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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2012 21:43:46 GMT 3
It's okay and "traditional" for Zuma to acquire as many female appendages as he'd like but "antitraditional" for LGBTI people to have a life. Isn't that something? South African leaders strike out at gay rights Posted Monday, May 7 2012 at 11:25 JOHANNESBURG
South Africa's National House of Traditional Leaders wants parliament to delete a clause in the constitution that guarantees equal rights to homosexuals, a media report said Sunday.
The leaders, who advise the government on traditional laws and customs among ethnic groups such as the Zulu and Xhosa, made the request in reply to the annual invitation to submit suggestions to parliament's constitutional review committee, City Press reported.
The weekly newspaper said the ruling African National Congress (ANC) would consider the proposal. South Africa is the only African country to allow gay marriage and adoption.
Its constitution, adopted after the fall of apartheid in 1994, reads: "The state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including... sexual orientation."
ANC lawmaker Patekile Holomisa, who chairs the constitutional review committee and is also a traditional leader, said ANC leaders had imposed equal rights for gays on party members and the country.
"The great majority does not want to give promotion and protection to these things," he told City Press.
"The last time this issue was discussed was about same-sex marriages. Most of the people in the (parliamentary) caucus were opposed to it, but then Luthuli House (ANC headquarters) and the leadership instructed us to vote for it."
Kenyans ‘bullied’ out of the 2012 World Gay crown Holomisa, who said he fears the ruling party will lose votes if it ignores the traditional values of its electoral base, called homosexuality "a condition that occurred when certain rituals have not been performed".
The ANC quickly distanced itself from Holomisa's remarks, releasing a statement that said the ruling party's chief whip in parliament would call a meeting with him "for clarity regarding his media statements".
"The ANC caucus distances itself from these views and would like it noted that at no stage has it considered debating this issue before parliament," it said.
"The ANC believes that any law which denies people the right to their sexual expression devalues them in our broader society and as such is an affront to their dignity and a breach of... our constitution."
Despite South Africa's liberal constitution, homosexuals still face discrimination, harassment and violence, especially in black townships, where lesbians are commonly targeted for "corrective rape" in the belief that sex with a man can change their sexual orientation.www.nation.co.ke/News/africa/SA+leaders+strike+out+at+gay+rights+/-/1066/1400958/-/wuykrb/-/index.html
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2012 22:04:14 GMT 3
CNN news clip: GAY IN KENYA
GAY AFRICA PART 1
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Post by Deleted on Jul 4, 2012 0:51:29 GMT 3
jakaswanga and others clearly this person is not cisgender. Rather she is transgenderFrom 1.47 there are some people who are thinking and talking intelligently about this matter of gender identity. The guy says that even in our homes, we don't know who we are living with. sensible guy that! But then see the mob. Who can possibly come out as LGBTI in that kind of environment? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity
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Post by jakaswanga on Jul 4, 2012 20:13:39 GMT 3
jakaswanga and others clearly this person is not cisgender. Rather she is transgenderFrom 1.47 there are some people who are thinking and talking intelligently about this matter of gender identity. The guy says that even in our homes, we don't know who we are living with. sensible guy that! But then see the mob. Who can possibly come out as LGBTI in that kind of environment? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity K-K,Reality has thrown up a situation which confronts all orthodoxy and rote understandings of human sexuality and behaviour. [Or appears to publicly, because even in my secondary school days we had these girlie-boys, and it is not as if this is a revelation, since stories abound in the countrysides --whispers about why so and so does not marry .. and yet he is not really biologically disfunctional...] A good reporter, noticing the sensitivity and social compexity of this issue, should have sought the commentary of an expert, a sexuologist for instance, who can then have a current scientific explanation --a talking (wikipedia) head! and put it in context. Other societies have found very adequate ways of coping with this. Not that people have to believe the expert, but those with minds, and the majority have minds, will engage in a thing called thinking. The moment thinking starts, rubbish like 'this is ushetani' becomes difficult to defend. That is progress. Refering to this 'transgender' dresser as ushetani, looks to be hate speech? na?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 19, 2012 12:46:08 GMT 3
