Forced to pay bribes at every step: How trans and intersex people say they survive in Kenya

Mombasa, Kenya – On a rainy night last June, police officers in Mombasa arrested a young trans woman and allegedly refused to let her go until she’d paid them a $50 bribe.

Brian, in her late 20s, told CNN that the police held her in their custody for “being drunk and disorderly” when she was leaving a queer-friendly club in Kenya’s second most populous city.

But “I wasn’t drunk at all; neither was I disorderly,” Brian told CNN, saying the arrest was a ruse. Her real name, and those of all the other trans and intersex people in this story, have been withheld to protect their identities either because they are not publicly out or because they fear reprisal from the people and institutions they accuse of demanding bribes. She chose a traditionally male name as a pseudonym, telling CNN that it’s safer to navigate Kenyan society with one.

Brian said that on the night of June 14, as she and five other trans friends were leaving the club, they saw a police van parked just a few meters away. Brian said she heard a police officer say, “These are gays” as he moved toward them, so she and her friends ran. “My friends managed to escape, but since I was wearing a tight black dress and high heels, I slid and fell,” Brian said. Three of the five friends who were with her that night gave the same account. CNN couldn’t reach the other two.

The three police officers on duty at the time of her arrest confirmed that they had arrested Brian, but denied commenting on her sexual orientation. “She was drunk and disorderly,” one of them told CNN.

“What do you have?’’ Brian remembered an officer asking her after he caught her. “Look for 5,000 [Kenyan] shillings (about $30) and let’s finish this issue here.” But Brian didn’t have enough cash with her. So, as she told CNN, the officer took her to the police station where all night “the police kept demanding the bribe, which I was forced to eventually arrange to secure my release.” She said she was allowed to call her friends to ask for the money. Her brother brought it to the station the next morning and Brian was released, she said. The brother provided the same details to CNN.

The amount, Brian said, was a bribe and not some kind of fine because it was not recorded anywhere, neither was a receipt issued by the officers after receiving the money. “They just put it in their pocket,” she said. The police, however, told CNN that it was a “fine,” but the person in charge of record-keeping failed to record it.

Brian said that, in her experience, the majority of such arrests happen when gender nonconforming people are on foot. That is why they prefer travelling in private taxis, if they can afford to do so.

The Mombasa County police commander said he is not aware of any police officers in Mombasa soliciting bribes, saying no complaints have been made.

Brian and 25 other trans and intersex people interviewed by CNN, in both Mombasa and the Kenyan capital Nairobi, said this kind of police harassment is common for them, something that they have accepted as the price they have to pay for their freedom and privacy in a country with widespread anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments.

“Any time I go out to party or for meetings, I must have a budget for bribing police officers, because you never know when they will show up,” Brian said. “Some of us who don’t have money to bribe often stay indoors or meet at friends’ places.”

Bribery is just one the many abuses the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, a nonprofit based in Nairobi, said it recorded in 2020-2021. Others include physical harassment, discrimination, assault and even targeted murders that gender and sexual minorities experience as part of their daily lives in Kenya.

No Kenyan laws afford any special protections for the LGBTQ+ communities, according to Imani Kimiri, the head of legal affairs at the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. Kenya’s Penal Code criminalizes same-sex sexual activity, and Kimiri said that allows the police to harass and arrest LGBTQ+ people, claiming they were engaging in same-sex intercourse. Trans people are free to express their gender identity, but their physical presentation can make them targets of harassment even by the public authorities, Kimiri added.

The current political climate is so anti-LGBTQ+ that any attempt even by the judiciary to recognize the rights of queer people receives strong political and then societal backlash. For example, on February 24, 2023, Kenya’s Supreme Court ruled that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is unconstitutional, in a case involving the government’s refusal to register the National Gay and Lesbian Human Right’s Commission. The court directed the government to register the organization. But just five days later, Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua said, “We totally reject the ruling of the court,” adding, “LGBTQ practices will not be tolerated in Kenya, as they are satanic and don’t conform with the country’s traditions and beliefs.” Gachagua’s office didn’t respond to CNN’s request for an interview.

The homophobic rhetoric continued for weeks. On March 15, member of parliament, Mohamed Ali, proposed a motion to ban discussion, publication and dissemination of any material talking about or promoting any activities directly or indirectly related to LGBTQ+ people. “These are not human rights. Those are demonic behaviors, and we cannot allow them in our country. The Quran is clear; the Bible is clear about LGBTQ. We will therefore not accept anything that seeks to protect them,” Ali said.

Leaders of Catholic, Angelican and Pentecostal Churches also made similar homophobic and transphobic statements. About 85% of Kenya’s population is Christian, and religious leaders hold a significant influence over their lives. Kenya’s new President, William Ruto, often invokes religion in his public speeches.

