TransGriot Note: As a transgender child of the African Diaspora, this 'Kill the Gays' bill is my business as well. I'm sad and disgusted to say it was pushed by white American christobigots and does affect trans people who live in Uganda. A Ugandan trans woman wrote this letter asking her members of Parliament to reject the so-called "kill the gays" bill.
Dear Honorables,
I greet you all in your distinguished capacities. I have
never even for a second thought that I would ever have to write a letter
to parliament, that my words would even have to be read by a people as
you. I find myself, though, at a point in my life, where fate — if you
believe in it — has bestowed upon me this duty to speak for the many
voiceless out there, who like myself, find themselves at a point where
your decision will determine if they will get to take another breath in
this country, as free citizens or not. I pray then, that my words may
not be in vain, but that they may appeal to that humanity that I know
lies at the core of each of you.
I go by the alias of Cleo. I am a 26-year-old
transgendered person. With my ambitious persona and insatiable thirst
for knowledge, I’ve managed to see myself through school to the
post-graduate level. I am a public worker, a scientist and a researcher
to be specific, and earn an honest living from that. I am a Pentecostal
Christian, loving God, though with my liberalist and realist values, I
respect other people’s sentiments, however divergent they are from my
own.
I was born a biologically male child to two very loving
parents, Batooro by decent. Despite the love and care that they bestowed
upon me, my childhood was tainted with a lot of misery. Being a
transgender person, with my atypical behavior, and dress code that
seemed to clash terribly with the stereotypical gender requirements of
my society, I was faced with a lot of rejection from friends and family
alike.
My family and friends have — with time and a lot of
patience and struggle — come to understand my situation and not to judge
me. A few months ago, when I made a monumental decision to fully
transition into a girl, they have shown me so much affection and
support, especially psychologically. For me, I consider this [one of]
the biggest successes in my life; That my family and friends, despite
our divergent values and their earlier negative sentiments, have finally
managed, through a very strenuous process — that I should say, was not
without wounds and tears — to understand and accept me, as a person, as
their child, as their friend, as their sibling. Because that is the
basic essence of what brings us together.
Being a transgendered person is not about who I am
attracted to sexually. It's about what gender I identify with. Being a
trans girl means that I was born biologically male, but with the
physiology and psychology of a girl. At puberty I experienced a male,
but largely female, pubertal development that left me very confused and
rejected in all my social circles, for I was the black sheep. My parents
did not know whether to protect me from boys or girls, but finally it
so happened that I was brought up in a girls’ hostel up to the age of
15.
Growing up a transgender person meant that I had to deal
with my teenage burdens alone with not a soul to tell — not my parents
or peers or siblings — to disclose my darkest secrets. To cry myself to
sleep every night, wishing I was dead, to battle with depression and
suicidal tendencies — that’s all I remember in my teenage life.
I wonder then, why people say it was my choice to be this
way. Why would anyone choose a life as lonely as this, a life of misery,
pain, rejection, abuse and depression? And though I made it, many
haven’t, because their self-esteem, their confidence, and their
vitality, fails them in light of all the negativities that surround
them. It’s hardly the disgustingly abusive world that the media paints
of us, for if there is any abuse sustained even then by any party, it’s
by us.
I ask myself, how one can judge me, before one even knows
me. I understand this though, because for so long I was hated by people
before they even knew me.
Being transgender, like being gay or a lesbian, is not a
choice. What is rather a choice is accepting it for a fact. What is a
choice is if you — at some point in life —decide to not live a masked
life, under the guise of a straight, or asexual person like I did, and
restrain yourself, from everything that you know you are from the core
of your being.
It is very hard living your life through other people’s
eyes; trying hard to make them happy while you restrain yourself of who
you are, or even demonize your actual being because of their
negativities. It's a strange reality that I can loosely liken to
solitude in a crowd, for even though there were so many people around
me, none of them knew me for who I was — for I deliberately concealed a
part of me that I considered a flaw to my being.
At some point though, I realized, just like everyone does
in life, that I could not live entirely on other people’s perceptions of
who I was, battling to make other people happy at my own life’s
expense. For we all have but one life to live. I came to the realization
that I alone knew better who I was, and that I had a rare opportunity
to let people know who I was, and not let them tell me who I was. It had
been a sad existence of existing, but not quite living, of living a
lie, trying to convince myself —and ultimately others — what I was, what
I wasn’t, and I was determined to end that cycle.
As a transgender person, I envision a utopia of gender
neutrality, where all the genders in all their entireties are able to
coexist together, and live in utter harmony and mutual respect of one
another. So that, if not to accept, they might tolerate each other, just
like we have tried to do as people of different tribes, colors,
religions, value systems and races; it’s the measure of our maturity as a
civilization.
I believe then, that in the same regard that all
diversities — racial, tribal, religious, sexual, and gender alike —
instead of being criminalized and demonized, should be celebrated and
empowered, so that rather than to condemn a sect of a few people to
social redundancy, all the human resource that Uganda boasts of can be
fully tapped.
Let’s not then condemn ourselves, so that when people in
the future look back at us, they will do so, just like we do at our
ancestors, and exclaim how inhuman and selfish they were to disregard
the existence of a few people because of their color and race. Gender
diversity and sexual orientation is no premise to crucify someone, just
because you do not agree with how someone dresses, what they act like,
or who they sleep with.
What then, I ask myself, are we teaching the future
generations? Morality even at the expense of life? Morality in the eyes
of a few self-righteous people? That all people aren’t the same, if they
are different? That it is okay to be selfish?
But being transgender — as much as it is my gender identity — does not holistically define who I am.
As people, like facets of a gem, we are complex in our
ambitions and aspirations. We are unique in our personalities, talents,
and value systems. It is these things in their entirety, but none of
them in unison of others that defines us. The binary reductionist
paradigm of looking at life as being either black or white — rather than
as a continuum of several shades — fails to address the issues of life
as it is. I am only different because I am transgender, but other than
that, I am human, with red blood coursing through my veins just like
you, with family and friends that care for me deeply, with personal
sentiments and feeling like you do. I cry and laugh like you do, but I
cannot be reduced and labeled as transgender, as an item on a
supermarket stall, because that’s not all I am. As a person, I am more
than that.
Being transgender and having been rejected most of my life
has taught serenity in the storm. It has taught perseverance, even when
the storm wails on. It has taught me to respect other people despite
their differences, and has taught me to be patient. It has taught me
that life is not about being perfect, because in our flaws, in all our
insecurities and in our inadequacies, we all have something to offer on
the table. And that we are meant, as humans, to shine together, but not
in solitude. And that we must help our brothers and sisters to shine,
but not to trample upon them. To exist and live together, that is what
humanity was meant for. For no man or woman is an island. For alone we
burn out, and fail, but together we flourish.
Finally, we must not forget our ultimate calling and
obligation. For by virtue of our humanity, we ought to love others like
we love ourselves, and treat them with the same delicacy and sensitivity
that we wish be accorded us.
I pray then, that in your deliberations, by the power
vested in you, you may not forget our concerns — as humans, as Ugandans,
as your brothers, sisters, mother and fathers.
With respect,
Cleo. K.
