On 10th September 2021, we organized a food rive that saw 60 plus women, trans and gnc persons come to get food. This project has been on going since last year when covid 19 hit and has seen us be able to support over 500 women, trans and gnc persons with both food packages and financial support to clear/sort things like rent.
Here are pictures from the awesome event! If you would like to be part of it next time, please watch out for our posts!
Posted by Afrika
What happens when your abuser is woke, queer and a radical feminist who shares safe spaces with you? Do you call them out on their shit and If you’ve done so, what was the reaction from your community? Did they label it is as a ‘personal’ issue the two of you needed to solve and then went on to pretend they dealt with it? Did these identities, complex and intricately intertwined excuse their behavior? I feel like these interrelated issues of sexism, internalized misogyny and homophobia in queer circles are so rampant that it’s unsurprising that women, trans people and gender non conforming persons are abused physically and emotionally by fellow activists with whom they work with on various projects, people who then, in turn, take to social media to passionately defend the rights of queer persons, very similar to the ones they abuse. I know of relationships in activist spaces where physical and emotional abuse is talked about in hushed tones because all of a sudden, it’s something that is happening amongst us.
It really saddens me that when victims try to speak about the abuses they go through at the hands of ‘woke’ individuals, they will be shunned within their circles: some being told to get over it, focus on “real” misogynistic assholes like prominent political figures that blatantly disrespect queers while others will tell them to not let their ‘personal problems’ get in the way of ‘doing work’.
“How safe is safe?”
This is a question most of us ask jokingly when we are with heterosexual people. Often times, it comes out as dramatic and a bit exaggerated but thinking about it, I am realizing that it’s valid and very necessary. How safe are spaces that are exclusively queer? I know a lot of us want to believe that activist queers really are different from the patriarchy and violence apologists we confront in our daily lives. We want to have some faith that this lesbian who takes to the internet write a blog on sexism is not writing it just to make herself look good, to get laid or to cover up some of her extremely dangerous practices towards other queer women. We want to believe it is because she truly believes in queers being respected in their entirety. We want to believe that if a feminist makes an unwarranted advance towards a lady or physically/sexually assaults an activist woman, it would promptly and thoughtfully be dealt with by organizations and communities they belong in. We want to think their organizations or circles are not so easily enticed by the skills that these activists brings to a project that they are willing to let women be abused or have their recovery go unaddressed in exchange for their ideas.
We would like to think that “security culture” in activist circles mainly focuses around how to deal with misogyny, patriarchy and heterosexism both outside of and within the activist scenes.
How about activist women who troll safe spaces like predators looking for women they can manipulate or fuck without accountability? Like abusive priests, these women literally move from group to group, looking to recreate themselves and find fresh meat among those who don’t know them. How about activist women who give their labor and skills to other women (often times, holding positions higher than them) in hopes that the abusive activist woman will finally get her act right or appreciate her as the human being she is?
You know what’s sad?
The amount of support abusive activists find from other activists. Not only do victims have to confront and negotiate the presence of their abusers in activist circles, they must usually do so in a community that rants too much but in the end could give a shit about the victims’ emotional and physical safety.
How many times do you have to listen to women’s stories of abuse being retold by activist women in a hostile manner, using a voice that is snide, accusatory and mocking? A voice which makes the victim seem like she is lying?
Their tone always reveals an attitude that assumes that if these women take issue with them, they are “crying abuse” to cover up hidden sexual desires and anger over being rejected by these women who “won’t fuck them.”
It’s sad that women’s physical and emotional safety is of little concern to queer activist groups.
When the issue is “addressed,” more often than not attention will be given to “struggling with” the other or probably having “beef” with the her instead of this woman being hurt.
The woman will always be labeled ‘unstable’, ‘crazy,’ ‘too emotional’ or a ‘bitter ex.’ People would prefer to help a cold, calculating bastard who can ‘keep it together’ while she abuses women rather than deal with the reality that abuse can contribute to emotional and social difficulties among victims as they work to become survivors.
All in all, these so called safe spaces aka activist groups for queer women are no safe space at all.
