Making the Invisible Visible: Addressing the Sexuality Education Needs of Persons with Disabilities Who Identify as Queer in Kenya

Abstract

Persons with disabilities face barriers to accessing sexuality education. For those who identify as queer, these challenges are compounded by stigma, ableism, and heteronormativity, resulting in distinct and overlooked experiences. This study explored the sexuality education needs of persons with disabilities who identify as queer in Kenya—a neglected demographic—using a phenomenological approach. Data were collected through a focus group discussion with six participants and analyzed thematically. Three themes emerged: invisibility and erasure; unprepared institutions and constrained support networks; and agency and everyday resistance. Educational institutions often overlook the intersectional needs of persons with disabilities who identify as queer, leaving them without adequate tools to navigate relationships, sexuality, and rights. Support systems are often unprepared or unwilling to address these needs. Societal attitudes that desexualize disability and marginalize queerness intersect to produce compounded exclusion. Despite these challenges, participants demonstrated agency by using digital spaces and informal networks to resist exclusion. This calls for policy reforms that move beyond tokenism to address the lived realities of multiply marginalized groups. Policy reform means not only a legal or governmental shift but also a broader cultural and institutional process that creates space for recognition, protection, and participation.

1. Introduction

Sexuality education is a fundamental aspect of holistic development that equips individuals with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to make informed decisions about their sexual and reproductive health [1]. For persons with disabilities, access to inclusive and comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) is particularly important because they often face heightened risks of abuse, exploitation, and misinformation due to prevailing societal stigma and misconceptions [2]. When combined with queer identities—sexual orientations and gender identities that differ from traditional or mainstream ideas of being straight or identifying strictly as male or female, including people who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, pansexual, asexual, or others who do not fit neatly into society’s expectations—these challenges intensify [3]. The double burden of ableism and heteronormativity leads to heightened exposure to stigma, erasure, and discrimination [3,4]. This intersectional marginalization underscores the urgency of CSE that is not only inclusive but also critically attuned to these overlapping realities.

Intersectionality, as a framework, helps reveal how disability and queerness compound vulnerability and shape lived experiences in unique ways [5]. Yet globally, and more starkly in sub-Saharan Africa, CSE policies and curricula frequently exclude or problematize both disability and queer content. Although CSE has gained research traction in the region [6,7], the implementation remains fraught with barriers: resistance to topics like sexual pleasure, homosexuality, and gender diversity, fear of eroding cultural and religious norms, as well as political hesitancy [8,9]. Most African constitutions contain general anti-discrimination clauses, but few explicitly protect sexual and gender minorities, leaving these identities open to criminalization and cultural vilification [10]. This legal and moral terrain poses intersecting structural constraints for persons with disabilities who also identify as queer, whose identities are often framed as deviant or foreign.

The literature is clear: persons with disabilities are frequently desexualized or infantilized, while queer youth face exclusion based on heteronormative assumptions embedded in curricula and school environments [11,12]. For those who embody both identities, educational institutions rarely provide affirming or relevant content. Studies from Kenya suggest urban youth express more progressive attitudes than their rural counterparts, but social stigma, punitive laws, and discriminatory media narratives persist, placing queer individuals at continued risk of isolation, mental distress, and violence [13]. The existing literature on queer students in educational institutions—particularly in sub-Saharan Africa—documents pervasive experiences of exclusion, bullying, moral regulation, and policy silence. For instance, a study analyzing narratives collected through interviews with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI) individuals in Nairobi, Kenya, illustrates how they navigate institutional and societal hostility [14]. However, much of this work treats queer students as a uniform group, with limited attention to how disability shapes their experiences. This risks flattening the differentiated experiences within queer communities. While queer youth in general face marginalization in schools, students who are both queer and disabled navigate compounded exclusions shaped by ableism, heteronormativity, and institutional neglect.

A promising frontier lies in digital spaces [15]. A recent review of 22 studies across sub-Saharan Africa identified diverse digital tools—social media, apps, gamified platforms—being used to deliver sexual and reproductive health content to adolescents. These tools enhanced accessibility and engagement but were limited by digital inequities, cultural sensitivity issues, and lack of long-term effectiveness data [16]. A broader app analysis revealed that less than 1% of sexual health apps met standards for comprehensive education, and most excluded content on identity, pleasure, and safety [17]—topics especially important for youth who identify as queer and disabled, whose experiences are often ignored in mainstream curricula [17]. For this population, digital tools hold potential but remain underutilized and underdesigned.

Moreover, educators often lack the capacity to deliver sexuality education in formats accessible to learners with disabilities, especially those with intersectional needs. As Hanass-Hancock et al. [18] show, teachers report inadequate training and cultural taboos as key obstacles. This results in an uneven educational landscape where even well-meaning CSE policies fail to reach the most marginalized. In the Kenyan context, while legal frameworks such as the Basic Education Act [19] and the Sector Policy for Learners and Trainees with Disabilities [20] promote inclusive education, they remain silent on issues of sexual orientation and gender identity. Meanwhile, the National Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Policy [21] emphasizes abstinence and reproductive health but avoids explicit inclusion of queer identities. We argue that these omissions—when combined with broader political and religious hostility—are experienced by teachers not as neutral gaps but as tacit prohibitions. This creates a climate of self-censorship in schools, where sexuality education is often delivered in narrow, heteronormative terms [22,23]. Such silences function as de facto policy guidance, subtly signaling what is “safe” to teach. Though not formalized in official documents, these informal cues shape not only what is excluded, but also how teachers engage—or avoid engaging—with queer and disabled identities.

