African And Transgender

One of the things I want to do a better job of this year on TransGriot is get the stories of continental trans Africans out there.

Stumbled across this video from a YouTube video blogger who was born here in New York but whose parents are from the Mother Continent.   He discusses being African and trans.

Archbishop Tutu Reminds Ugandan MP's God Does Not Discriminate

TransGriot Note: Nobel laureate and Archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu wrote this op-ed that was originally published at the Ugandan-based  Daily Monitor    Hope they heed his words and ponder them while they are on holiday break

Uganda’s Parliament is – unbelievably – on the verge of considering a new piece of legislation that would have the effect of legalising persecution, discrimination, hatred and prejudice in that country.
Should the Anti-Homosexuality Bill be voted into law, it will criminalise acts of love between certain categories of people, just as the apartheid government made intimate relations between black and white South Africans a punishable offence.

Members of the apartheid police force charged with the upkeep of “morality” would rush into the bedrooms of suspected offenders to gather evidence, such as warm bed sheets. Those found guilty were arrested, put on trial and punished. What awaits the people of Uganda?

One thing that Ugandan legislators should know is that God does not discriminate among members of our family. God does not say black is better than white, or tall is better than short, or football players are better than basketball players, or Christians are better than Muslims … or gay is better than straight. No. God says love one another; love your neighbour. God is for freedom, equality and love.

People have over many centuries devised all kinds of terrible instruments to oppress other people. Usually, they have rationalised their awful actions on the basis of their belief in their own superiority, in their culture, in their spiritual beliefs, in their skin colour. Thus, they argue, they are justified to hate and bomb and maim the “other”.

The anti-homosexuality legislation now under consideration in Uganda is just such an instrument. Nelson Mandela said: “No one is born hating another person.” If people are taught and can learn to hate, they can learn to love.

Many times in my life, I have been blessed to witness the innate capacity of our human family to reconcile differences. The common denominator in all these transactions is recognition that the notion of equal rights in any family, in any society, is non-negotiable. No sane person or group of people can sustainably argue that their rights should be more equal than others.

If what I am told is true, that the anti-homosexuality legislation in Uganda has widespread popular support, it should surely be the moral duty of the custodians of that country to educate its citizens about discrimination and equal rights. Surely, it should be their duty to clarify the fundamental misunderstandings in communities about what it means to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex (LGBTI).

The depiction of members of the LGBTI community as crazed and depraved monsters threatening the welfare of children and families is simply untrue, and is reminiscent of what we experienced under apartheid and what the Jews experienced at the hands of the Nazis.

To those who claim that homosexuality is not part of our African culture, you are conveniently ignoring the fact that LGBTI Africans have lived peacefully and productively beside us throughout history.
I am proud that in South Africa, when we succeeded in overthrowing apartheid, we put in place a Constitution that prohibited all forms of discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

We did this because we understood that the freedom of one depends upon the freedom of all. We call it the spirit of ubuntu: the idea that I cannot be free if you are not also free.

A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, and does not feel threatened by others’ differences, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.

The ideology of racial superiority that was once used to justify the colonisation of our lands is part of our recent history. Today, we face a new challenge. We must overcome the notion that sexual orientation defines one’s identity or determines one’s station in life – or unjustly elevates one class of people over another.
It is with supreme sorrow that I witness, to this day, the subjugation and repression of African brothers and sisters whose only crime is the practice of love. Hate, in any form or shape, has no place in the house of God.

I urge the people of Uganda to reject hatred and prejudice.

Love comes more naturally to the human heart than hate.

David Bahati-The Man Who Introduced The 'Kill The Gays' Bill

The Ugandan 'Kill The Gays' bill has been getting renewed attention since the speaker of the Ugandan Parliament Rebecca Kadaga announced their intent to pass it before Christmas to the world's horror and the racist American fundies like Scott Lively's glee.

Since one of our Ugandan trans sisters wrote an open letter to her parliament urging the bill be defeated, thought I needed to shed some light on how this odious bill came to exist.

It came into existence due to the negative influence of American christobigots like Lively, they in 2009 injected virulent homophobia into Ugandan politics with two of its conduits being Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and MP David Bahati,  who introduced the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill with its death penalty provision in 2009.

Rachel Maddow got the chance to interview Bahati back in 2010, when the initial international condemnation about the 'Kill the Gays' bill later forced its withdrawal. 



Bahati happens to be one of the key international members of Scott Lively's shadowy group The Family. 

Activists from Sexual Minorities for Uganda struck back by suing Lively in a Massachusetts federal court.

The suit accuses Lively of violating international law by inciting the persecution of gay men and lesbians in Uganda and names four Ugandan co-conspirators: Stephen Langa and Martin Ssempa, evangelists active in the anti-gay movement; Bahati, and James Buturo, the former minister of ethics and a proponent of the legislation.

While that suit is winding its way through our federal court system, unfortunately the Ugandan.LGBT community still have to deal with the crap Lively and David Bahati set in motion in Kampala. 

We must do everything we can along with the international community to help our Ugandan TBLG brothers and sisters kill this unjust bill.

Ugandan Team Makes LLWS History

When the Little League World Series comes on, I'll take some time to watch the games that are broadcast on ESPN because it does take me back to when I played Little League ball back in the day but never got the opportunity to play for my league's All-Star team.  

I have a deep appreciation of how hard it is to not only make your individual Little League's all star team, but go through the various regional playoffs in your state and region to get to Williamsport, PA where they play the Little League World Series.

