FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

16 August 2012

Val Kalende. Click to download full-resolution image.

(NEW YORK, 16 August 2012)—"Gay Ugandans: Loud and Proud," an article by Val Kalende, a Ugandan LGBT activist, appeared in the Huffington Post on August 15th, 2012. It is available to you for reprint in part or whole. The encolsed photo of Val Kalende is available for your use. Val can be reached at vkalende@iglhrc.org

Gay Ugandans: Loud and Proud

http://huff.to/R5cZg4

Val Kalende, Ugandan LGBT Activist, Fellow, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission

About 10 years ago, when I first came out to my guardian and, later, to my closest colleagues at the Daily Monitornewspaper in Uganda, I was nothing short of terrified of losing both family and friends. As I had anticipated, declaring my love for fellow women got me my own share of homelessness, verbal abuse, and alienation, even from people I trusted the most. Abandoned as a teenager and forced into maturity at a tender age, I always believed in the transformative power of truth, because the truth, as they say, sets us free. My "coming out" story as a Pentecostal-raised Ugandan lesbian woman is no different from the story of the activists who marched at the first-ever LGBT Pride parade in Uganda on Aug. 4.

For the complete article, visit: Huffington Post Gay Voices

Val Kalende is a noted Ugandan activist for LGBT people. In 2003 Val helped launch Freedom and Roam Uganda, the only lesbian organization in Uganda, and is in the leadership of Sexual Minorities Uganda, a coalition of LGBT groups. She has played a key role as a writer, speaker, activist, community organizer, and builder within the LGBT movement in Uganda.

In 2010 Val travelled to the United States at the invitation of the U.S. Department of State to attend the International Visitor Leadership Program, an exchange tour on which she addressed LGBT issues in her country and the role of U.S. right-wing evangelicals in sponsoring homophobia in Africa.

A former writer for a national newspaper in Uganda and once jailed for campaigning for the inclusion of LGBT people in Uganda's national HIV/AIDS programs, Val provides updates and commentaries on the notorious anti-homosexuality bill, still being debated by the Ugandan government. Val is currently a doctoral student at the University of Britisch Columbia and is a Fellow for the Africa Program at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

For more information, contact:

Brian Tofte-Schumacher, brian@iglhrc.org or +1-212-430-6015

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), founded in 1990, is a leading international human rights organization dedicated to improving the lives of people who experience discrimination or abuse on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity or expression. We are dedicated to strengthening the capacity of the LGBT human rights movement worldwide to conduct documentation of LGBT human rights violations and by engaging in human rights advocacy with partners around the globe. We work with the United Nations, regional human rights monitoring bodies and civil society partners. IGLHRC holds consultative status at the United Nations as a recognized Non-Governmental Organization representing the concerns and human rights of lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender people worldwide. For more information about the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission visit: www.iglhrc.org.

---End---