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The politics of penises: Myths about transgender people
Audrey Mbugua
2010-07-28, Issue 492
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/66281
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On 30 July 2010, a transgender woman (who I shall refer to as Storm) was arrested in Thika District in Kenya’s Central Province. She was arraigned in court for intent to commit crime and remanded thereafter in a female remand facility. It was discovered she didn’t possess ‘female genitalia’ the day after. She was thoroughly whipped by a warden for ‘causing the confusion’.
She was transferred to a police station and placed in isolation. While the senior officer was absent, one of the police officers transferred her to a male cell where she suffered sexual assault on top of being ‘baptised’ with a bucket full of urine. Her food was grabbed by some inmates. When she reported the matter to the senior officer, she was beaten up by the officer. Three weeks later a law court released her on a personal bond.
This case presents one of the many incidences of gender oppression transgender people in Kenya face. Gender oppression against transgender people takes the form of violence, sexual assault, verbal abuse, intimidation, victimisation and psychological torture.
The dynamics of these cases of gender oppression are not too hard to understand. First, people look at you and make the assumption that you are a man or a woman. Storm never mentioned that she was a female but the officers assumed she was. This is predicated by the assumption that there are only two sexes/genders: Male and female. Anything else has to be pigeon-holed in these narrow categories. Storm is a transgender woman and the best option would have been to have placed her in a ‘transgender prison facility’.
Secondly, it illuminates the invalid excuse called ignorance. Ignorance is used by many to justify the oppression of transgender people in Kenya. One police officer admitted that if the officers had known about the transgender identity, things would not have gotten out of control. What sort of moral and intellectual cowardice is this? Some of us transgender people don’t know much about pregnancy, but we don’t go around beating up pregnant women because they impersonate fat people. And why do people have to react so violently towards a transgender person? How is violence going to resolve the issue? Transgenderism is not an issue to us but it becomes an issue because people want it to be one.
A year ago, I reported a theft case in our local police post. A suspect was arrested, but not for long. The suspect told the police officers that I wasn’t a woman, but a man. The police released the suspect and raced hotfoot to my house. ‘We are arresting you for female impersonation’ said the leader. ‘And did I ever claim to be a female?’ I enquired. ‘Are you a man or a woman?’ asked the shorter one (Frodo). ‘Am none’ I answered to the boys in blue. ‘You can’t be neither, do you have two organs?’ they pressed. ‘You have no business knowing what I have between my legs and between my ears. Am a transgender, deal with that’ was my response. ‘What is transgender?’ both asked in unison. I explained the transgender concept in a simple way (considering who my audience was). ‘So, if you are a transgender, are you a male transgender or female transgender?’ they continued. ‘Am none of that. I said I am a transgender person. Your labels have no space in the world.’ Well, they went back to their station with their tails neatly tucked between their legs.
Storm revealed that one of the police officers brought his wife and two kids into the police station for a ‘freak show’. The police officer requested Storm to strip in the full view of the family. She refused and the officer rained blows on her as he tore her clothes. His family burst into laughter, aiming degrading remarks at her. Well, I am scared by this incidence because if this disfunctional family does not receive help soon, they will be picking prostitutes from the streets and torturing them before drinking their blood. As I said, ignorance is not the problem; it is the human propensity to harm vulnerable members of the community.
The politics of penises are evident in this sad tale. This is the assumption: A penis is a male organ and anyone having a penis is male/man. I have the greatest sympathy for this flabbiness in reasoning. A penis can also be a transgender penis. A transgender woman who has a penis is a transgender woman not a man/male. If anyone has a problem with that, then they must deal with it. Also, identities are personal and no one has the right to tell a transgender woman that she is a man because of so and so. We are sick and tired of people denying us our right to identity and dignity.
This reminds me of a confrontation I had with part of the gay community related to HIV programming for transgender people. Some experts coined the term ‘Men who have Sex with other Men’ (MSM), which initially was used as a behavioural term rather than as a noun. What these experts were ignorant about was that, whether the term is a behavioural term or a noun, it is disrespectful to refer to transgender women as men who have sex with other men. We are not men but transgender women. But then someone mentioned that most transgender women do have receptive anal sex with men, so the term serves them right. I don’t know where people got this rubbish from but I sincerely hope it will die out sooner than later. There are cisgender women (women born women) who have anal sex with men. Does that make them men who have sex with other men? In a nutshell: Their argument shoots itself in the foot.