Going against the grain David Kuria an out gay man refused to get hitched in a heterosexual relationship to conform to hetero normartivity. He is going down in history as the first out gay man to run for public office in Kenya. In as far as being an out gay man I offer my congratulations and support. It takes guts to do what he is doing in a thoroughly hostile environment second only to the likes of Museveni's Uganda. Having said that though I must explain that what will matter is his ideological leanings and practice in so far as aligning himself with the interests of Kenyans. Does he concern himself with the struggles for rights and freedoms of Kenyans in terms of class, gender, disabilities, ethnicities and in all other ways in which majority of Kenyans are marginalized? Does he concern himself with putting an end to impunity and creating a more just and humane society where all folks are held to equal standards? We have seen folks from marginalized groups who are the standard bearer for the status quo. We do not need more of that. Mary Cheney, Dick Cheney's daughter comes to mind here. As an out lesbian she is a proponent of LGBTI rights. That's as far as her progressive politics go. She supports rights so long as they enable her to live her life as a full human being free from adverse discrimination and the tyranny of the majority. With regards to other rights and freedoms such as putting an end to racism, putting an end to class exploitation she is a neo-Conservative. Makes me think of the ways in which say Black men will stand against racism but not sexism. Or the ways in which people of colour stand against racism but want to terrorize LGBTI people with homophobia and transphobia. Or the ways in which able bodied people will stand for various rights while never speaking against physical-ism(discrimination against those living with disabilities). Gay rights man eyes Kiambu seat By NATION REPORTER
Posted Tuesday, September 18 2012 at 20:48
The first openly gay man to run for office is drawing attention to Kiambu County by running for the senate seat.
Mr David Kuria recognises that his sexual orientation may be an extra challenge in the already competitive political sphere.
“People may not see beyond the issue of sexual orientation and listen to my agenda” he admitted to the Nation.
He holds a Masters degree in Business Administration from the University of Nairobi.
Going against the advice of many to marry, he hopes that voters will interpret his openness about his sexual orientation as honesty.
Mr Kuria hopes that the discrimination he has faced will allow him to better represent others in the society who are marginalised.
The 40-year-old has developed a campaign platform focusing on reforming laws and other structural barriers that prevent access to HIV services and fighting poverty.www.nation.co.ke/News/politics/Gay+rights+man+eyes+Kiambu+seat+/-/1064/1511394/-/4vmlwg/-/index.html
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Post by Deleted on Sept 19, 2012 13:58:05 GMT 3
This interview with Angela Davis was originally published in the Vol. 10. no. 1 1999 issue of the Hastings Women's Law Journal, and is from Siobhan's book-in-progress Dancing Shadows: Interviews with Men and Women Sex Workers of Color.
Siobhan Brooks: What was your experience during your incarceration with sex workers? How did you observe them being treated?
Angela Davis: One of things I recall very clearly from my incarceration in New York twenty-seven years ago was that large numbers of sex workers were continually arrested. During my six weeks at the New York Women's House of Detention, I was struck by the fact that judges were much more likely to release white prostitutes on their own recognizance than Black or Puerto Rican prostitutes. Nearly ninety percent of the prisoners in this jail---some of whom were awaiting trial like myself and some of whom were serving sentences---were women of color. The women talked a great deal about the various ways racism was manifested in the criminal justice system. They talked about the way race determined who went to jail and who stayed in jail and who did not. During the short time I was there, I saw a significant number of white women come in on charges of prostitution. Most of the time they would be released within a matter of hours. Because of the problems many women faced in attempting to raise bail, we decided to work with women in the 'free world' who were organizing a women's bail fund. The women on the outside set up the structure and raised the money and we organized women inside. Those who joined the campaign agreed to continue working with the bail fund on the outside once their bail was paid by funds raised by the organization. Quite a number of sex workers became involved in this campaign.
SB: What kind of abuse did you witness towards sex workers of color?
AD: I don't recall that sex workers were singled out, but I witnessed a great deal of verbal abuse directed toward all of the women prisoners. Prisoners, particularly women prisoners, were and still are treated as if they have no rights. They are infantilized---for instance, they are referred to as "girls." Not only in my personal experience Dancing as a prisoner, but also in the work I have done as a teacher in the San Francisco County Jail---where Rhodessa Jones produces collaborative theater presentations---I have witnessed a great deal of verbal abuse directed toward women prisoners. Often guards and other jail personnel are entirely unaware that they are inferiorizing the prisoners.