Our study addresses a critical knowledge gap by exploring the sexuality education needs of persons with disabilities who identify as queer in Kenya—an underexamined demographic within sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing on crip theory, intersectionality, and feminist queer crip analysis, we investigate the barriers, possibilities, and policy implications shaping CSE access and quality for this population. We focus not only on institutional exclusion but also on how individuals navigate and resist it, including through informal and digital spaces [24,25,26]. By centering their voices, we aim to expand current understandings of inclusive CSE and contribute to both policy and pedagogical reforms. Our central research question is as follows: what are the sexuality education needs of persons with disabilities who identify as queer in Kenya, and how are these needs shaped by intersecting social, policy, and technological barriers? The literature suggests that these needs are frequently unmet due to systemic erasure, lack of accessible content, and broader political hostility. Our study brings attention to these silences through an examination of three subquestions:

a.

How do intersecting identities of disability and queerness shape exclusion from sexuality education in Kenya?

b.

How do institutional and curricular structures reinforce this exclusion in the Kenyan context?

c.

What opportunities exist for resistance, policy change, and inclusive transformation in the delivery of CSE in Kenya?

Theoretical Frameworks

Our study is grounded in three complementary theoretical frameworks that together provide a robust lens for understanding the experiences of queer persons with disabilities in Kenya’s educational contexts and for directly addressing our central research question. Each theory contributes to different parts of our analysis: intersectionality explains layered marginalization (subquestion 1), crip theory interrogates institutional erasure (subquestion 2), and feminist queer crip theory situates resistance and transformation in broader political contexts (subquestion 3).

First, we draw on intersectionality theory [27] to examine how disability and queerness interact to create unique forms of marginalization that cannot be understood by examining either identity in isolation. Intersectionality highlights how multiple forms of oppression operate simultaneously, producing experiences that are qualitatively different from the sum of their parts [27,28]. Rooted in Black feminist thought, intersectionality was introduced by Crenshaw [27] to critique how single-axis approaches, such as race- or gender-only analyses, fail to capture the lived realities of those facing overlapping forms of marginalization. Collins and Bilge [28] expanded this framework into a broader matrix of domination, showing how intersecting systems of power—including race, gender, sexuality, disability, and class—structure inequality and lived experience globally. Within the Kenyan context, resistance to CSE—often grounded in sociocultural, religious, and political opposition—acts as a structural force that compounds the exclusion of those already marginalized by ableism and heteronormativity. This framework is particularly useful for understanding the vulnerabilities and challenges faced by persons with disabilities who identify as queer, and how they navigate educational systems and policy environments that are not only built around assumptions of able-bodiedness and heterosexuality but also shaped by widespread societal resistance to CSE.

Second, we employ crip theory [29] to analyze how compulsory able-bodiedness intersects with compulsory heterosexuality within educational institutions. Crip theory illuminates how these systems mutually reinforce one another, creating environments where both disability and queer identities are pathologized or rendered invisible. Crip theory offers a critical lens to examine how educational curricula, including sexuality education, are structured around normative assumptions about ability and sexuality—often excluding or erasing those who do not conform [29,30]. This perspective helps us interrogate how CSE, even when implemented, may fail to engage meaningfully with queer and disabled learners.

Finally, we incorporate feminist queer crip theory [31], which extends these frameworks by foregrounding the political dimensions of disability and queerness. This theory rejects medicalized framings that treat disability and non-normative sexualities as individual deficits, instead situating them within broader systems of power. The perspective allows us to analyze how educational policies and practices—especially those related to CSE in Kenya—reflect and reinforce dominant societal attitudes toward disability and sexuality, while also illuminating avenues for resistance. It further clarifies how opposition to CSE intersects with the marginalization of persons with disabilities, highlighting the need for structural changes.

Together, these theoretical frameworks provide a multifaceted lens for examining how persons with disabilities who identify as queer experience sexuality education in Kenya—how their identities are recognized or erased in its delivery, and how they navigate systems that often fail to acknowledge their full humanity and complexity. They offer a coherent structure for addressing our central question and subquestions, ensuring that identity, institutional exclusion, and political resistance are each fully examined in the analysis.

2. Materials and Methods

We used a phenomenological design [32] to explore the lived experiences of persons with disabilities who identify as queer, with a focus on their sexuality education needs. Phenomenology was selected for its strength in capturing the subjective meanings that participants ascribe to their experiences, particularly within contexts shaped by societal stigma and exclusion. This approach allowed for an in-depth exploration of how participants make sense of their intersecting identities, the barriers they encounter, and how they navigate such challenges. Phenomenology also enabled prioritizing the creation of a safe and respectful space where participants could share their narratives, thus ensuring their voices were amplified and honored in the research process [33,34].

This study was conducted in Nairobi County, Kenya. Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya, provided a relevant setting due to the presence of active, though often constrained, queer and disability advocacy communities [35]. The city reflects a tension between emerging progressive spaces—such as activist networks and civil society engagement—and dominant conservative norms that continue to shape sexuality and disability discourse [35,36]. This made Nairobi a strategic site for examining how individuals at the intersection of queerness and disability navigate sexuality education amid both enabling and limiting sociopolitical conditions.

