Kasha Nabagesera

Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera (also known as Jacqueline Kasha) (born 1980) is a Ugandan LGBTQ rights activist and the founder and executive director of the LGBT rights organisation Freedom & Roam Uganda (FARUG). She received the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders in 2011 and the Right Livelihood Award in 2015. Nabagesera explained it set a precedence as an attempt to protect “privacy and the safety we all have against incitements to violence”. Kato was later killed following the legal battle with the publication.

In 2013 Nabagesera founded a magazine, Bombastic, with writing from LGBT Ugandans about the discrimination they had experienced.

Awards

Velvetpark magazine, an international queer women's magazine, described Nabagesera as a "Braveheart” and voted her the most inspiring queer woman in the world in 2010.

In 2011, Nabagesera was named in the centenary celebration of International Women's Day. That same year she was a guest speaker at the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy. Nabagesera was listed among the 50 most inspiring Feminist Women in Africa in 2011 and is the first gay rights activist to receive the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders.

In December 2024, Nabagesera was included on the BBC's 100 Women list.