SB: In one of your essays in Women, Race, & Class, you mentioned prostitutes trying to form a union in the early part of the century. I know that you are supportive of sex workers trying to organize their work environment. I wanted to hear in your own words what your overall view of the sex industry is?
AD: I can begin by saying that I think the sex industry should be decriminalized. In countries like the Netherlands, where the sex industry has been decriminalized, there are, as a result, fewer pressures on the criminal justice system as far as women are concerned. The continued criminalization of the sex industry is in part responsible for the expanding numbers of women entering jails and prisons. This phenomenon of exponential expansion of incarcerated populations is a part of the emergent prison industrial complex. Not only are jail and prison populations increasing at an incredible rate, capitalist corporations now have a greater stake in the punishment industry. More prisons are being constructed, more companies are using prison labor, more prisons are privatized. At the same time more women are going to prison, more spaces are being created for women and, as a result, ever-greater numbers of women will be going to prison in the future. In my opinion, the continued criminalization of prostitution and the sex industry in general will feed into the further development of this prison industrial complex. The dismantling of the welfare system under the so-called welfare reform law will probably lead to a further expansion of the sex industry as well as the underground drug economy. The criminalization of the sex industry will therefore help to draw more and more women into the prison industrial complex. There is a racist dimension to this process, since a disproportionate number of these women will be women of color.
SB: Do you think in the near future prostitution will be decriminalized here?
AD: This is something we need to fight for. In the age of HIV and AIDS, it makes no sense to continue to construct social circumstances that increasingly put women at risk. The work that C.O.Y.O.T.E. has done over the years has been extremely important. In this respect, Margo St. James is a pioneer. I have read about the work that you have done at the Lusty Lady in organizing with SEIU, Local 790. Hopefully, the work you are doing will become a statewide and national trend. Certainly if unions such as yours continue to organize and if the women's movement and other progressive movements take up the demand for decriminalilzation, there will be some hope.
SB: Do you recall what kind of discussion was going on around the time of the feminist movement in the 70s regarding sex workers?
AD: During the earliest period of the women's liberation movement, the most dramatic issues were sexual violence and reproductive rights---in other words rape and abortion. Issues relating to the sex industry were raised in the context of the discussions around sexual violence. For example, there was the debate regarding the Minneapolis statute outlawing pornography, which tended to divide many feminists into opposing camps for and against pornography. That polaization was a rather unfortunate development. But at the same time these debates led to very interesting questions about what counts as pornography, which opened up new ways of thinking and talking about sex and erotic practices. The definition of pornography as assaultive, objectifying and violative of women's autonomy and self-determination was strategically important, because it allowed for a distinction between what was exploitative and violative on the one hand, and what was an expression of agency on the other. These discussions laid the ground-work for moving feminist discourse on the sex industry outside of the vexed framework of morality.
SB: How do you think your own feminist views have changed over the years?
AD: I think they've changed a great deal. For one, I didn't really consider myself a "feminist" during the sixties and seventies, even though I was very much involved in work around women's issues. With the emergence of the women's liberation movement in during the late sixties, many women of color, myself included, tended to distance ourselves from white middle-class feminists. Many of us felt as if we were being asked to choose either race or gender and we wanted to address both at the same time. We felt marginalized in our movements for racial equality and likewise marginalized in movements for gender equality. If white, middle-class feminist movements tended to be racist, then many anti-racist efforts tended to be masculinist. I have come to the conclusion that feminism is not a monolithic movement or way of thinking. There are different feminisms and it is incumbent on the women and men who call themselves feminists to clarify the politics of their particular brands of feminism. I choose to define feminism within a framework of radical, socialist politics that links struggles against male dominance with anti-racist, anti-homophobic practices. This means that we can also think about our past in different ways as well. When I wrote the book, Women, Race, & Class, I did not consider myself a feminist. But now I realize that in this book I was attempting to explore marginalized Black feminist historical traditions. My latest book, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, continues that search for working-class feminist traditions in the work of Black women blues singers. When I looked at Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday, I discovered that one of the most important feminist themes of their work was sexuality. Blues songs---as well as Billie Holiday's transformation of popular songs using blues and jazz---evoke sex in very interesting ways and often use graphic sexual metaphors. Middle-class Black people historically have often disasociated themselves from the blues precisely because of the way they deal with sex. In Blues Legacies, I conclude that sexuality was especially important to Black people who had just emerged from the experience of slavery. In the aftermath of slavery, emancipated Black people were not really free. Even though slavery was abolished, there was no economic freedom and no political freedom. But Black people could exercise agency and autonomy in sexual matters. They could make their own decisions regarding their sexual partners. They could decide who to have sex with on the basis of their own desire---and not according to the slave masters' need to reproduce the slave population. This was one of the most tangible expressions of freedom for a people who were still not free. In my book I read women's blues songs in a way that allows me to link sexuality with liberation.
