“I believe that everyone deserves access to public healthcare services, regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation—without being judged, without being discriminated, where they feel safe,” says Tyler, a 23-year-old applied mathematics student and a micro-planner for the Sexual Rights Centre in Bulawayo
The Sexual Rights Centre in Bulawayo empowers people of diverse genders and sexual orientations. Founded in 2007, the Centre offers services throughout southern Zimbabwe. In 2023, it supported 23 836 people.
Musa Sibindi, the Centre’s Executive Director, says:
“We are contributing to SDGs 3 and 5 to ensure that as a country, the burden of new HIV infections is reduced.”
The Centre supports communities prioritized under the Fast-Track agenda and the Zimbabwe National Strategic Plan of Action. Many people in these communities face stigmatization and criminalization. The Centre works with peers and invites them to the Centre. People not comfortable attending a drop-in centre can request a service in their community or household. Musa describes the drop-in centres as “safe spaces for [people from] the diverse communities just to drop in, be themselves, and feel a sense of community and belonging”. The drop-in centres are recreational spaces, but they also offer in-house counsellors for psychosocial support; HIV prevention, gender equality and human rights programmes; solidarity circles for communities; and rapid response interventions to distress calls from people in the communities, including legal support.
Tyler is a 23-year-old applied mathematics student and a micro-planner for the Centre. He says: “I believe that everyone deserves access to public health- care services, regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation—without being judged, without being discriminated, where they feel safe.” Tyler shares information about HIV and mobilizes people to access services, peer-to-peer counselling, and condoms and other health commodities. “I see the impact of the work that we do in individuals and communities, and know that every day I go to work, I get a chance to save someone’s life.”
Taboka is a non-binary person who has been living with HIV for almost 19 years. “I was afraid of going because I wasn’t comfortable with myself. I wasn’t comfortable being in a space with a lot of queer people.” Once Taboka joined the Centre, they realized that they could live without depression and took control of their own health and life: “You meet a lot of new people, and you hear lots of different stories about queer people’s experiences. That is what really motivated me to learn to accept myself.”
Musa describes the Centre’s person-centred model: “The basket of services keeps being layered. The Centre is more than just service provision. Rights-holders come to play games and access information outside of clinical services. We define care to include all these things.”
Taboka is proud of changing people’s perception of gender diverse people and HIV. “We no longer see that face of HIV that used to terrify people. Now, HIV has a very different face. And that face is a healthy person, a person who has a family, who has HIV-negative children, a person who can go to school, get their PhD, someone who can start a family, someone who can do their hobby.”
Musa agrees: “Part of my greatest success is seeing the movements becoming stronger. And eight of them, last year, gained their autonomy from the Sexual Rights Centre. They are now independent organizations.”