “concern for children”, but what they mean is erasure. What they mean is you and me, gone.
Last week, they met in Entebbe. This week, they’re in Nairobi. Soon, they’ll gather in Sierra Leone, then Rwanda, then Ghana. Different names. Same agenda: to criminalise love, pathologize gender identity, and dress oppression in kitenge and scripture.
These aren’t just meetings. They are war rooms.
And we, intersex, trans, queer, nonbinary, allies, believers in dignity, must be louder, sharper, more united than ever. Because while they rally to erase us, our families are living proof that we’re not going anywhere. We’ve always existed. We’ve always belonged. We’re sons and daughters, parents and siblings, aunties, uncles, carers, and kin. We raise children. We create homes. We survive generational trauma and still dare to love. We know, in our bones, what family means: inclusive, honest, and fiercely protective. We don’t need to fit into the mould, we are reshaping it.
So, today, let’s do more than mark IDAHOBIT. Let’s remember that the most radical thing we can do is love one another openly, organise strategically, and call out the violence that masquerades as morality.
A movement is only as strong as its stories, and ours are still unfolding.
We see you.
We believe in your family.
And we’re not letting go.
By Adrian King Kibe – Programme Consultant – EATHAN