We used snowball sampling to recruit participants who identified as both persons with disabilities and queer. This approach was selected due to the challenges of accessing this marginalized population within Kenya’s heteronormative context. Recruitment was initiated through community-based organizations and non-governmental organizations that support persons with disabilities. Key officials from these organizations were identified and asked to refer us to organizations working with persons with disabilities who identified as queer. Initial contact with these officials was made via phone calls and WhatsApp, which ensured accessibility and convenience for communication. During these interactions, this study’s objectives, methodological approach, and ethical considerations were outlined. Upon securing organizational support, officials assisted in identifying and contacting potential participants. The officials’ reassurances about the inclusive and respectful nature of the research were crucial in enhancing trust and encouraging participation. This method facilitated a recruitment process that was sensitive to participants’ privacy, safety, and comfort within the broader societal context.

To be eligible, participants had to be 18 years or older, self-identify as having a disability, self-identify as queer (including but not limited to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, or asexual), and reside in Nairobi County. After the initial participants were identified and invited, we asked them to recommend others within their networks who met these criteria, thereby enabling a second layer of participant referral. Following the initial contact by the officials, personalized invitations were then sent by the research team to prospective participants, outlining this study’s purpose, participation expectations, and confidentiality measures.

Six participants with diverse disabilities (intellectual disabilities, epilepsy, physical disabilities, psychological disabilities) were recruited. Five of the participants identified as female and queer, while one identified as non-binary and queer. An additional participant who identified as male and had a visual impairment was recruited but did not attend the data collection session. According to an organizational official, this may reflect heightened concerns around disclosure, safety, or visibility among gay men within Kenya’s sociopolitical context. The participants’ ages ranged from 23 to 35 years. They had attended either mainstream or integrated schools, both at primary and secondary school levels. We have used codenames (e.g., R1, R2, R3, etc.) to protect their identities.

Data were initially intended to be collected through individual, in-depth interviews with the six participants. However, participants expressed concerns about safety and comfort in one-on-one settings and instead preferred a collective format. In response, the research design was adapted to use a single focus group discussion (FGD) involving all six participants. While this adaptation shifted the focus away from in-depth individual narratives, it enhanced the exploration of shared experiences, peer validation, and collective meaning-making—elements particularly valuable in research with marginalized populations [37]. This shift also reflects a participatory element in the study design, as participants played a role in selecting the data collection method, aligning with participatory research principles that emphasize agency, relevance, and researcher–participant collaboration [38]. The participants were also engaged in selecting the data collection venue and collectively recommended a specific restaurant, citing its safe, private, and comfortable environment as ideal for the FGD. To facilitate participation and show appreciation for their time, participants received refreshments, lunch, and reimbursement for transportation costs. This approach reflects culturally grounded expectations of reciprocity in research, where offering something in return is seen not just as a courtesy, but as an ethical practice [39].

The FGD, lasting 1.35 h, was facilitated by the first author. Discussions were conducted primarily in English, with occasional use of Kiswahili. We present a sample of the adapted FGD questions below, originally developed for individual interviews but revised to suit the group format. All questions focused on sexuality education in school settings:

• What are your thoughts on the importance of teaching sexuality in schools to students with disabilities who identify as queer?
• What were your experiences with sexuality education in school during adolescence?
• If you had found someone—such as a teacher, fellow student, or community member—who shares your type of disability and identifies as queer, do you think you would have connected more? Why or why not?
• Who do you think should be responsible for providing sexuality education in schools to students with disabilities who identify as queer? Please explain.

To ensure data quality and trustworthiness, the key questions were rephrased and revisited within the discussion to check for consistency in responses.

Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the AMREF Ethical and Scientific Research Committee, and a research license was granted by the National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation. Informed consent, including permission to audio-record the discussion, was obtained from all participants prior to data collection.

Data were transcribed (and translated into English as necessary) by a qualified and experienced transcriber/translator. They were then analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis [40]. This method was chosen for its focus on exploring how participants make sense of their personal and social worlds while also acknowledging the researcher’s interpretative role. The analysis process involved the following:

a.

Reading and re-reading: immersing in the data to gain a comprehensive understanding.

b.

Initial noting: identifying significant statements and reflections.

c.

Developing emergent themes: grouping statements into themes that represent shared experiences.

d.

Connecting themes: exploring relationships between themes to build a holistic understanding.

The first author conducted the data analysis and shared the emerging themes with two of the co-authors to explore alternative interpretations and confirm the findings. There was consistency in how the co-authors interpreted the data, which helped confirm the credibility of the final themes. NVivo v20 (Lumivero; https://lumivero.com/products/nvivo, accessed on 5 February 2025) was used to manage the data analysis. Prolonged engagement with the transcript data helped identify nuanced patterns and contributed to the overall trustworthiness of the analysis.

While our study did not include a comparison group of participants with disabilities who do not identify as queer, the interpretative phenomenological analysis allowed us to surface reflections where participants explicitly linked their experiences to either queerness, disability, or the intersection of both. We paid close attention to how participants themselves framed the source of particular challenges or affirmations—for instance, whether exclusion was described as rooted in disability-related assumptions (e.g., infantilization), queer identity (e.g., erasure of same-sex desire), or the combination (e.g., being seen as ‘too complex’ to teach about sexuality). However, we acknowledge that many experiences were entangled and not easily attributable to one identity alone. We intentionally preserved these overlaps rather than imposing artificial separations, allowing the findings to reflect the complexity of living with multiple marginalized identities.

In addition, although the FGD questions were designed to explore school-based sexuality education, participants often drew connections to broader social contexts—including healthcare, family, and community norms—which they perceived as directly shaping their access to sexuality knowledge and affirmation. These insights were retained in the analysis to honor participants’ framing and to reflect the embedded nature of educational experiences within wider societal structures.

