Nikilas (Nikki) Mawanda, an intersex activist from Uganda and founder of an NGO in the country*,  was granted LGBTIQ+ asylum status in the U.S. on 20 March 2014. Asylum was granted months after fleeing his home in Uganda due to the state-sanctioned violence of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which was passed by the Ugandan parliament earlier in the year. 

Nikki is one of the trans activists who collaborated with Gabrielle Le Roux for the Proudly African and Transgender portrait drawing series, which was created during the Eastern and Southern African Trans/Gender Identity Institute in December 2008.

* NGO name removed due to the passing of the Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda in March 2023.