SB: That's a great project because all across the board Black feminism is not acknowledged the way that it should be. How do you view political activism and feminism among young people?
AD: I do not assume like many people of my generation that young people today are politically apathetic. Young people are involved in a great deal of important grassroots activism. They are involved in serious campaigns against the dismantling of affirmative action, they are challenging the prison industrial complex, they are involved in the AIDS movement and they are doing innovative organizing like your work as a union organizer in the sex industry. The main problem, I believe, is the lack of visibility of this work and the lack of national networks. As a result many people assume that the work is not being done. I try to warn against comparisons of young people today with their movement ancestors, so to speak, and against the nostalgia that defines the sixties as the revolutionary era and the nineties as an era of political passivity. The circumstances we face today are far more complicated than they were thirty years ago. I really don't envy young activist who today cannot focus on one issue in the way sixties activism focused either on race or on gender or on class. Young people today have to learn how to hold all these things in tension and to recognize their intersectionalities.
During the sixties, if you became an anti-racist activist, all you had to do was to figure out how to challenge racism. You knew who the enemy was. Now, of course, we realize that the enemy is not that clear cut. Since we have learned to politicize domestic violence, we can say that the male activist who batters his partner stands simultaneously on both sides of the battle lines. These are some of the complicated relationships young people must understand today. I deeply respect the work of young activist and I try to encourage young people to look among themselves for models as opposed to assuming that they can find them in the past. I often say that respect for your elders is good, but you have to combine the right amount of respect with a few doses of disrespect in order to extricate yourselves from the historical past. An important part of the work of creating new forms of struggle resides in challenging the previous forms. People of my generation challenged the elders---the Martin Luther Kings for example---in order to carve out new paths. This, I think, is what needs to happen today.
SB: How did you envision the political future of the 80s and 90s after you were released from prison?
AD: There was a great deal of repression in the 70s when I went to jail and when political prisoners from the Black Panther Party and other organizations abounded in the jails and prisons. The FBI and local police forces attempted to wipe out organizations like the BPP. Students were the targets of repression---at Kent State, for example. The 70s were a period during which the state was determined to wipe out radical resistance. And they were successful to a certain extent. But on the other hand, there were those who continued to do the work. Even during the Reagan era, there were important and massive displays of political resistance. Perhaps the present is always the most difficult to understand, but it seems that this is the most difficult time of all. Now that increasing numbers of women and people of color are in positions of power, we have to recognize that we can no longer assume that Black or Latino people or women of any racial background will be progressive by virtue of their race or gender. In face many, like Clarence Thomas and Ward Connerly here in California, have become spokespeople for the most politically backward and conservative positions. This means that we need to think differently about our political strategies. We can't strive for the kind of unity upon which people tended to rely in the past. We have to dispense with old ideas about Black unity or women's unity. The kind of unity we need, I think, is unity forged around political projects as opposed to unity based simplistically on race or gender. My own hope for the future is not an abstract hope but is grounded in the notion that we have to confront the tasks before us. If we don't do the work, we will be confronting a future far direr and far more dangerous than the present.
SB: That's a very frightening future. I think that what I find interesting about what some people are calling the sex workers' movement is that it encompasses groups of people from different races, classes, and genders. I think that's a good blueprint as to how we can ally ourselves with different activists on the left and create something broader. www.bayswan.org/eda-sf/pages/angeladavis.html
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Post by mwalimumkuu on Sept 19, 2012 15:35:07 GMT 3
Kathure,
Sorry to disappoint you, but tell this Kuria guy that he is going nowhere. If his intention is to make money then he is on the right track, but representing PEOPLE? I don't know about that.