3. Results

Three emerging themes are presented: invisibility and erasure; unprepared institutions and constrained support networks; and agency and everyday resistance.

3.1. Invisibility and Erasure

This theme highlights the structural silencing that shapes participants’ educational and health experiences, emphasizing the urgency of designing sexuality education that affirms both queer and disabled identities. Participants’ narratives illustrate how persons with disabilities who identify as queer experienced systematic erasure both in educational settings and broader society. R3 noted, ‘Most of the time they (non-disabled people) don’t know what we are going through because we don’t tell people about our disabilities due to the stigma.’ Societal norms that stigmatized disabilities seemed to lead to a reluctance to disclose them, resulting in the erasure of disability identities. In cases where disability identities were revealed, erasure of their sexuality was often evident. R2 expressed how the non-disabled community viewed them as asexual, stating, ‘…guys (people) have this notion that guys with disabilities… people with disabilities… we are not sexually active, that we just go home and just stay like that.’

When discussing their experiences in schools, participants unanimously agreed that sexuality education in general was either absent or designed in a way that excluded them. Upon being asked if sexuality education was taught in school, the participants responded in near unison: ‘It was never part of the curriculum’. Follow-up discussion revealed that even when basic content was provided (e.g., menstruation), it was delivered through rigid gender binaries and excluded both disability and queer perspectives, reinforcing participants’ sense of erasure. R5 stated, ‘I remember things like menstruation; we would be told girls to go on this side, boys to go on this other side, it never happened (sexuality education). You come to hear about it when you are out of school’. Discussions on queerness were entirely absent for all students, not just those with disabilities. R3 explained, ‘We were just told male and female, the boys and girls should not mix… but nothing about same-sex attraction or gender diversity.’ This omission seemed to contribute to participants’ sense that persons with disabilities who identified as queer were either invisible or unworthy of recognition within the school system. R4 explained how this caused confusion: ‘For me, I will say I was confused because I had an intersex friend, so we would be left wondering like where does this person fall and where do we place them because we talk about male and female, the x and y chromosome.’ This suggests that sexuality education in schools reinforced rigid gender norms, leaving little space for students who did not fit binary categories. While these norms likely affected many students, regardless of disability or sexual orientation, participants with disabilities who also identified as queer described this erasure as particularly isolating, as it failed to acknowledge the multiple, intersecting aspects of their identities. The strict division of students into ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ ignored the realities of diverse gender and sexual identities and failed to account for the complex educational needs voiced by participants in this study.

While the silencing of questions related to queer identities was interpreted by some participants as a form of disregard, it is important to acknowledge that school administrators may have been responding to broader institutional or cultural constraints. Nevertheless, the effect was a clear exclusion of queer perspectives. R3 described: ‘… there are these activities they bring people from outside… you write sticky notes… there are some questions that they don’t answer and when you ask them later they tell you that they would not be allowed by the school.’

By limiting students’ ability to engage in open discussions, schools contributed to a culture of silence and reinforced societal norms that stigmatized sexuality. The suppression of such topics often stemmed from cultural beliefs that framed sexuality education as inappropriate or taboo. R4 stated, ‘… our culture impacts a lot of things. Even in school they don’t want to call it sexuality education… they are framing it like… it is like a life skill thing.’ This deliberate rebranding reflected the influence of broader sociocultural systems in which schools operated, limiting comprehensive engagement with sexual and gender diversity.

Participants also reported erasure within healthcare settings. R2 shared, ‘… guys (people) should not have this notion that guys with disabilities are not sexually active. Like you go with your partner for HIV testing, and they ask, ‘Even you?’ Such reactions denied the agency of persons with disabilities, reinforcing the perception that they are not valid sexual beings.

3.2. Unprepared Institutions and Constrained Support Networks

This theme illustrates how the absence or distortion of support from families, schools, and peers shaped participants’ exclusion, pointing to the need for policies and training that equip teachers and communities to engage with the intersecting realities of queerness and disability in sexuality education. People in the immediate environment of persons with disabilities who identified as queer—such as family, teachers, and peers—could have served as potential support systems. However, they often appeared unprepared or unwilling to offer support, particularly when queerness was involved. While it is possible that support might have been more forthcoming for persons with disabilities who did not identify as queer, participants suggested that it was the intersection of these identities that amplified exclusion. Additionally, teachers—who might have served as key sources of support—were often ill-equipped to engage with the intersecting identities of disability and queerness. As a result, queer students with disabilities experienced compounded marginalization in school settings, where discussions on sexuality were often avoided, policed, or actively discouraged. As R3 stated, ‘It is not a conversation that the teachers wanted to have.’ This absence of engagement appeared to reflect more than oversight; it pointed to a broader institutional discomfort with identities that challenged dominant heteronormative and ableist norms.

The lack of inclusive discussions was not merely a passive omission but an active marginalization that left queer students with disabilities vulnerable. R1 explained how guidance and counseling sessions, rather than being a source of support, became spaces of judgment and exposure: ‘Guidance and counselling sessions (facilitated by teachers) were supposed to help us, but most times they just became places where we were judged or reported to the administration.’ Instead of fostering safety, these spaces reinforced stigma, deepening students’ sense of isolation.

For many, institutional support mechanisms were not just ineffective but actively harmful. As R2 noted, ‘Anything guidance counseling is a trigger because you will be told that you will be prayed for so that the spirit of wanting men or women to go away, you are told you are not mentally okay…’ This response highlights how students were not just unsupported but subjected to pathologization, where queerness was framed as a disorder requiring correction. The failure to recognize queerness as a valid identity left the students navigating their realities alone, without institutional recognition or affirming spaces. This marginalization was further compounded by the stigma they already faced due to their disabilities, creating multiple layers of exclusion that deepened their sense of invisibility and disadvantage.