Queer women, even among their fellow women still live in fear of being abused because misogynists and abusive women exist and thrive within us. They feed of our silence as women.
These abusers use the language, tools of activism and support by other activists as means to abuse women and conceal their behavior.
At the end of the day, hurting at the expense of activism isn’t it tbh. Fuck being able to keep a conversation about women’s rights going on. Fuck abusers playing the victim. Fuck the silence that is caused by either fear or shame.
We are being abused in spaces where they ought to feel safe and thrive in and it is not funny at all.
Written by Nyar Afrika in 2017
Reposted in 2021 for kisumu feminists society
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We are a young feminist organization in kisumu Kenya that works with women, trans and gnc persons. Our work mostly entails sparking conversations around emerging issues and shedding light on them and this we do through advocacy both online and offline. We organize protests, create forums for conversations to happen in what we call Monthly Feminist Meetings and other events that highlight a particular topic with a specific list of demands for the government or other decision makers.
We are a membership organization and are currently at 60 members with our organization by run by Afrika, our coordinator cum Director.
Our first ever event was the Anti Femicide March in Kenya which was held in March 2019 and demanded that the government of Kenya declare Femicide an issue of national emergency. This protest that brought together several human rights organizations, activists and women leaders in government which was responsible for us getting the visibly we needed that day.
Since then, this March has provided us with an opportunity to organize and have structures that ensure the smooth running of our activities. Currently, KFS provides a platform that empowers women, trans and gnc persons from diverse backgrounds, those who normally don’t get a seat at the table to speak up about issues affecting ex. gender based violence and help provide spaces where these women can converge, converse and come up with strategies for dealing with these issues in a swift and effective manner.
Currently we have been having monthly feminist meetings that began as sessions sponsored by us in our own spaces but slowly graduated to bigger ones wit more attendance in our safe spaces. This began in October 2019 and has been going on strongly for the past one year. For 2021/2022 sessions, we are open to partnering with different organizations that have the same values and beliefs as us to work towards achieving a common goal as we believe in the power of the people and using available resources to bring about change. Please be on the look out for our sessions for 2021/2022!
For more information on how we can partner, Please email us on [email protected]
]]>We have sent care packages to 65 women in Kisumu and its environs with our last full donations being sent on April 8th after which we have had to pause for a while. More requests for food kept on coming yet we had no more items to give out as this situation worsened. This is why we are still seeking organizational support and working on providing something long term for 50 beneficiaries for say 5 to 6 months at most because Kenya as a country is asking us, people who survive from hand to mouth to stay at home without food and other essential items that will ensure their comfortable stay at home in the wake of this pandemic and social distancing. We currently have 40 plus more requests from women, trans and gnc persons in need of food, shelter, medicine and rent with some of them being young LBQ persons at a risk of going homeless after being outed to their parents therefore leaving them with no place to go to. We are looking for resources to buy these items and send them to their places while they are still available on the shelf for our main aim is making this covid 19 pandemic easier on our members who don’t have the financial privilege to access (read hoard) items like the rest. Our main priority will be immuncopromised queer folks, young LBQ mothers and LBQ and we would appreciate any donations sent our way right now.
Images from the COVID-19 Mutual Aid Drive, April 2020
Black women are faced with heighten forms of violence because of both their race and then that of them being women, this gets worse for women leaving in slums or rural areas because they don’t know much about their rights and they lack support systems to walk them through the knowledge and this is where this project has come in. Humanizing Black Female Bodies started because of the rising cases of violence against women in Kenya leading to deaths, Femicide. From women being stabbed, to women being hacked to death, Kenya has grown to be a very unsafe place for women, yet no or little action has been taken. On March 8th, International Women’s Day,
Humanizing Black Bodies moved from an online campaign to the street to demonstrate against Femicide under the slogan, Total Shutdown KE, and to present a petition to the president, judiciary and parliament to declare Femicide a national emergency, with over 35 cases reported by Counting Dead Women Kenya between January and April 2019.
Images from the Feminist Convening, September 2019
Images from the Anti Femicide March, March 2019
