Mugisha said that although President Yoweri Museveni has yet to sign the bill, many of Ugandan LGBTQ persons have left the country or fled their homes for safety since it was passed.
Mugisha came out two decades ago, and said being gay in Uganda could be lonely and uncomfortable, but regretted that now it has become a matter of life and death.
"As a young person you want to belong. You want to feel wanted, you want to feel liked. You want to be able to engage with your own friends. And because of that, because of people knowing about my sexuality in sometimes, I found myself, you know, isolated or shunned in sometimes and I also did lose some friend," he said.
Since coming out, Mugisha has emerged as the country's most prominent LGBTQ rights activist and the perils have multiplied. In 2011, his friend and colleague David Kato was bludgeoned to death. He said he regularly receives death threats.
Politicians and religious organizations have fanned anti-gay sentiment and lobbied for harsh legislation, leading to parliament's passage of the bill last month, which among others, would criminalize even identifying as LGBTQ.
The bill passed with near unanimous support in parliament. If Museveni signs it — as he is widely expected to — Mugisha's work could land him in jail under a provision that punishes the "promotion" of homosexuality with up to 20 years in prison.
Musa Ecweru, Ugandan member of parliament for the Amuria district, told his fellow parliamentarians when the bill was passed that it was meant to protect the country’s morals and children.
"We are making this law for ourselves, we are making this law for our children, we are making this law for our children of our children," he said.
"This country will stand firm and once it is passed, I can tell you madam speaker, we are going to reinforce the law enforcement officers to make sure that homosexuals have no space in Uganda."
Mugisha said such sentiments by lawmakers makes him worry about members of the LGBTQ community in the East African nation.
"The Ugandan population has been radicalized to fear and hate homosexuals. And the challenge is this is at the local level. It is mostly on social media, like Tiktok and WhatsApp messages in markets," he said.
"And the talk is everywhere, there is talk about homosexuality negatively. So many of these Ugandans live in these areas which are densely populated, slums, and suburbs. So for some of them, life has become very difficult. They can't stay there anymore."