This also takes us to the land of ‘misgendering’ transgender women by the gay hungry media and some sexual minorities organisations. A case in point is the just ended Tiwonge and Steven charade in Malawi. Tiwonge maintained she wasn’t male, but I guess a gay hungry media and some gay rights activists couldn’t hear of that. They reasoned: Tiwonge has a penis (and is therefore male), and Steven has a penis (and is therefore a male), so their union was a gay wedding. There is nothing wrong with gay weddings, but it is offensive to label a transgender person gay. You deny her the fundamental right to self-identity; you are simply calling her a man. She is not a man and it is also wrong to assume that a man dating a transgender woman is gay. Yes, explaining this to my 100 year-old grandmother might be a hair splitting exercise but it shouldn’t be quantum physics for the current crop of human rights activists. The valiant Monica Roberts wrote a moving publication about these shenanigans of turning transgender issues into gay issues:
‘We are getting beyond sick and tired of gay organizations misgendering and gayjacking transpeople's identities to fit their agenda … Hot on the heels of the misgendering and mischaracterization of the Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza relationship in Malawi as a 'same-sex' one… now comes the story out of Pakistan that an attempted marriage to a transwoman was broken up by Pakistani police.
'42 year old Malik Muhammad Iqbal and 19 year old transwoman Rani were arrested May 26 in Peshawar. She and the 43 other guests assert they were celebrating her birthday and Iqbal was just a friend… As the story unfolds, like clockwork the Advocate and some gayosphere blogs continue their ongoing patterns of misgendering Rani and other transwomen to pimp the story as a gay marriage issue.’[1]
I am not being polemic or running away from the gay label. I would not be allowed to get away with the following argument: Female genital mutilations are part of African cultures. Any woman who opposes it is running from the ‘traditional woman’ label. Why do people feel they have the right to put a label on us as if we are some kitchenware in a mall? Transgender people need to stop sucking up to mislabelling and proclaim their true identities.
While we support efforts by gay rights organisations to have same-sex marriages and decriminalise same-sex activities between consenting adults, we abhor this ‘gaynising’ trend and spinning of transgender issues into gay issues. It is not wrong to be gay or a lesbian, but it is wrong to refer to a transgender person as gay. It is like referring to a doctor as a carpenter – not because being a carpenter is wrong, but because it is incorrect. Let us respect one another for the sake of sanity.
Another appalling phenomenon in Kenya is the know-it-all attitude people have towards transgender matters. After Storm was released, our lawyer and I were doing the paperwork relating to the case. One police officer started ‘educating’ us on how transgender/transsexuality develops: ‘These people were sexually molested while young so their “male” genitalia no longer works,’ he lectured. What a crackpot! First, no one had asked (or cared) for his expert opinion. If we needed to know what causes transsexuality, we would have sought it from the necessary authorities, not from a police officer who is just trained to shoot. Why is it that people at any level of ignorance feel they have the capacity to lecture about transsexuality? Had Storm been arrested for creating an atomic bomb, would this officer have lectured us on nuclear fission? I don’t think so. Kenyans, please refrain from jumping unto our issues like stolen bicycles.
Some antagonists might resort to using religion to deny us our claim for a third sex. God created two sexes: Male and female. Nothing else and in-between, we should not find flaws in God’s creation. This is not a matter to be handled from a pulpit using some pre-medieval mumblings not worth more than the papers they were written on. Doctors, gender activists and policy makers should not lecture priests on giving ‘Christian children’ alcohol which is christened as the blood of Jesus. We don’t go around reprimanding our priests on the taste of the holy loaf of bread. It doesn’t bother gender activists in any way, the same way the third sex shouldn’t interfere with their holy duties.
The structural roots that sustain gender oppression against transgender people in Kenya are complex but they have solutions. We need the government to recognise the fact that some of us are simply not male or female. We would best fit in a third gender. Gender markers on official documents need to change. It would be best if we didn’t have gender markers at all. What is the purpose of having information in identification documents whose purpose is to give other people an idea of the kind of spanner you have in your pants? If this is untenable, then people who aren’t male or female should be recognised (as the third sex) and the necessary instruments put in place to ensure equality and affirmative action.
BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS
* Audrey Mbugua is a member of Transgender Education and Advocacy, a Kenyan organisation formed to address social injustices committed against the country’s transgender community.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.
NOTES
[1] Monica Roberts. Transgriot 2010. Chill With The ‘Gayjacking’ of Trans Lives for Your Gay Agenda.
http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2010/06/chill-with-gayjacking-of-trans-lives.html
Readers' Comments
Let your voice be heard. Comment on this article.
I really appreciate the article for its educative value.However, I empathise with the situation.I have been looking for an open minded person to explain why I should look at gays and transgenders the way they want and to advocate for their human rights.I also know that it is nobody's fault that people who fall in contested categories are what they are! So our duty is to understand their ways of life and respect them unreservedly.I will teach this issue in my class.On the other hand religion is not a judge.But spiritual power can and indeed does liberate some of those questionable identities.
Anonymous
First, the arguement that transgender women are "women to begin with" (and the same goes for trans men) is so shallow I couldn't use it to drown a rat. Is this person telling us women are "men to begin with" because the word men appears in the word women.
Secondly, the article never insinuated all transgender people identify as transgender. On the contrary, most people in the third sex category are transgender people.
Thirdly, the article never told the gay community to piss off from the transgender dining room. The message is that some people, the media and the public need to stop labeling us with whatever tag they pick in their streets.
Fourthly, there are transgender people who identity as gay. Its not important what label people put on themselves. Its their right. And the same goes for some of us: we are transgender women. Not gays, not men who have sex with other men and not lesbians.
Lastly, the bible does not mention transgender as a sex or third sex (and we don't need it to). People should keep their religious doctrines to themselves. If there is anything worthwhile to talk about (bibles and korans) its their onus to provide evidence to support anything they claim.
Retain your illusions but they ain't life rafts for some of us. We have science.
Megatron
I cant help but notice that you still say transgender man or woman, inferring they are still man or woman to begin with. I like your asking the gays to keep your issues separate. Finally, matters of faith are based on religious teaching, and if God created male and female,w e never are really going to change the book and add that he also created something in between, are we?
Judy Kalinga
Thank you for a good article. I would like to point out, however, that some trans people are gay. And some of us are FtM. And some of us do not identify as a third gender, though my closest lesbian friend does.
David Zennaro
I couldn't agree more - we (as human beings) shouldn't be sidelining anyone because of their gender. Gender being something that is far more dynamic and variable than most understand. There is a reason many grass-roots and student organisations have renamed themselves to include sexual and gender minorites, and those coming to terms with who they really are (eg LGBTQ and intersex as well). I'm sorry that the press often see all these issues as 'gay' issues - we may have common aims but we are not all the same. Show respect to your fellow humans, don't just label and dismiss those you think as somehow less human. 3rd genders are often present in pre-Christian/pagan societies - we so easily forget our past, and at our peril. No one is less human - if we treat other as such we lead very quickly to inhuman treatment and genocide - on every continent. Not just Rwanda but anywhere where racial tensions are killing people every day. Don't just be ignorant or quiet about these things - they will continue to happen again and again.
Ken Rohde
I have read this and it is very touching as they say ignorance is bliss.....sometimes its not! lets put aside transgenders and look at people who are born with deformities they didn't choose to be like that so everyone deserves they rights reserved as a normal human being and no one should discriminate because you might give birth to transgenders or have one as a relative so how would you like them to be treated?......I concur with the author. I ABHOR this behavior.
Anonymous
I love this. She says alot that needs to be said.
But I have an issue. NOT all who are (because of their nature) transgender women/men identify as transgender women/men. I for example, identify as a woman. Period. What's between my legs is not an issue. While I agree that society needs to wake up to reality that the binary gender "boxes" are obsolete, we need to also respect each other for what we identify with.
Nice work Audrey, keep on telling them the hard core truth. Sometimes such 'strong' words are necessary to jolt some sense into people's minds.
http://kenyantg.blogspot.com
Lindsay