Ugandan LGBTQ Magazine ‘Bombastic’ Still Circulates Five Years Later

Bombastic was intended to be a one-time release, but after support from the community, founder Jacqueline Kasha Nabagesera has published four issues since 2014, according to NewNowNext.

In 2014, domestic and international conversation around Uganda exploded when the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act was passed. This law was incredibly dangerous for the queer community, with sentences including death. The legislation also targeted those supporting members of the LGBTQ community, according to Amnesty International.

The local outlets played into negative and harmful narratives around the queer community, and activist Nabagesera decided to let queer individuals speak for themselves. In an interview with NewNowNext, she said, “I started to think, ‘Why don’t we give our side of the story?‘”

After all the positive responses, Nabagesera continued to assemble accounts of queer life in Uganda for subsequent editions. Thanks to crowdsourced funding and volunteer support, there have been four issues of Bombastic, with a fifth issue due later this year. 

In partnership with a local website Kuchu Times, Nabagesera has expanded to multimedia content like radio and TV as other means of spreading positive queer representation in Ugandan media. Her efforts persist despite blowback from religious communities as well as threats of arrest from Ugandan Minister of State for Ethics and Integrity, Simon Lokodo.

OUT FRONT exists in solidarity with other queer magazines around the world like Bombastic, which also seek to educate and bring to light the issues affecting the queer community, no matter where they are.