For nearly a decade, Kenya’s only church led and attended by L.G.B.T.Q. people has been chased out of one location after another. Vandals hit the first location, a center for sex workers, church members said. When they moved to Nairobi’s Central Park, the police arrested them. A city building barred them from entry, and at another site, neighbors attacked them with stones.
After 10 locations over 10 years as a fugitive church, they have finally found a sanctuary. But the site is a secret.
On a recent Sunday afternoon, down an empty street, in a room filled with nearly 100 worshipers who had been checked by a team of church members at the entrance, tears flowed freely as a pastor delivered his sermon: “Family may kick you out, and the church you once attended could not understand that kind of expression, demonizing your life,” preached the pastor, as murmurs of recognition rippled through the congregation.
“But today,” the pastor’s voice rose with conviction, “I found a place for you in the Bible. Praise the Lord!”
“Amen,” the congregation cheered in unison.
Many in the room fled neighboring countries where being L.G.B.T.Q. is so dangerous it can be fatal. This weekly service is their chance to worship openly, embracing both their faith and their gender and sexual identities.
A wave of anti-gay sentiment has recently surged across parts of Africa. Uganda led the charge with a revised anti-gay law, passed in March 2023, and politicians have openly called for gay people to be killed. Rwanda has seen attacks, while Tanzania’s authorities have conducted arrests.
Kenya is considered more tolerant than its neighbors. While same-sex relations are technically illegal, they are rarely prosecuted, and advocacy organizations maintain a strong presence. But activists say that even Kenya has grown more hostile since 2022, when President William Ruto, an evangelical Christian, took office.
After Kenya’s Supreme Court allowed a gay rights group to register legally in 2023, Mr. Ruto declared: “We respect the Supreme Court verdict, but homosexuality is unacceptable.” He added that it “goes against the country’s cultures and religious beliefs.”
Despite years of persecution, the L.G.B.T.Q. congregation in Nairobi has survived and grown, sustained mostly by private donations. Attendance ranges from 50 to as many as 200 worshipers. Leaders of religious and advocacy organizations said it is the only church in Kenya created by and for L.G.B.T.Q. people and supporters.
Most members of the congregation declined to be quoted, fearing both government retaliation and family pressure to undergo practices that claim to “cure” people of homosexuality.
The pastor refused to be identified because he said his life had been threatened and he had faced intimidation online and at work.
One member of the congregation, Atwine Kyeyune, said she barely survived last year when neighbors dragged her from her home in Uganda, beat her, and prepared to put a tire around her neck and burn her alive. Neighbors who alerted the police saved her life.
Ms. Kyeyune, who identifies as a transgender woman, fled Uganda by bus in the middle of the night. When she reached Nairobi, she was greeted by a refugee friend who introduced her to the church.
“When I attended for the first time, it was the Easter service, and I felt like I could be myself,” said Ms. Kyeyune, who wears mascara and beaded necklaces with defiance.
Another pastor, Caroline Omolo, who uses the pronouns “they/them,” helped establish the congregation over a decade ago. They remember its humble beginnings in 2013, when it was just a group of young Kenyans who felt alienated from their churches.
“At that point, we felt the Bible was punishing, so we didn’t want to touch it,” Pastor Omolo recalled. “We would just come together, search for affirming scriptures on YouTube, listen to gospel songs, and listen to one another.”
The informal gatherings became more structured after the group met Bishop Joseph W. Tolton of the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, an organization headquartered in California of primarily African American Christian leaders who promote inclusive worship.
Bishop Tolton first traveled to Uganda in 2010 to speak out against anti-gay legislation. He said in a recent video interview, “I connected with the L.G.B.T.Q. struggle in the African context in ways I had never imagined.”
He then took his work to Kenya and Rwanda, holding church services and teaming up with clergy members and activists. He encouraged Pastor Omolo and others to organize as a church.
They held their first official service in September 2013, singing hymns and traditional Kenyan songs, accompanied by a keyboard and drums.
In February 2014, when Uganda’s president signed a bill that punished same-sex acts with life in prison and required people to report anyone suspected of being gay, the Kenya congregation became both a sanctuary and social lifeline for L.G.B.T.Q. Ugandans who fled across the border.
Kasaali Brian Sseviiri, a Ugandan transgender woman and traditional dance performer, fled the country the month the bill was passed. She quickly became one of the church’s most dedicated members, and encouraged others to join.
Ms. Sseviiri said that in the church she felt free. But outside, it was a different story. “I never felt safe in Kenya,” she said. She now lives in a shelter for gay and transgender refugees with Ms. Kyeyune.
Every Sunday afternoon, a choir leads the congregation in gospel and traditional African songs and dances.
The sacred texts are mainly Christian, but sometimes come from other faiths, including Islam. The pastor often shares Bible passages that he says indicate acceptance of gay and transgender people. One Sunday, he cited Mark 14:13-15, where Jesus instructs his disciples to find “a man carrying a jar of water” — a task that in Africa is traditionally assigned to women.
Once, they held what they called a “queer communion,” serving Kenyan mandazi — fried dough — and wine on a rainbow tablecloth.
The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries has created similar congregations in Rwanda and Uganda, but the Ugandan congregation went entirely online after an even harsher anti-gay bill was passed in March 2023. This prompted a new wave of refugees to seek sanctuary in Kenya.
Last year, lawmakers from more than a dozen African countries met in Uganda and discussed introducing legislation to crack down on L.G.B.T.Q. people.
Kenya is one of the handful of countries in Africa that offers asylum based on gender and sexual orientation. But under President Ruto’s government, lawmakers have pushed for new anti-L.G.B.T.Q. legislation, including a recent bill that would give citizens power to arrest people suspected of being gay.
The Kenya Christian Professional Forum, a powerful organization that describes itself as a research, mentorship and advocacy group, is also proposing a bill to codify that the country will never recognize same-sex marriage. Augustine Armadillo, the organization’s family project officer, described gay rights as a “pandemic.”
“We are proposing remedial measures, not punitive measures,” Mr. Armadillo said, to “help people return to heterosexual relationships.”
The pastor of the L.G.B.T.Q. church said he had experienced just such an intervention.
Just over a decade ago, when he was 17, members of his own church forced him to kneel and threw oil and holy water on him, he said. They struck him, claiming to “beat the gay demon out.” He was handed a microphone and made to renounce his homosexuality and declare that he was “a new creation in Christ.”
These scenes still haunt him.
Eventually, no longer able to live with the internal conflict, he left his church. During the pandemic, he discovered the inclusive church, and now leads most of their services.
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