After such statements from politicians and churches, there was an increase in incidents of malicious behavior and public demonstrations against the queer community, Irũngũ Houghton, Amnesty International Kenya’s executive director told CNN. “After the ruling and the sentiments that followed, personal details of persons who were perceived to be identifying as LGBTQ+ were shared all over social media platforms without their consent.’’ In March 2023, according to Houghton, at least 117 cases of attacks against LGBTQ+ people were recorded by his office and similar numbers got in touch with Amnesty seeking advice on relocation, evacuation and psychotherapy services.

Ali denied suggestions that his comments contributed to an increase in attacks against LGBTQIA+ people. He told CNN, “My statements did not put anyone at harm but only worked towards protecting societal values.”

There is no data on the LGBTQ+ population in Kenya. But in 2019, the country’s national census, for the first time, counted a total of 1,524 intersex persons – a figure disputed by Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, a nonprofit, which estimates that there could be as many as 1.4 million intersex persons in the country of 53 million, based on the global average.

Brian met with CNN inside a mental health wellness center for gender and sexual minorities in Mombasa. The center is secretly run by private doctors. In the past two years, she said, she’s been arrested 10 times by different police stations in Mombasa and accused of drug trafficking, robbery and sex work. Brian called these allegations “fictitious.” Each of those times, she told CNN, she was asked for a bribe before being released. In total, she said she has paid KSh100,000 ($615). In June 2022, local newspaper Business Daily Africa reported that the average Kenyan earns just over KSh20,000 a month.

Brian, who works extra hours to make around KSh70,000 a month as a hair stylist and massage therapist, told CNN that her income is not enough for the higher costs she incurs as she tries to stay safe: she rents a place in an upper-middle-class neighborhood considered safer for LGBTQ+ people and takes taxis to avoid harassment on public transport. On top of that there are the bribes she alleges she must pay to get by, and for which she sometimes has to borrow money from friends.

“Bribing becomes the safe option. Going through the court process even on trumped-up charges is more expensive, because you will be forced to hire a lawyer and court processes in Kenya take time,” Brian told CNN. “And many of us are not ‘out,’ so we don’t want to be publicly exposed, something that the police take advantage of. We have become an easy target for extortion.”

Constantly navigating this financial stress, avoiding arrest or getting out of detention, she explained, has taken a toll on her mental health.

Once in December 2022, she said she had to spend 10 days in custody at Mombasa Central Police Station because it took her that long to raise $100 for a bribe. Twice, she alleges, she was sexually assaulted by the police while in custody.

A police officer at the Mombasa Central Police Station confirmed to CNN that Brian was held in custody for 10 days on the charges of being drunk and disorderly. The officer requested anonymity because he is junior in rank and is not allowed to speak with media.

Likewise, when CNN questioned the police officers at the Mtwapa Police Station where Brian said she was held on the night of June 14, 2023, and released only after paying a bribe, they declined to comment and instructed CNN to speak with senior authorities.

CNN reached out to Mombasa County Police Commander Stephen Matu who spearheads all police stations in Mombasa. Matu told CNN he hasn’t come across any complaints of police soliciting bribes or of the police sexually abusing any LGBTQ+ people. “These are just allegations,” said Matu. “When the said victims fail to make reports, it becomes hard to investigate such claims.”

But members of the LGBTQ+ community told CNN they avoid reporting bribery incidents to the police, fearing reprisals. Asked whether she had filed a report to the police, Brian said: “That will be like asking a hyena to preside over a dispute between a fellow hyena and a sheep.”

Government health facilities are another place where multiple LGBTQ+ people said that money was being extorted from queer and intersex people. Esther, a 32-year-old intersex fashion designer in Mombasa, described her experiences with most health facilities as “traumatizing.”

In 2020, she had rushed to Ganjoni Dispensary, a government hospital in the city, to seek urgent treatment. “During medical examination, the doctor realized I was intersex, and everything changed,” Esther recalled. “The doctor said that his working hours were over and asked me to give him ‘tea’ [Kenyan slang for a bribe] if I wanted him to spare some time to attend to me.”

Esther was in pain, so she said she gave him $20 – a typical bribe amount, according to several people who say they have paid such bribes and senior officials at LGBTQ+ organizations that work to support their community. Trans and intersex people told CNN they attend medical appointments prepared.

Esther said she didn’t report the doctor to the hospital authorities because she thought “no action would be taken against him.”

Esther is not alone in thinking that. Ainebyoona Sharlotte Kigezo, a psychologist at the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission said: “Many of my clients have shared that when they reported the bribing incidents to the hospitals, the hospitals didn’t take any action.”