The problem was exacerbated by widespread misinformation, making it difficult for teachers to address matters of disability and queerness effectively. As R3 stated, ‘…people (including teachers) do not have the right information or the honest language to converse with us.’ R5 further explained how legal misinformation contributed to stigma:

‘Teachers also play a key role …if they can be trained… because for them they even don’t have a basis for what they argue with… because when you have a conversation with them they will tell you that the constitution (of Kenya) says… Guys, there is nowhere the constitution says being queer is crime. It is the act that is being criminalized, and it is common knowledge that no one is going to come and have their act here, and that is what is being criminalized.’

This misunderstanding of legal frameworks fueled further discrimination, reinforcing the exclusion of students with disabilities who identified as queer.

Yet, the responsibility for sexuality education was not seen as belonging to teachers alone. Parents, civil society organizations, and ‘everyone’ were also viewed as key actors in providing sexuality education. R4 emphasized, ‘… if I am a parent, I should teach my kids about sexual health then their teachers can come in where they go to school.’ R3 added:

‘I think a good example is like this discussion (the ongoing FGD); it has taken things like organizations and civil society organizations to have this, so that is why we say we need everyone because everyone plays a key role. For me as a queer person I will not say my parents because my parent is not a queer person, so how are they supposed to give the information to me, I cannot say this is just for one person.’

While some parents were reported as supportive of their disabled children’s queer identities, some participants found it challenging to disclose their sexuality to their parents, who they saw as not only overprotective but also unable to understand their children’s experiences because of generational differences. The participants noted that they had first disclosed their sexuality to either trusted siblings or peers. As R6 noted, ‘I have shared more with my peers than my parents… it took long for me to tell my parents because parents hide things from us. They say they are protecting you… our parents… come from a different generation from us’.

These perspectives stressed the collective nature of sexuality education, where the wider community, including parents, siblings, and peers, had a role to play. However, participants noted that achieving this level of inclusivity in formal settings like the school required clear and supportive policies to ensure implementation.

Indeed, this need for enabling policy guidance was particularly important given the perceived reluctance of some teachers to discuss comprehensive sexuality education due to perceived government restrictions. While these restrictions themselves constitute a form of policy guidance, participants emphasized the lack of affirmative directives that would support rather than limit inclusive engagement. R1 noted, ‘Teachers will say the government is stopping us from talking about this…’ Without explicit and supportive policy backing, teachers were reported as hesitant to engage in sexuality discussions that could be deemed controversial. To counter this, participants emphasized the need for institutionalized sexuality education that would ensure future teachers and medical professionals were equipped to address the unique needs of students with disabilities who identified as queer. As R3 stated,

‘…sexuality education needs supportive policies to be accepted so that it is incorporated in the school curriculum so that even the medical students when they go to study they are taught about how to cater for our unique (sexuality and disability) needs so that we have a safe environment to live in.’

This reinforces the importance of shifting from reactive or moralizing responses to proactive, inclusive sexuality education policies and practices that affirm, rather than suppress, the intersecting identities of queer students with disabilities.

3.3. Agency and Everyday Resistance

This theme explores how participants navigated exclusion through subtle and overt acts of resistance, highlighting their efforts to affirm identity, build peer support networks, and demand structural change in sexuality education. Rather than passive recipients of marginalization, participants emerged as active agents who used initiative, creativity, and informal networks to challenge the norms that excluded them.

Peer support and self-organized information-seeking emerged as important modes of resistance. Some participants turned to informal learning spaces and peer networks to access sexuality information. R4 explained, ‘It has taken me the initiative to go to spaces and get education from people like me and also get to know.’ R2 highlighted the role of digital tools, noting that ‘we have chatbots that have worked where we refer people who are queer.’

Social media platforms functioned as counter-publics—spaces of connection, affirmation, and knowledge-sharing outside the boundaries of formal education. R6 shared the following:

‘I will post on my social, you will see it, and when we meet, I tell you about it. So, after you see, maybe you will follow and also hear from another person you attend the engagement and then you hear these people do this and that and you decide let me go and see them.’

This illustrates how participants creatively used social media not just for expression, but as a strategic tool for building informal networks of sexuality education and peer support, circumventing formal systems that excluded their identities. These acts of sharing and learning highlight how participants navigated exclusion not through compliance, but through self-directed action and informal education.

Participants also actively contested intersectional marginalization in their daily lives. R3 illustrated this with a scenario where assumptions about disability and queerness combined to deny them support:

‘(Instead of revealing your disability) you tell someone ‘I have a headache, I am experiencing this’ and the first thing they will tell me is to stop using drugs. They just bash you off in a negative way… the approach they will give me will also make it hard for me to share and confide in anyone on my sexuality as a queer person, the person will be like ‘you are already disadvantaged as a queer person and now you are in the category of people with the disability.’

Similarly, R1 described exclusion even within disability communities: ‘We have challenges that we also face and share with our peers with disabilities, but when you share with someone, they tell you, ‘My disability is different from yours, so I cannot relate to you.’ This sense of hierarchy was not limited to disability; participants also described how queer and non-queer identities were often treated unequally, even in spaces meant to support marginalized groups such as the guidance and counselling sessions.

