“Let’s Make Discrimination a Thing of the Past”: Lesotho Pride 2024

Saturday, 9th November 2024 – Outside the ‘Manthabiseng Convention Centre in central Maseru, a colourful crowd is beginning to assemble. Many are wearing rainbow-themed umbrella hats and waving mini rainbow flags. Others hold multi-coloured balloons and pose for selfies with pride flags draped around their shoulders.

The creative agency Sotho Kids is present among the crowd, with young women dressed in traditional thethana skirts and sandals that bear the colour of the Lesotho flag. Other attendees have ingeniously blended Basotho traditional wear with a pride theme: one person has adorned their miner’s hat, molamu stick, and gumboots with rainbow colours – and several others have come wearing traditional Basotho blankets. A brass band has started to play and the sound of music, shouts, and excited laughter fills the air.

Today is Lesotho Pride 2024, one of the biggest events of the year for the country’s queer community. Traditionally hosted by The People’s Matrix Association, Lesotho’s oldest LGBTQIA+ activist organisation, this year’s event is being co-hosted with two other Lesotho-based organisations: Queer Worx and the Rainbow Alliance of Lesotho. The event also forms part of a range of nationwide celebrations this year that mark the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Basotho nation.

“We’re really excited to be collaborating with two other LGBTQIA+ organisations today,” says Giselle Ratalane, Project Coordinator and Advocacy Officer at The People’s Matrix. “This unifies the movement and helps to showcase our diversity. It’s also important for us that this event is included in this year’s 200-year celebrations, because there’s often the sentiment that LGBTQIA+ identities are a foreign import, when in fact the anti-sodomy legislation that is still in place in the country today is an import of British colonial law. We’re working on getting Basotho to understand that we’ve always existed here, and it’s important for us to show up today and to attach ourselves to our national identity.”

“We’re planting a seed in people’s minds that we do exist,” Ratalane further explains, “and the hope is that this seed will grow into building a Lesotho that’s more tolerant and open-minded, so that people feel more confident and freer to come out. We’re working on changing both social acceptance and on building more progressive legislation in the country.”

The People’s Matrix recently celebrated their 15-year anniversary, and have worked tirelessly in the past decade and a half to sensitise individuals, communities, politicians, and decision makers to improve societal acceptance and legislation pertaining to Basotho LGBTQIA+ rights.

Two major highlights of the past year, according to Ratalane, have been successful changes made to the country’s Labour Code, which now criminalises discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation or gender identity, as well as positive lobbying with parliamentarians towards protecting intersex children from uninformed corrective surgeries until they come of age and are able to self-determine their own gender identities.

Despite these significant milestones, 2024 has also been a difficult and sad year for Lesotho’s queer community, with the untimely deaths of some community members, including the recent murder of the much-beloved Bathudacious Maphala, affectionately known as “the Catwalk Queen”, a transgender woman who was murdered in October. Maphala’s death is on the minds of many of the people I speak with as we prepare to begin our march. Aunty Botee, a 26-year-old transgender woman from Maseru with braided cornrows, hooped earrings, and a multi-coloured rainbow skirt, tells me that there are many other similar hate crimes that happen in the country, but that these often go unreported for fear of further discrimination from the police.

“We don’t really report,” she says. “Our community members have normalised this kind of violence because it’s something that has been going on for so long. This is why events like today are God-sent for us, because these are spaces of solidarity, where you can see that there are other LGBTQIA+ people in Lesotho. This plays a huge role in our mental health and our everyday lives. As you can see, people here today are free to be who they are, to embrace their identities.”

Thirty-three-year old Liteboho Mats’oso, dressed in an impeccable white blazer, feels slightly nervous as this is his first ever Pride march. Mats’oso, who is originally from Mafeteng, recounts that discrimination continues to be widespread in Lesotho and for most queer-identifying Basotho. “Every day is a battle,” he says. “Leaving the house is a struggle, because you know that as soon as you step out the door, you have to put your guard up. I’ve been called so many different names, ever since my primary school days. And by being here I feel like I’m openly declaring my identity, which is not easy. There are many closeted people who won’t come to the march at all today.”

Matty Monethi, a 27-year-old visual artist from Maseru, is also marching for the first time, and feels that Pride is an important occasion to celebrate and represent diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. “I identify as asexual,” Monethi says, “and it isn’t often that we see asexual identities represented at these events. I met another ace [asexual] person recently at a queer panel event in Maseru, and it was wonderful to connect with them. I think it’s important for people to know that we’re also here, we also exist, and we’re also part of the queer community in Lesotho.”

Led by the brass band, the march begins, as we make our way down the city centre’s Main South 1 Road. To the sounds of drums, trumpets, cheering, and car hooting, we are a blur of colour and noise as we walk on tarmac and pavements, bringing traffic to a standstill and attracting the curious gazes of many pedestrians and onlookers. When we get to the main traffic circle, with Maseru’s famous sandstone Our Lady of Victory Cathedral to our right, we veer left and walk up to join Mpilo Boulevard, which takes us to our final destination, Maseru Club, where a stage and tents have been set up for speeches, artist performances, and DJ sets that will last late into the night.

In between the pumping music, different speakers take to the stage shortly after we arrive. Bokang Bane, founder of Queer Worx, an organisation that advocates for the economic empowerment of LGBTQIA+ Basotho, reminds the audience that “nothing can be done in isolation” and of the importance of “unity and collaboration” in Lesotho’s LGBTQIA+ rights movement.

With the help of a sign language interpreter, Kelebohile Mavuso – from the National Association of the Deaf Lesotho – says that he is honoured to represent the deaf community at this year’s Pride Celebrations, as many deaf LGBTQIA+ Basotho tend to hide their identities because of the double discrimination that they face. “It’s important for me to come here because I can see myself and I’m accepted,” says Mavuso. “I’m hopeful for the increased inclusion of people with disabilities in the future, so that none of us are left behind.”

On the field surrounding the stage, more and more people are beginning to arrive, as they gather in groups around food and drinks stalls. As reflective of the extensive work that activists have done in the past few years to increase access to equitable healthcare for LGBTQIA+ Basotho, tents have also been set up by partners such as Sonke Gender Justice, USAID, and the Lesotho Planned Parenthood Association (LPPA).

Limpho Ntsihlele, who works with LPPA, explains that the organisation provides stigma-free healthcare services to LGBTQIA+ individuals, including HIV testing and counselling, sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services, and hormone therapy for transgender men. “We’re happy to be at this Pride event,” says Ntsihlele, “and we want to come again next year because discrimination against LGBTQIA+ people is still a problem in many health centres in Lesotho. At our facility, our clients don’t hide who they are anymore, and we accept people as they are. We want to continue to advocate for LGBTQIA+ rights.”

Waiting to go on stage to perform is 38-year-old Madondo “Donddy” Jane, who identifies as gender nonconforming, and who today is wearing a headband, beaded necklaces, a leather bodice, and a thethana skirt. “Biologically I’m male, but today everyone will be surprised because they’ll say, ke bona mosali [I see a woman],” Jane tells me with a smile, switching between English and Sesotho.

“I’m going to be dancing litolobonya, which is traditionally a woman’s dance. People will be questioning and there’ll be some attention. I want to make people aware that I am the way I am; you can’t come to me and tell me to change. You can’t come to us and try to correct us. Today is Pride and we’re going to make everybody aware that we exist, and that we also need support. Let’s make discrimination ntho ea maobane [a thing of the past], because we are not going anywhere.”