Stella Nyanzi

In January 2019, she asked that her court date be delayed as she was ill and had suffered a miscarriage in prison.

International news agencies have reported on the reasons for her arrest as political. NPR reported that her arrest was for giving hope "that the powerless can take on the powerful." The Washington Post reported that her arrest was for being an "outspoken anti-Museveni activist." Al Jezeera English reported that her arrest was due to Museveni's plans to rule for life and his intolerance of critics. The Canadian Globe and Mail reported that her arrest was "at the heart of it all it [about] her imaginative use of language and her fierce defiance of the perceived limits for Ugandan women." The Guardian reported that her "attack on her government’s refusal to fund sanitary wear for girls led to a successful crowdfunding campaign, and prison."

Stella Nyanzi is a well-cited scholar in her fields, with 54 articles and 1,432 citations by the end of 2018. Among her most cited articles are those on Ugandan youth's negotiations of sexual relationships, attitudes towards HIV testing among pregnant Ugandan women, Ugandan women's control over sexual encounters, Ugandan men's attitudes towards contraceptive use, and the sexual behavior of many groups. She is also one of the first scholars to publish research on African homosexuality.

In October 2018, she was remanded to prison. She did not request bail because she believed she was safer in jail and because she wanted to continue her education work with the women in prison.

In December 2018, her lawyer attacked the charges as unlawful.

After her arrest in 2017, she was suspended from Makerere University. She appealed the decision with Makerere University's appeal tribunal, which directed that she be reinstated, promoted to the level of a research fellow with immediate effect, and paid back wages. The university refused to abide by its tribunal's decision. So, she filed a lawsuit against the university requesting reinstatement and back wages. In response, in December 2018, the university dismissed her, along with 45 other academics, arguing that her contract expired.

On 6 March 2017, Stella Nyanzi launched the Pads4girlsUg Project, due to her concerns about girls missing school because they could not afford menstrual products. She collected thousands of re-usable pads and distributed them to school girls and also offered lectures to school children about menstrual health.

In March 2017, Stella Nyanzi referred to the President Museveni as "a pair of buttocks."

On 7 April 2017, Stella Nyanzi was arrested and detained by police at Kiira Police Station on charges of cyber harassment and offensive communication.

On 10 April 2017, she was thereafter produced in court, where she was charged with the misuse of a computer, cyber harassment, and abusing the president under section 24, and 25 of the Computer Misuse Act of 2011. She was then remanded to Luzira Prison.

On 11 April 2017, doctors from Butabika Hospital were asked to carry out a psychiatric assessment examination to determine whether she was insane, as the government prosecutor was alleging. However, she resisted the examination and requested that her personal doctor and at least one family member should be present if they want to carry out a medical test on her.

On 10 May 2017, she was released on a non cash 10 million Ugandan shillings (US$2924) bail.

In 2009, Stella Nyanzi began at Makerere University as a Researcher at the Law, Gender & Sexuality Research Project, as a member of the Faculty of Law, where she worked until December 2013. She then worked as a Research Fellow at the Makerere Institute of Social Research until 2016. While there, she was asked to lecture in the new PhD programme, called the Mamdani PHD Project, but declined. Her office was closed and, in an example of the West African feminist cultural practice of what the scholar Naminata Diabate has called "naked agency," made a nude protest against her boss.

She has conducted research on youth sexuality in Uganda, and also in The Gambia in 2005.

She received her PhD in Anthropology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where she studied social anthropology, sexuality, and youth and health policy from 2003 to 2008.

She received her Master of Science in Medical Anthropology at University College London, where she studied from 1999 to 2000.

Stella Nyanzi began her career in 1997 as a Social Science Research Associate at the Medical Research Council (UK) Programme in Uganda ,where she worked until September 2002.

Stella Nyanzi received her Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication and Literature at Makerere University where she studied from 1993 to 1996.

Stella Nyanzi (born 16 June 1974) is a Ugandan medical anthropologist, feminist, queer rights activist, and scholar of sexuality, family planning, and public health. She was arrested in 2017 for insulting the Ugandan president.