World Sexual Health Day 2022

Image by Doni Hariyanto

4 September is celebrated globally as World Sexual Health Day, an awareness day that promotes global advocacy to promote the best practices in sexual health.

Sexual health is about caring for ourselves and each other, and celebrating our bodies’ capacities, including the capacity for pleasure. It’s about relationships built upon mutual trust and respect, and creating a place of safety from which we can express ourselves, explore and connect with others.

This year’s theme for WSHD ‘Let’s Talk Pleasure’, which identifies the role of sexual pleasure in overall sexual health and well-being.

Sexual health is a state of physical, emotional, mental and social well-being related to sexuality, not just the absence of disease, dysfunction or infirmity, the WAS website states. It requires a “positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relationships,” as well as the possibility of experiencing pleasure, free of coercion, discrimination and violence.

Here are the 16 WAS rights to Sexual Health:

1. The right to equality and non-discrimination

2. The right to life, liberty, and security of the person

3. The right to autonomy and bodily integrity

4. The right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.

5. The right to be free from all forms of violence and coercion

6. The right to privacy

7. The right to the highest attainable standard of health, including sexual health; with the possibility of pleasurable, satisfying, and safe sexual experiences

8. The right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its application

9. The right to information

10. The right to education and the right to comprehensive sexuality education

11. The right to enter, form, and dissolve marriage and other similar types of relationships based on equality and full and free consent

12. The right to decide whether to have children, the number and spacing of children, and to have the information and the means to do so

13. The right to the freedom of thought, opinion, and expression

14. The right to freedom of association and peaceful assembly

15. The right to participation in public and political life

16. The right to access to justice, remedies, and redress

Sexual health is inseparable from the full enjoyment of human rights, including every person’s right to bodily autonomy according to UNFPA.

We will also be celebrating World Sexual Health Week 12 – 18 September. Be on the look out for activities to be able to participate.

For those requiring more information or would like access to sexual health services, pay us a visit at the Matrix offices and/or contact us on our social media pages and we may be able to assist you.

IDAHOBiT 2022: Press Statement

May 2, 2022

International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia 2022 “Our Bodies, Our Lives, Our Rights” LGBTIQ+ across the country with The Peoples Matrix will celebrate the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOBiT) on the 14th, 17th, 21st and the 28th of May, 2022 in four different districts.

The theme for this year’s annual celebration is “Our Bodies, Our Lives, Our Rights.” A great theme under which many forms of advocacy are possible: claiming our rights to live our sexualities and to express our gender(s) freely, but also demanding to be from physical violence, from conversion so-called “therapies” to forced sterilisation of Trans and Intersex people. A theme that reminds us that many of us across the world live LGBTQI-phobias in their very flesh every day and that our bodies are being abused, ruining our lives.

Coming together as LGBTIQ+ persons and stakeholders continues to be a critical component of fostering a culture of equality. During IDAHOBiT, we will acknowledge the turbulent history of the LGBTIQ+ civil rights movement, as well as celebrating the courage, strength, and resilience that defines this willful community. In the midst of adversity and the pursuit of equality, the members of the LGBTIQ+ community will share their stories of overcoming and living pridefully with confidence and bravery on all media platforms.

LGBTIQ+ are musicians, artists, inventors, business leaders, educators, and healers. They are lawmakers and activists, and family members. If we are to live up to the democratic ideals that set the foundation for this country. We must ensure that all Basotho have an equal opportunity to live freely and successfully, and we must treat all with respect and dignity. No one should ever be persecuted or held back from living their lives because of who they are or who they love. Our bodies should not make us subjects of violence, but should allow us to enjoy our human rights in a diverse way. Love is love and it is stronger than hate. Matrix will seek to advance the human rights in Lesotho with specific focus on SOGIE.

For more information, contact: +266 58811547/58183362

Physical Address: Naomi House Building02/296 Bowker Road, Old Europa, Maseru

IDAHOBiT 2022

We are excited to announce this year’s IDAHOBiT Calendar. We shall be hosting a total of four events this year in the following districts:

Mohale’s Hoek for the Southern Districts (14th May)

Thaba-Tseka (17th May)

Butha-Buthe in the North (21st May)

Maseru (May 28th)

Please note that the hosting district will be hosting two other districts for the event in their general cardinal orientation, with a special exception for Thaba-Tseka and Maseru. Therefore, IDAHOBiT Butha-buthe will host Leribe and Berea; IDAHOBiT Mohale’s-Hoek will play host to Mafeteng and Quthing.

This year’s theme is Our Bodies, Our Lives, Our Rights

A great theme under which many forms of advocacy are possible: claiming our rights to live our sexualities and to express our gender(s) freely, but also demanding to be from physical violence, from conversion so-called “therapies” to forced sterilisation of Trans and Intersex people.

A theme that reminds us that many of us across the world live LGBTQI-phobias in their very flesh every day and that our bodies are being abused, ruining our lives. Our bodies are our lives. And we have a right to live free and in dignity!

Happy Trans Day of Visibility!

I have devoted my life to my activism. I am my activism. I will never be shamed into thinking that passing will ever make me feel secure in the illusion.
Yes, passing allows me privileges that others who are not as fortunate as I am do not have, and that is normally a chance to be socially accepted and loved. But this usually comes at a price: to hide from everyone what you truly are. This is precisely why my openness about my transgenderism is so important.
Inherited stigma is a thing, and it is part of the transphobia perpetrated by society, making our lives and those that choose to love us difficult. Transgender people deserve love free of stigma to those that choose to love them.
Being transgender is only a part of who I am. I deserve to be loved in my truth: fully, openly, shame-free. In fact, I deserve to be celebrated. Not everyone gets the chance to self-correct in this lifetime.
I could pass with the best of them, and I would still choose to publicly embrace my history over and over again.
Happy Trans Day of visibility!

Author: Giselle

International Transgender Day of Visibility

The 31st March is a day to celebrate transgender people and raise awareness on the discrimination they face everyday. In our country, transgender people are still discriminated despite calling ourselves “progressing” country.

The language taken on by newspapers and media is full of prejudice and hatred, there is a total unwillingness in changing our narratives. The country is full of amazing and talented transgender people, who some of them do not reveal themselves because of the fear of mistreatment for their identity.

To stop this, we must act on the education and cultural system. Politicians, journalists and public figures cannot get away with their transphobia anymore, it’s time to act and support the transgender community everywhere.

Send love to a trans cutie in your life today.

LTV’s Ts’ets’etha Presents a Dialogue with LGBTIQ+ Stakeholders to discuss the community’s progress in Lesotho

The People’s Matrix Association has a mandate to reach out to LGBTI community members in the 7 districts of the country to do advocacy work and community outreach.

We are writing to request the participation of the public and the media to tune into Tsetsetha on the Lesotho National Broadcasting Television from 20:30hrs – 21:30hrs on the 30th September 2020.

We will engage the different stakeholders (Government representatives and the Christian Council of Lesotho) to participate in panel discussions to share their views of their stance on the existence of LGBTI communalities in Lesotho.