Some participants resisted normative pressures and hierarchies by refusing to conform to dominant gender expectations. As R5 shared,

‘It is a struggle in a high school set up and you (a person with a disability who identifies as queer) are in a girls’ school and also that pressure of adolescence and everybody has a boyfriend but you say I don’t conform to this.’

This refusal to participate in compulsory heterosexuality can be read as a subtle form of resistance that reclaims autonomy over gender and sexual identity. To this participant, the experience of being an adolescent with a disability who identified as queer in a girls’ high school was not just about navigating personal identity but also about pushing back against norms that privileged heterosexuality, binary gender roles, and normative adolescence—norms that also implicitly marginalized students with disabilities. The struggle they described points to how school environments are shaped by layered exclusions—homophobia, ableism, and normative assumptions about age and gender—that made it difficult to find affirmation or institutional support. For R5, the sense of exclusion seemed not just social but also systemic, as the school environment appeared to fail to acknowledge or support students who existed at these intersections.

The university emerged as a space of counter-hegemonic exploration and identity affirmation. Some participants noted that university provided a relatively safer and more open space for exploring the intersections of disability and queerness. R6 explained, ‘Most of the things I learnt from campus from hearing experiences of people who are like me, disabled and queer.’ R4 echoed this:‘ You know, university is all about you and your life. People are more liberated and will mind their business rather than in high school.’ This contrast highlights how the shift from a rigid, surveilled high school environment to the relative autonomy of university allowed participants to engage more freely with their intersectional identities, untethered from the same level of scrutiny or fear of repercussions that can disproportionately affect persons with disabilities and marginalized sexualities.

Participants also seemed to frame their calls for inclusive curricula and policy reforms not merely as personal needs but as collective strategies to confront systemic exclusion and push for recognition. While acknowledging that no single curriculum could meet everyone’s needs, they believed that comprehensive sexuality education could provide a shared baseline for learning and recognition. As R5 put it,

‘I wouldn’t say the experiences (of disability and sexuality) apply to all because everyone has their own unique needs… but when this one (comprehensive sexuality education) is composed in one syllabus and we all have access to this information, (we can recognize that) my disability is not the same as the other person, my experience (about sexuality) is not the same as theirs or hers.’

These acts of agency—whether through peer networks, digital platforms, personal refusal, or calls for curricular change—reveal how participants did not merely endure exclusion but worked to reshape the conditions of their marginalization. Resistance here was not always loud or formal, but embedded in everyday strategies that challenged institutional neglect and affirmed intersectional identities.

4. Discussion

We found that persons with disabilities who identify as queer in Kenya face systemic exclusion through multiple, interconnected mechanisms that reflect broader societal attitudes toward both disability and non-normative sexualities. Our findings reveal how educational institutions (and, in some cases, healthcare systems) in Kenya perpetuate the exclusion of persons with disabilities who identify as queer, while also highlighting the strategies these individuals employ to navigate and resist their marginalization.

Our research documents a pattern of compounded erasure that operates bidirectionally for queer persons with disabilities. It is important to clarify that the findings presented in this study reflect the distinctive marginalization experienced specifically by persons who identify as both queer and disabled. While persons with disabilities in Kenya face well-documented barriers to sexuality education [41], many of the forms of erasure, pathologization, and stigma reported here—such as being subjected to prayer as a corrective measure or denied access to sexuality content framed as ‘immoral’—are intimately tied to the participants’ queer identities.

For example, the policing of sexual expression within school-based counseling sessions, the reluctance of teachers to engage with content deemed to challenge heteronormative norms, and the legal misinformation regarding queerness are issues that would not necessarily emerge, or would manifest differently, among non-queer disabled populations. Thus, this study does not claim to speak for all persons with disabilities but rather foregrounds how the intersection with queerness produces qualitatively distinct exclusions that require targeted attention in policy and practice.

When their disabilities are acknowledged, their sexuality is often erased, with participants reporting that people without disabilities assume they are ‘not sexually active’. Conversely, when sexuality is discussed, the specific needs and experiences of persons with disabilities are typically excluded. This double erasure is consistent with McRuer’s crip theory [29], which suggests that compulsory able-bodiedness and compulsory heterosexuality work together to render non-normative bodies and desires invisible. Samuels [42] further develops this insight by examining how invisible disabilities complicate recognition and belonging, deepening marginalization for those whose conditions are not immediately apparent.

The near-unanimous response from participants that sexuality education is not part of the curriculum reflects not just institutional omission, but the influence of broader policy silences and legal ambiguities that shape school practice. As educational institutions often operate within restrictive national guidelines, their omissions are symptomatic of systemic constraints—including how teachers read policy silences as implicit guidance on what is permissible. When sexuality was addressed, it was often through binary gender segregation (boys on one side, girls on the other) that reinforced heteronormativity and excluded those who did not conform to traditional gender categories. Thus, the education system often reproduces heteronormative and ableist assumptions—not in isolation, but as extensions of broader legal and policy silences—leaving students with disabilities who identify as queer without representation or recognition, as also observed by Duke [3].

