Misplaced Pages

Matthew Blaise

Article snapshot taken from[REDACTED] with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Nigerian queer rights activist

Matthew Nwozaku Chukwudi Blaise is a Nigerian queer rights activist.

Activity

In March 2020, after the murder of a gay man in Nigeria, Blaise created a Twitter campaign with Ani Kayode Somtochukwu and Victor Emmanuel. The three successfully made the hashtag "#EndHomophobiainNigeria" trend on Nigerian Twitter for multiple days.

Having been detained and threatened by Special Anti-Robbery Squad officers for "perceived homosexuality", Blaise became active in the October 2020 End SARS protests, where they were verbally assaulted for carrying a sign with the words "Queer Lives Matter". They additionally organized a group of other queer people to attend the protests.

After the 2020 Lekki shooting, Blaise started working with Safe HQuse to support queer protestors and survivors. In July 2022, Blaise came under fire on Twitter for allegedly misappropriating money donated to him by other charities.

Personal life

Blaise is non-binary, and uses they/them pronouns. As of October 2020, they were attending Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu Alike Ikwo in Nigeria, seeking a Bachelor of Arts in English and Literary Studies.

Blaise became more outspoken about their sexuality on social media after they were punched and choked by a priest for being gay in 2019, and other people in the church did not intervene.

Recognition

Blaise was a Women Deliver youth leader in 2020; they were 22 years old at the time. Also in 2020, they were a winner of The Future Awards Africa "Prize for Leading Conversations", and The Initiative For Equal Rights' award for "SOGIESC Rights Activist of the Year".

In June 2021, they were featured in a short film by Dafe Oboro that accompanied the summer 2021 cover story of Dazed. In November 2021, they were honoured with a "Generation Change Award" at the 2021 MTV Europe Music Awards in Budapest.

Notes

  1. Blaise uses they/them and he/him pronouns. This article uses they/them pronouns for consistency.

References

  1. ^ Greenfield, Rebecca (11 March 2021). "LGBTQ Rights Regress in Unexpected Places Yet Advance in Others". Bloomberg. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
  2. ^ C.J., Nelson (26 February 2021). "Queer Nigerians Find Both Community, Bigotry on Clubhouse". Time. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
  3. ^ Smith, Reiss (21 October 2020). "End SARS: Queer Nigerians are being abused, humiliated and killed by a corrupt police unit – and it's nothing new". PinkNews. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
  4. Matthew Blaise Twitter post July 9, 2022. Twitter. Retrieved on October 23, 2024
  5. Blaise, Matthew (13 October 2020). "Queer Nigerians Are Being Beaten by SARS — I'm Trying to End That". Out. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
  6. ^ "Matthew (Blaise) Nwozaku". Women Deliver. 2020. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
  7. "The Future Awards Africa: Class of 2020". The Future Awards Africa. 8 November 2020. Archived from the original on 24 October 2021. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
  8. Obi-Young, Otosirieze (26 December 2020). "The 2020 Freedom Awards Honour LGBTQ & Feminist Advocates". Open Country Magazine. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
  9. Dawson, Brit (3 June 2021). "Meet the resilient Nigerians leading the country's youth revolution". Dazed. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
  10. Ramachandran, Naman (14 November 2021). "As MTV EMAs Go Ahead in Budapest Despite Anti-LGBTQ Laws, Hungarian Activist Award Winner Details 'Fear and Censorship'". Variety. Retrieved 15 November 2021.
Flag of NigeriaBiography icon

This biographical article about an activist from Nigeria is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

Categories:
Matthew Blaise Add topic