Kasha Nabagesera

Grand Master Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera
Born	c. 1980 (age 36–37)
Nationality	Ugandan
Occupation	LGBT rights activist
Organization	Freedom & Roam Uganda
Awards	Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders

Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera (also known as Jacqueline Kasha) (born c. 1980) is a Ugandan LGBT rights activist. She is the founder and executive director of the LGBT rights organization Freedom & Roam Uganda (FARUG). and 2011 recipient of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders.

Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera was born in Kampala, Uganda, to Prince Albert Walugembe Musoke, who was an economist and officer of the Bank of Uganda and who later served as a Bank Vice President, and her mother, Julie Viola Katantazi Musoke was an among the first computer programmers in Uganda and also worked at Bank of Uganda where she trained other banking personnel throughout the country. She has one younger brother.

Kasha attended a number of schools, often being expelled because of her sexual orientation, or because she wrote love letters to other girls. She attended Gayaza Junior School, Maryhill High School, Mariam High School, and Namasagali College. Following High School, she enrolled at Nkumba University where she obtained an Accounting degree and her bachelor's degree in Business Administration. She then followed that with Diploma in Information Technology and a Certificate in Marketing from the New Vision Group in Kampala in 2004. In 2005 she enrolled at Human Rights Education Associates, a global human rights education and training centre based in Massachusetts for distance learners. She obtained a certificate in 2006 from the Johannesburg Media School for Journalism so that she could learn how to deal with media in a hostile work environment. She later trained activists at this school for activism from many African countries including Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uganda and others. In 2008 she became a trainer of trainees, obtaining a certificate from Frontline Human Rights Defenders in Dublin, Ireland.

Known as “Bombastic” to her many friends, Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera excelled in school in athletics and took home more than six awards for her achievements in the 100m, 200m and 400m relays as well as the high jump and long jump. She was also involved in the drama class, and was often assigned boys parts while in High School.

In addition to suspensions and expulsions from schools for openly living as a lesbian, Kasha was also caned (beaten with a cane or rod) beginning at the age of seven, and repeated many times in school for expressing her love for other girls. She was also the attempted victim of something called corrective rape, by male students at her school, the attempted undressing by male students to ascertain if she was in fact a girl and not a boy pretending to be a girl, and she was forced to dress in “gender appropriate” girls clothes and report to the administration at University who forbid her to wear baseball caps and any other clothing deemed suitable for boys. And the punitive measures continued unabated. She was also humiliated by a poster pinned on walls at the University proclaiming her as WANTED, displaying her picture and treating her as a common criminal, because of her same-sex attraction.

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