As a result, Esther and five other intersex persons told CNN, they have become accustomed to bribing healthcare staff, sometimes even to access basic services such as treatment for sexually transmitted infections, tuberculosis, and malaria. “We have learned the art of bribing,” said Esther.

The authorities at Ganjoni Dispensary told CNN that they are not allowed to talk to media. CNN reached out to Dr. Swabah Ahmed Omar, the Mombasa County minister of health who oversees all hospitals in the county including Ganjoni Dispensary, about allegations of bribery in public health facilities. “So far, we haven’t received any formal complaint from any victim,” said Omar. “This is sad and unacceptable, but we must also encourage the victims of such schemes to make formal reports so that we can follow up as a government.”

Kenya’s ministry of health did not respond to CNN’s requests for an interview for this story.

The people who spoke to CNN detailed different instances of discrimination and extortion from encounters with the police or public healthcare workers, and many also spoke about discriminatory housing practices.

In Nairobi, 26-year-old Anita, an intersex woman, told CNN she had to bribe the administrator of a nursing schools’ hostel for women to get a room there. The administrator had earlier refused to admit Anita, saying that “she looks like a man,” Anita said. When she insisted, the administrator asked her to pay him $100 on top of the $100 hostel fee every semester. “I had no choice but to agree,” said Anita. “Staying in a male hostel would have been traumatic and unsafe for me.”

Anita didn’t tell her parents about the bribe because, she said, they are small-scale coffee farmers and wouldn’t be able to afford it. Instead, she said, she works part-time as a waitress in a restaurant to earn the money to pay off the administrator, but at the cost of her studies.

“When my colleagues are using their free time to study, I am out working just to try and make the extra cash,’’ Anita said.

When CNN contacted the hostel administrator, he denied soliciting bribes from trans and intersex students, saying his job is to make the hostel comfortable for all students.

LGBTQ+ people who don’t conform to traditional gender expression are likely to also face discrimination when looking for housing in the city, said Ishmael Omumbwa, executive director of PEMA Kenya, a nonprofit that works for gender and sexual minorities in the country. On the outskirts of Nairobi, in a middle-income neighborhood, 30-year-old trans woman Andrew, who did not want her last name to be used for fear of reprisals, told CNN she has to pay a bribe of $100 on top of her KSh35,000 ($250) rent every month. CNN was shown rent receipts for KSh35,000. Andrew said she paid the bribe amount separately in cash, which is not recorded anywhere.

A housing agent in Nairobi, who helps LGBTQ+ people find housing, confirmed to CNN that gender nonconforming people often have to pay extra to secure housing. The agent asked to remain anonymous out of fears his business could be impacted by his comments. But he admitted that he charges extra fee from LGBTQ+ people, saying: “It is challenging to find housing for them.” In an indication of systemic discrimination, he added, “Some landlords even offer to give us a [one-time] cut of about $10, if we bring LGBT tenants.”

Andrew said she’d had multiple disturbing experiences with housing agents who charge queer people extra to find them accommodation and with landlords who have denied her housing because of her “feminine appearance.” Andrew told CNN she was evicted from one apartment after just four months. “The landlord said that I was making other tenants uncomfortable by dressing like a woman.”

The owner of that apartment confirmed to CNN that he evicted Andrew because other tenants complained that they found her feminine dressing unpleasant. “I reserve the right to admission in my apartment,” he said.

Ben Liayi, secretary general of Landlords and Tenants Association of Kenya, said that such cases are beyond the association’s control and should be handled in the courts.

For a trans person in Kenya, bribing is sometimes the easiest way to get safe housing, Andrew told CNN – if you can afford it. While a single cis-heterosexual person might pay an average of $3,000 in rent every year, according to housing agents CNN interviewed, a trans person may be forced to pay $1,200 or more extra.

For George Barasa, an LGBTQ+ rights activist in Kenya, the problem comes from the top of Kenyan society – and so, too, can the solution. He told CNN homophobic statements from political leaders have “resulted in systemic exploitation of LGBTQ+ community and demands for bribes is one such form of exploitation.” He added: “Politics influences everything in this country. If the political class and leadership comes out and embrace the LGBTQ+ community then the Kenyan society will also follow suit.”

In the meantime, Brian continues to go out, seeking spaces where she can safely dance and be herself.  In a queer bar in Mombasa, dressed in a form-fitting black dress and strappy open-toe high heels, she was reflective. “It is so unfair that people like us have to resort to bribing authorities that are supposed to protect us, so we can be ourselves.”

She refuses to hide away from the world, but she also goes out prepared. On the night she met a CNN reporter, Brian said she was carrying an extra $50 in her trendy clutch bag – just in case, she said, she runs into police officers looking to make a quick buck.