Stella Nyanzi is a Ugandan medical anthropologist, feminist, queer rights activist, and scholar who has conducted extensive research on African sexualities in Uganda and the Gambia that has informed some of the strategies she uses in her political and sexual rights activism. She has authored and co-authored more than fifty papers on different aspects of sexualities, for instance sex work, HIV and AIDS, and homosexuality. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication and Literature (Makerere University, 1993 to 1996), a Master of Science in Medical Anthropology (University College, 1999 to 2000), and a PhD in Anthropology (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 2003 to 2008). She has worked in the Gambia (as Local Anthropologist at the Medical Research Council Laboratories) and in Uganda (as a Researcher at the Law, Gender and Sexuality Research Project, and as a Research Fellow at the Makerere Institute of Social Research, MISR, Makerere University). In 2017, she was suspended by Makerere University after she staged a naked protest against Professor Mahmood Mamdani, who closed her office when she refused to teach on the MISR PhD Programme. In December 2018, Makerere University dismissed her on the ground that her contract had expired. On 11 June 2020, the High Court of Uganda ordered Makerere University to reinstate her upon ruling that the academic institution was in contempt of its own staff Appeals Tribunal that had ruled against the suspension. Her work is widely cited. As of 28 February 2022, Google Scholar reported that her work had been cited by 1,992 people. Celia Murias Morcillo calls her ‘one of the most visible activists in her country’.

Her activism exemplifies the role women are playing in fighting repression and misrule in Uganda, not just in the political sphere where dissidents are detained, tortured, and prosecuted, but also in the social one where homosexuality is widely condemned and even criminalised, thereby violating LGBTIQA+ rights. This links her work with that of other great African women who have fought hard for the political, economic, and social welfare of their societies since precolonial times, including valiantly contributing to ‘resistance to colonial expansion’ and ‘the fight for independence’.

The main goal of this chapter is to reflect on Stella Nyanzi's Facebook work as a form of political participation in Uganda.