Blessol Gathoni
Blessol Gathoni is Queer Social Rights Activist, Community Organizer and HR Advisor within the LGBTIQ community and Bunge La Wamama Mashinani. She has been involved in handling pertinent issues around class and economic oppression within her community and linking it to the wider socio- economic struggles in Kenya. Her interest has keenly been working in the grassroots by being part and parcel of the struggles within and acquiring in depth understandings of what capacities one has to exercising their own freedoms and sexualities based on the class and gender they are assigned.
Due to this work, she has received death threats, and recently her house once ransacked by security agents who wanted information on documentation of land injustices in Ruiru, a town in Kiambu county. She has also faced various threats as a result of her being at the forefront of LGBTI organising initiatives in Nairobi, Nakuru and Mombasa area.
Human rights defenders working with sexual minorities’ rights have become victims of instigations by politicians and religious leaders. There have been incidents of community violence following anti-gay statements delivered by religious leaders and requests of closure of organisations working on research and treatment of HIV/AIDS. Prominent HRDs vocal on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights have faced stigmatisation and smear campaigns, which resulted in increasing difficulties in their day-to-day life.
