Coalition of African Lesbians
South-African NPO

The Coalition of African Lesbians (CAL) was a network that comprised 30 non-profit organisations that are spread across 19 different countries in the sub-Saharan region of Africa. Their collective network is centred around feminism, activism, and pan-Africanism. The mission of CAL was to progress the freedom, liberation, and autonomy for all women who reside in Africa or in any other part of the world. Additionally, CAL strives to advocate and build the capacities of lesbian women while promoting African agency. The group disbanded in 2022.
History
The Coalition of African Lesbians was founded in 2003 at a meeting attended by a group of women, including Elizabeth Khaxas—a founder of Sister Namibia—from seven different African countries in Johannesburg, South Africa. It was originally under the name African Lesbian Alliance. In August 2004 in Windhoek, Namibia, the alliance met again with women from 14 different African countries in attendance, sponsored by The Rainbow Project and the Sister Namibia magazine. At this meeting, the organization's name changed to The Coalition of African Lesbians (CAL), and all of the participants were very strategic and adamant about advancing lesbian rights and placing power back into a women's ability to make choices for themselves, especially in regard to their sexual freedom. They were also focused on disseminating HIV information that would resonate and help keep lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women communities safe as they were often overlooked by prominent HIV/AID organizations.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Coalition of African Lesbians” is south-African NPO. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Coalition, African and Lesbians, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5137972. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2022, 2003 and 2004.
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This entry incorporates text from “Coalition of African Lesbians” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.