The reluctance of teachers to address aspects like sexual orientation and gender identity was often attributed to government restrictions, highlighting how policy constraints can limit educational practice. This finding highlights the need for clear, affirming policy guidance to enable teachers to provide inclusive sexuality education that addresses the needs of all students, including those with disabilities who identify as queer. Fine and McClelland [43] have documented similar policy barriers to CSE, observing that ‘… sexuality education is the only academic content area that is taught as if the knowledge gained in the classroom is meant to exclusively serve the young person’s present situation’ (p. 328). This logical inconsistency becomes particularly striking when we consider the fundamental purpose of education: to equip students with knowledge and skills for both present and future application. While mathematics is taught with explicit recognition of its future utility—although few learners need algebra in their daily lives—sexuality education is constrained by the paradoxical assumption that students should only learn what is immediately relevant [44]. This contradiction not only undermines the educational value of sexuality education but creates a significant disadvantage for adolescents with disabilities, who may require more time and specialized approaches to process and internalize information. The present-focused framing of sexuality education effectively denies these students the opportunity for the gradual, developmental learning that is afforded in other subject areas, further marginalizing those at the intersection of disability and diverse sexual identities.

Furthermore, our research reveals that school-based guidance and counseling sessions often fail to provide a supportive environment for these students. Rather, these sessions can become spaces of judgment, pathologization, and trauma, with some participants reporting experiences where their sexuality was framed as requiring spiritual intervention. This pathologization at the school level reflects broader societal attitudes that frame queerness as a disorder requiring correction, attitudes that are often reinforced by misunderstandings of legal frameworks. The observation that teachers misrepresent the constitution, claiming being queer is a crime when in fact only certain acts are criminalized, demonstrates how misinformation compounds stigma. These findings align with Kafer’s [31] feminist queer crip analysis—a core claim of which is that institutions such as schools and healthcare settings often treat queerness and disability as pathologies requiring correction, rather than as valid identities. Participants’ accounts of being prayed for or ‘corrected’ in school-based counseling reflect this dual process of erasure and moral policing. In the Kenyan context, Macharia [45] has documented similar processes of criminalizing non-normative sexualities, shaped by enduring colonial legacies. These dynamics mirror how disability too is often treated as a condition to fix, not a social identity to accommodate, thereby compounding exclusion for those who are both queer and disabled.

This framing extends more explicitly into healthcare settings, where healthcare providers demonstrate dismissive attitudes toward the sexual and reproductive health needs of persons with disabilities. The account of healthcare providers asking ‘Even you?’ during HIV testing with a partner reveals how deeply entrenched assumptions about the asexuality of disabled bodies can be, even among medical professionals. This finding resonates with Shakespeare’s [46] work on disability and sexuality, which documents how medical discourses often desexualize disabled bodies. Nevertheless, a recent study on women with disabilities in Kenya presents a contrasting finding. It revealed that healthcare providers in the country generally regard women with disabilities as sexually active, possessing sexual drives, and having functional sexual organs [47]. This divergence may point to the need for more intersectional analysis, as recognition of sexuality may not always translate into respectful or inclusive care—especially when queer identities are involved, which the latter study does not address.

Taken together, these experiences shared by our participants illustrate Crenshaw’s [27] concept of intersectionality, demonstrating how disability and queerness interact to create unique forms of marginalization that cannot be fully understood through single-axis analyses. For example, the account on dismissal based on a stereotype associated with disability (“stop using drugs”) and then further marginalization for queerness shows how these identities compound vulnerability (“you are already disadvantaged as a queer person and now you are in the category of people with the disability”). Notably, some participants reported experiences of exclusion even within disability spaces, suggesting the presence of hierarchies based on the type or visibility of disability. This finding extends intersectionality theory by highlighting how power dynamics operate within marginalized groups, not just between dominant and subordinate groups. Musangi [48] critically interrogates similar hierarchical dynamics, specifically in how scholarly discourse on Kenyan female same-sex relationships privileges those involving lesbian sexual intimacy while marginalizing relationships centered on care and kinship. Just as our participants experienced stratification within disability communities, Musangi [48] reveals how Western-centric frameworks reproduce hierarchies of visibility within queer discourse by often “sexualiz[ing]—without sufficient evidence—relationships between women that might not otherwise have been sexual.” (p. 409). Watermeyer [49] further supports this pattern in South African disability communities, showing how internalized oppression can lead to the reproduction of exclusionary practices even within marginalized groups. Collectively, these findings demonstrate how power hierarchies persist and replicate across different contexts of marginalization, challenging simplistic understandings of solidarity within oppressed groups.

The contrast between high school and university experiences offers valuable insights into how institutional contexts shape the expression and recognition of intersectional identities. The observation that university environments provide more liberation suggests that more autonomous educational environments may better support the identity development of persons with disabilities who identify as queer. This finding aligns with studies on inclusive higher education practices for students with disabilities, which suggest that flexibility and autonomy are key factors in creating supportive environments [50,51]. Similarly, a study of teachers in primary and secondary schools across several African countries reports that teacher hesitancy—rooted in cultural or religious fear—can hinder CSE implementation [52]. Yet, as Preston’s study in the U.S. shows, such fear may also produce mediated forms of agency, with teachers adapting sexuality content and pedagogy within institutional constraints [53]. This interplay between fear and resistance reflects a similar dynamic to our findings on participant agency—where students, like teachers in constrained settings, navigated exclusion by finding alternative ways to access or share sexuality education. It suggests that structural supports—such as in-service training and policy protections—could empower both students and educators across diverse educational settings in Kenya. From our study, it is evident that higher education institutions can provide more progressive spaces for diversity, though significant barriers to full inclusion may remain. The freedom and autonomy found in university settings appears to create conditions where intersectional identities can be more fully expressed and recognized. This suggests that educational policymakers should consider how enhancing student agency and fostering more flexible institutional structures can better support diverse identity development across educational contexts.

