Benedicta Oyedayo Oyewole
What does it mean to keep joy alive? What signals its presence? And how do we sustain it in a world that often seeks to diminish us?
These were the questions framing an evening of connection, reflection, and radical expression at an open mic event in Nairobi last Friday: Queer Joy as Resistance.
Hosted by the International Planned Parenthood Federation Africa Region (IPPF ARO) in collaboration with Pan Africa ILGA, ILGA World, Galck+, RHNK, and Feminist Opportunities Now, the event was more than a gathering; it was a deliberate act of defiance, choosing joy where fear seeks to root.
Why Joy Matters in Hostile Times
Across Africa, LGBTQI+ communities are navigating an era of intensifying hostility, fueled by a resurgent and well-funded and coordinated global anti-rights movement. These forces are relentless, seeking not only to criminalize and silence us but to erase the fullness of our identities, lives, and legacies.
In such times, joy is not frivolous. It is political. It is survival. It is defiance.
Pride looks different this year. With rollbacks of rights and the resurgence of anti-gender rhetoric deciding who is “worthy” of life and love, Pride 2025 carries both a heavy sigh and a fear of the unknown. Queer Joy as Resistance was created with intent: to remind us that African queers deserve joy too and joy we carry with us every step of the way.
IPPF ARO co-created this space to center the lived realities of those most impacted by shrinking civic spaces and anti-rights narratives. For LGBTQI+ communities across Africa, joy and belonginess are not luxuries; they are survival strategies. African queer joy exists 365/6 days a year, every day we love, create, and live fully, we declare: this is our Pride.
As Njeri*, a participant, said during the open mic:
“They want us to live in fear, but every time we dance, sing, and speak our truth, we remind them we are still here.”
Where Joy Took the Mic
The evening unfolded in a room alive with energy and color, where over 100 LGBTQI+ persons gathered to hold space for one another. The open mic became a stage for courage where voices, both soft and loud, trembling and steady, took the microphone and claimed visibility.
We heard slam poetry that shook the walls, songs that carried both grief and hope, and stories that affirmed the complexity of our identities. Each performance was a manifesto: a declaration that our existence is non-negotiable, that joy belongs to us even when systems insist otherwise.
As the space holder, Linda Pepper reminded us of a quote by writer and activist Alok Vaid-Menon:
“We deserve more than survival. We deserve to live, to love, to be soft, to be tender, to be joyous, to be complex, to be fully seen in our humanness.”
And in that room, these words felt tangible, woven into the laughter, the tears, the harmonies, and the affirmations shouted back from the crowd.
Joy and Care: Intertwined Acts of Resistance
Joy is not the absence of struggle; it is the insistence on life within it. But joy cannot be sustained in isolation; it thrives in the soil of care.
The interdependence of care is also the interdependence of learning. Caring for ourselves and our communities is not a destination but a continuous, evolving practice. We do not seek perfection, only the spaciousness to understand what we need, what we dream, and how we can hold one another as we move beyond survival.
Self-care and collective care are deeply linked. Self-care cannot thrive without collective care, and collective care becomes almost impossible when self-care is absent or deprioritized. Our movements have always been resilient in the face of adversity, creating unique ways to survive violence, oppression, and exclusion.
Yet, there is an urgent need to acknowledge, amplify, and radicalize traditional care practices, ensuring they are integrated into mainstream discourses on care. Spaces like this open mic embody care in action. Every poem, every song, every story shared was a gesture of care, holding us together even as the world seeks to tear us apart.
Carrying Joy Forward
This gathering was not just an event; it was a living example of what becomes possible when we come together: community as refuge, as resistance, as possibility.
Every song sung, every word spoken, every dance step marked an audacious claim:
We are here. We are alive. We choose joy.
If Queer Joy is Resistance, then creating and holding spaces like this is not optional; it is necessary. In times of heightened hostility, joy and care must remain at the center of our strategies for resilience and liberation.
So, we carry this forward not as a one-time event but as a movement. Because Joy is not what we find at the end of the road; it is what we bring with us every step of the way.
*Njeri — name has been changed to protect her privacy.
Benedicta Oyedayo Oyewole is the Community Engagement and Partnerships Lead at IPPF Africa
when
region
Africa
Subject
LGBTI+
