From experience, as a gay person in Nairobi, I'd say, it’s bittersweet, but mostly on the bitter side.
Well, for stigma I’ve faced a series of stigma, as a gay man, first of all, and a little bit of feminine presenting, there's a lot of, how they put it I don't know, badmouthing, those small small words that were put up behind your back thinking that you're not hearing.
I've had that. I've also been, raided in my home. And I was arrested, for the allegations of being a queer. I've also been evicted. Those are just, some of the forms of stigma faced.
I've grown thick skin and endurance. I'm not the same person I was before. If it was a couple of years back, I'd say it would have affected me so badly because then my mental health was not really doing well due to the stigma and discrimination I was facing as a queer person.
I am majorly focused in the HIV space. I am an HIV champion, openly living with HIV by the way.
I'd say the point of living authentically myself is what really drives me. And the fact that I realized that I do not have to prove anything to anyone for me to be able to live.
First, before I got to know about the queer friendly drop-in centres that we have in Nairobi, … I didn't used to go to any place to seek any sexual reproductive health.
I used to keep to myself or treat myself through the chemist. That was around the time I got infected with HIV. But after that, I'd say it's become easy for me. And also another fact that I am an advocate for sexual and reproductive health,
I'd say it's easy for me to access because I know what I'm going to access and I know how to ask for what I want to access.
The queer friendly spaces or the drop-in centres that serve gay people, I’d say they’re knowledgeable about the health of LGBTQI persons.
But if you come to the other side to the general public hospitals, that is when we have a problem because we still have stereotypes and we still have health providers who are still stuck in those back days, they still do not understand what LGBTQI people need for their sexual reproductive health. Mostly for trans people, that’s where we have a problem.
For instance, I'm a trans person and I go to a public hospital, I give them identification. It shows a different name from what they're saying. That in itself becomes a problem. You know, there's so this frustrates me. And now I'm back to the stereotyping and the stigma.
After I got infected, I was accessing my medication from a public hospital. First of all, I'm feminine presenting, even if I'm wearing masculine presenting clothes, it still has its way of showing, they used to use those certain eyes of maybe there's something missing, but we're not seeing it.
And every time I ask for condoms, then they really pressure me to bring my partner thinking that my partner was female.
There's a lot of information, but not all of it is correct information about HIV prevention and all these other services.
For those that are facing stigma or internalized stigma, I'd say I know it's not an easy route. It's never easy. But the most important thing is that you have first of all to learn to love yourself first.
Learn to care about yourself. Learn to care about what you think, not what others think. In anything that you do, do it for yourself first before you do it for any other person. And it's not really anyone's business who you are sleeping with. It's typically your own business. So just be you, love you and be queer and proud.