I was excited to see for the second time ever in the 66 year history of the LLWS, a team from the African continent break through their region chock full of Middle East based Little League teams with children of expat Americans working in the area and win.

Last year a team from Kampala, Uganda beat a strong Saudi Arabian team in the Middle East-Africa regional finals to become the first African team ever to qualify for the LLWS. 

But the joy over that landmark accomplishment was dashed when problems arose with the Ugandan team’s visas and player birth records.  That resulted in the Saudi team they vanquished making the trip to Williamsport

This year's team from the Mehta Little League didn't have that problem since they made certain it was comprised of all 11 year olds and the visas were cleared by the US State Department.  But they still had to successfully navigate the Middle East/Africa regional tournament in Kutno, Poland once again in order to make history.         

That road to reach the LLWS began in July with a heartbreaking 2-1 loss to Saudi Arabia due to a two run homer hit by the Saudis in the top of the 6th inning.   The kids from Lugazi bounced back the next day to beat Dubai 6-0 in the first of their must-win games to stay alive in the double elimination tournament.  They had to play two must-win games the following day, beating Qatar 13-1 and Kuwait 8-0 to get to the July 16 MEA Regional Championship game. 

They beat Kuwait 5-2 to make it the second straight year a Ugandan team has claimed the Middle East/Africa regional tournament title and qualified for the Little League World Series.   The Mehta Little League team scored 33 runs in five MEA tourney games with four of them being pressure packed must win ones.  They gave up only 5 runs in the MEA Regional to begin the trip of a lifetime representing their town,their country and get a shot at winning the world championship. 

The Ugandan squad knew they would be underdogs when they arrived here to play the more experienced international Little League teams, and on Friday they lost to Aguadulce, Panama, 9-3.  The next day Uganda lost to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico 12-0 to eliminate them from international division championship consideration ans send them to a consolation game against Gresham, OR..  

In their consolation game against the Gresham, OR squad today they broke through for a 3-2 win, the first ever by an African based LLWS squad. 

     



They will officially have a 1-2 record, but they will leave Williamsport having made many fans and accomplishing their goal of making friends.   Once the Little League World Series is over they will take in a minor league baseball game and see the United Nations building in New York before heading back home

They will also go back home knowing that they accomplished something that no other African based little league team has ever done in terms of winning a game at the LLWS.

Titica-Trans Angolan Music Rising Star

As I like to point out on this blog, transpeople do exist on the second largest continent on the planet. 

One of the other things I'm most fond of reminding people of that peruse this blog and every time I get a chance to utter the words is  is if transpeople are given a chance, we can do anything we set our minds to do and excel at it.

Meet 25 year old Titica, who is a rising star in the Angolan music genre called kuduro, which is a fusion of rap and techno music. 

She was named the best kuduro artist of 2011, is a regular on radio and television there, has performed at a Divas concert in front of Angolan president Jose Eduardo dos Santos and will be embarking on an international tour with stops in Portugal, the UK and the United States.

But as she mentioned in a BBC interview, her newfound success hasn't been easy.  

"I've been stoned, I've been beaten, and there is a lot of prejudice against me, a lot of people show that. There is a lot of taboo," she said.  





But at the same time, in heavily Catholic Angola, she's managed to cultivate a fan base that only cares about her music, not her trans status. 

And that's the way it should be.   I'll have to check her out when she comes to Houston to perform at the Angolan consulate.

Karmic Wheel Catches Up With Eucharia Uche

Remember Eucharia Uche, the lesbophobic coach of the Nigerian Super Falcons Phobes who boasted about eliminating suspected lesbian players off her team?

The comments generated a firestorm of international criticism and earned Uche a June 29 chat with FIFA Director of Women's Competition's Tatjana Haenni to remind her about FIFA anti-discrimination policies.

After failing to get out of group play during last year's FIFA Women's World Cup in Germany her squad also failed to qualify for the 2012 London Games.

Nigeria has also been relentlessly attacking Equatorial Guinea ever since they upset them in 2008 and became a challenger to Nigerian dominance of African women's continental football.   They have been subjected to long and loud Nigerian transphobic gender griping and filed CAF and FIFA protests misgendering Equatorial Guinea players.  

It was an interesting 'things that make you go hmm' moment when Equatorial Guinea was ousted from the 2012 Olympic qualifying final due to a player eligibility issue and replaced by Cameroon.

Back in October Nigeria battled Cameroon to see who would join South Africa in representing the continent at this year's women's Olympic soccer tournament.

The Super Falcons won the first game of a two leg playoff in Abuja 2-1 but lost the return leg game on October 25 in Yaoundé by the same 2-1 score.  

The 3-3 aggregate score meant the London Olympic berth was decided by penalty kicks, and the Super Falcons subsequently lost the penalty kick shootout 4-3.  

That means for the first time since 2000 the Nigerian women's team will not be marching into an Olympic stadium and competing in the women's soccer tournament when the Games commence, which is unacceptable to Nigerian football fans. 

That failure combined with the Super Falcon failure to qualify for the 2011 All Africa Games tournament in Mozambique and their highly publicized failure at the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup led to Uche's dismissal by the Nigeria Football Federation as the national team head coach.


No word yet from the Nigeria Football Federation on who will replace Uche.  The decision will be made by the end of the month and has a wide international list of candidates of both genders, but the Super Falcons and women footballers in that nation are justifiably lobbying for another female coach to replace her. 

But for the Super Falcons anybody will be better than the controversial lesbophobe and former international player who excelled more in generating negative press than stacking international football wins and major tournament appearances.

And yeah, karma is a rhymes with itch isn't it?