African Trans Organizing

The transgender movement in Africa is relatively young but very vibrant. For many years, African trans people have been silenced within their communities, including in LGBT spaces and organizing.

Until 2008, Africa had only one transgender organization, Gender DynamiX (GDX), which was founded in July 2005 by Liesl Theron (Mama Trans) and Lex (who deserves to be called Papa Trans). Thanks to those 2. The organization, whose vision is to create awareness and visualize transgenderism has done a lot of work within South Africa and has in the past 3 years extended this to the rest of Africa. In fact many trans activists on the continent were inspired by GDX.

In 2008, Africa saw the emergence of a trans movement as well as more organizing. Thanks to GDX and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC). It kicked off with the formation of Transgender, Intersex and Transsexual (TITS-Uganda) and Transgender Education and Advocay (TEA) in Kenya.

Following the first African Gender Identity Workshop for East and Southern Africa held in Cape Town and organized by IGLHRC in collaboration with Gender DynamiX in December 2008, several other trans organizations have been established in the 2 sub regions;
- Trans Bantu in Zambia
- TAMON in Namibia
- The Rainbow Identity Association in Botswana

In addition to that, several LGBTI organizations have set up Transgender Desks. Among them are; Freedom and Roam Uganda (FARUG), Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) while others give support to trans organizations and individuals (Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya, Outright Namibia, Lambda in Mozambique, among others).