Despite the barriers they face, our participants demonstrated considerable agency in seeking information and building community. They resisted marginalization by creating alternative knowledge networks and actively seeking educational spaces with like-minded peers. The use of digital technologies—including chatbots and social media—emerged as a key strategy for accessing information and enhancing peer support. This finding contributes to emerging scholarship on disability and digital technology [25], which highlights the potential of online spaces to offer accessible knowledge and community for those excluded from traditional educational settings. Participants used social media not only to share experiences but also to organize in-person meetings, illustrating how digital platforms enable both information exchange and collective action. Moreover, this digital community-building can manifest as a powerful form of resistance to the multiple oppressions faced by persons with disabilities who identify as queer. These acts reflect what Kafer [31] describes within feminist queer crip theory as resistant world-building—where persons with disabilities who identify as queer construct alternative futures and networks outside dominant institutional frameworks. Peta [54] similarly argues that the disability rights movement can learn from HIV activism, particularly in its use of social media, support groups, and empowerment initiatives to promote inclusion and health literacy. In sub-Saharan Africa, where legal and social restrictions may limit LGBTQ+ organizing, digital strategies take on added significance [55]. Martino and Kinitz [56] also document how people with intellectual disabilities turn to peer networks and accessible digital content to meet their sexuality education needs. Our findings highlight how agency and self-determination in digital spaces challenge dominant narratives that frame persons with disabilities who identify as queer as incapable of sexual autonomy.

These findings point to several important implications for policy and practice. Intersectional marginalization requires an intersectional response, involving multiple actors working together to provide accurate and affirming sexuality education [27,28]. By framing sexuality education as a collective responsibility, participants reinforced the idea that intersectional marginalization cannot be dismantled by individual actors alone. The exclusion of considerations for students with disabilities who identified as queer was not just about ignorance or individual inaction but about a systemic unwillingness to engage with complex identities. Addressing these gaps requires a multi-stakeholder approach (including policymakers, educators, parents, siblings, peers, and religious leaders), with policies that explicitly recognize and protect the rights of students whose experiences exist at the intersection of multiple forms of discrimination.

Moreover, CSE should address the needs of diverse groups, including persons with disabilities and those who identify as queer. A universally accessible syllabus can accommodate varied experiences while offering a shared foundation of knowledge. Our findings also point to the need for improved training for teachers and healthcare providers to respond to the intersecting needs of persons with disabilities who identify as queer. This recommendation resonates with Peta’s [54] suggestion to incorporate a course on sexuality and disability into medical training. Esmail et al. [57] argue that targeted training can significantly improve attitudes and knowledge regarding disability and sexuality, suggesting a practical intervention point. Moreover, our findings suggest that digital technologies offer promising opportunities for providing accessible, non-judgmental information about sexuality to persons with disabilities. The use of chatbots, social media, and other digital platforms represents an important avenue for future interventions aimed at increasing access to CSE. Ellcessor’s [25] work on digital accessibility provides important considerations for ensuring that such technologies are designed with diverse users in mind.

While our study is among the first ones to explore the sexuality education experiences of persons with disabilities who identify as queer in sub-Saharan Africa, it has several limitations. Our sample size was relatively small, and our participants were primarily those who had already developed some degree of identification with both disability and queer communities. Future research should seek to include individuals who may be more isolated or less connected to community resources. In addition, our sample comprised mostly female participants (with one non-binary individual); participants who identified as male or transgender did not participate. Due to potential safety and disclosure concerns, future studies should prioritize innovative ways of collecting data from a more gender-diverse sample, including gay men and transgender individuals, to explore potential differences in experiences and perspectives. Similarly, while our findings reflect shared challenges among participants with disabilities who identify as queer, we recognize that specific identities, such as being lesbian or transgender and having particular types of disabilities, may shape CSE needs and visibility in different ways. Future research should explore how distinct queer and disability identities intersect to influence access to sexuality education. Moreover, the age range of participants (23–35) may introduce recall bias, particularly if ‘school’ encompasses not only basic education but also college/university/vocational training, highlighting the need for future research to investigate experiences across different age groups and educational levels. Also, future research could explore further how family dynamics and community attitudes shape the experiences of persons with disabilities who identify as queer, as well as how these individuals navigate multiple community affiliations. As Tamale [58] notes in her comprehensive anthology on African sexualities, family and community contexts are particularly significant in shaping sexual experiences and identities across the continent.

5. Conclusions

Our study illuminates the complex interplay between disability, queer identity, and sexuality education in Kenya, exposing major gaps in how educational and healthcare systems address the needs of persons with disabilities who identify as queer. Using an intersectional lens, we show how invisibility, inadequate support structures, and compound marginalization shape their everyday lives. Yet, participants also demonstrated resilience, building alternative knowledge networks and leveraging digital technologies for information and community. These findings call for comprehensive policy reforms that acknowledge the intersectional nature of identity, improved training for educators and healthcare providers, and inclusive approaches to sexuality education that affirm both disability and sexual diversity. As institutions in Kenya and beyond work toward greater inclusion, they must engage directly with the lived realities of persons with disabilities who identify as queer—not merely as service recipients, but as co-constructors of more equitable educational futures. Policy responses must move beyond symbolic gestures and address the material needs of those most marginalized. While we acknowledge that queer identities are not formally recognized in many policy frameworks in Kenya, we argue that meaningful change often begins through informal practice, advocacy, and bottom-up pressure from educators, civil society actors, and communities. Policy reform, in this context, should be understood not only as a legal or governmental shift but as a broader cultural and institutional process that creates space for recognition, protection, and participation over time.