About Beyond the Stigma
Beyond the Stigma is a community-led digital health initiative that addresses HIV-related and sexual health-related stigma, misinformation, and discrimination experienced by Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Gender Non-Conforming (LBTQ-GNC) persons in Kenya.
The platform promotes accurate health information, peer support, mental well-being, and improved access to inclusive and affirming healthcare services, with a specific focus on queer women.
Project Background & Purpose
Despite the presence of HIV programming in Kenya, queer women remain largely invisible within prevention, care, and support frameworks. Health systems are often heteronormative and male-centered, resulting in queer women’s sexual and reproductive health needs being dismissed, misunderstood, or erased.
Beyond the Stigma was developed in response to these gaps. The project seeks to bridge systemic exclusion by providing accessible and accurate health information, strengthening peer-led psychosocial support, and improving linkages to healthcare services that are respectful and affirming.
Why the Focus on Queer Women
Queer women experience layered marginalization at the intersection of gender, sexuality, and health systems. Harmful myths surrounding queer women’s bodies and HIV risk contribute to inadequate information, delayed care, and unsafe healthcare encounters.
By centering queer women, Beyond the Stigma challenges this invisibility and creates safer spaces where their experiences, bodies, relationships, and health needs are recognized and affirmed.
Community-Led & Lived Experience Grounding
Beyond the Stigma is designed, implemented, and led by queer women with lived experience of navigating stigma, healthcare exclusion, and systemic violence.
This grounding ensures that the platform remains relevant, culturally responsive, and rooted in real community needs rather than assumptions. By prioritizing peer-to-peer education, storytelling, and mutual support, the project shifts power from institutions to the community.
Guiding Principles
Bodily Autonomy
Every individual has the right to make informed decisions about their body, health, and sexuality, free from coercion, judgment, or control.
Consent
Informed, enthusiastic, and ongoing consent is central to healthy relationships, ethical healthcare, and personal dignity.
Trauma-Informed Care
The project recognizes histories of stigma, discrimination, violence, and medical harm, and prioritizes safety, trust, choice, and empowerment.
Inclusivity & Dignity
Beyond the Stigma intentionally includes diverse queer women, including transgender, gender non-conforming, intersex, and non-binary persons.