Denis Nzioka

Denis Nzioka, based in Nairobi, is an activist for sexual and gender minorities with a focus on LGBTIQ and sex worker communities. He has been instrumental in forming organizations focused on queer and sex worker rights, sexual diversity, bodily autonomy and expression of choice.

Denis was the first Kenyan to come out publicly on national TV. Since then, his articles and blogs have been published by media outlets globally. He started the first LGBTIQ magazine in Kenya, Identity Kenya, and the world’s first LGBTIQ news app. In 2009, Denis opened Kenya’s first safe house for LGBTIQ people. In 2010 he founded the Denis Nzioka News Agency and Service, the first media agency for the LGBTIQ, sex worker and allied community in Kenya. In 2014 The Guardian named Denis one of the world’s top 10 tweeters on sexuality and development. Denis co-edited Gay Kenya’s book My Way, Your Way or the Rights Way and in 2019 published an anthology of Kenyan allies speaking out for LGBTIQ rights, Rafiki Zetu. In 2020, he unveiled the Gay and Lesbian Archives of Kenya, a free, open, online repository for records documenting the history and culture of the LGBTIQ movement in Kenya from the mid-1800s to the present. Denis is undertaking a self-sponsored research project investigating how civil society organizations in Kenya are integrating the rights of sexual and gender minorities in their advocacy strategies and social change programs.