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Post by b6k on Sept 20, 2012 16:00:26 GMT 3
The comments were more appropriate for the thread than the story which was that the Australian parliament has rejected same sex marriage... Banter • a day ago − I'd like to see the UK act against Australia then, since it (UK) has been threatening to withdraw aid to African countries that do not support same sex relationships. 25 1 •Reply•Share › Audalla • a day ago • parent They (UK) know who to bully. That's why we should strive to get development partners who respect our ways, not those that want us to remain their subjects forever. 15 •Reply•Share › mwandawida • a day ago • parent It is the UK that would need aid from the land down under-not the reverse. So they'll push their tails under the belly in the face of the Kangaroos!! 6 •Reply•Share › Njonjo Ndehi • a day ago • parent Japan is by far the biggest donor to Africa and they're not forcing us to do sumo wrestling lol. 5 •Reply•Share › Menes • a day ago • parent I have a conspiracy theory that says Gay and Lesbian marriages are promoted especially in Africa to curb population growth.Some people just wish Africans would die out and they rush in to enjoy sunshine. 6 2 •Reply•Share › coldtusker • a day ago • parent Interesting theory but false. The problem with a large non-producing population = civil unrest. Kenya needs an educated/skilled & entrepreneurial population that can produce not a population that hangs around 'waiting' for a job from the government or others. It is better to have 22mn people with skills/education than a large majority of 44mn without. Compare Kenya's population growth juxtaposed with GDP = PCI to Singapore or Australia. 0 •Reply•Share › Njonjo Ndehi • 17 hours ago • parent Lump of labour fallacy. Google it up and educate yourself. www.nation.co.ke/News/world/Australian+parliament+rejects+same+sex+marriage+/-/1068/1511526/-/108fwl4/-/index.html
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Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2012 16:40:29 GMT 3
The comments were more appropriate for the thread than the story which was that the Australian parliament has rejected same sex marriage... Banter • a day ago − I'd like to see the UK act against Australia then, since it (UK) has been threatening to withdraw aid to African countries that do not support same sex relationships. 25 1 •Reply•Share › Audalla • a day ago • parent They (UK) know who to bully. That's why we should strive to get development partners who respect our ways, not those that want us to remain their subjects forever. 15 •Reply•Share › mwandawida • a day ago • parent It is the UK that would need aid from the land down under-not the reverse. So they'll push their tails under the belly in the face of the Kangaroos!! 6 •Reply•Share › Njonjo Ndehi • a day ago • parent Japan is by far the biggest donor to Africa and they're not forcing us to do sumo wrestling lol. 5 •Reply•Share › Menes • a day ago • parent I have a conspiracy theory that says Gay and Lesbian marriages are promoted especially in Africa to curb population growth.Some people just wish Africans would die out and they rush in to enjoy sunshine. 6 2 •Reply•Share › coldtusker • a day ago • parent Interesting theory but false. The problem with a large non-producing population = civil unrest. Kenya needs an educated/skilled & entrepreneurial population that can produce not a population that hangs around 'waiting' for a job from the government or others. It is better to have 22mn people with skills/education than a large majority of 44mn without. Compare Kenya's population growth juxtaposed with GDP = PCI to Singapore or Australia. 0 •Reply•Share › Njonjo Ndehi • 17 hours ago • parent Lump of labour fallacy. Google it up and educate yourself. www.nation.co.ke/News/world/Australian+parliament+rejects+same+sex+marriage+/-/1068/1511526/-/108fwl4/-/index.html b6knothing will happen to Australia. It's not illegal to be LGBTI in that country and they aren't baying for our blood like in Uganda and such. This decision coming out of Australia was a set back. It's a protracted struggle my friend. Remember how long it took blacks to get any sorts of rights in western countries? now I'm going to post the story about the baseball player who thought it funny to put homophobic comments on his face right here in tdot. check the sports thread. the tyranny of the majority won't do!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2013 7:32:07 GMT 3
An oversight i hope they don't try to undo by withdrawing the book from the curriculum because of homophobia, carrying on about religion and culture and such excuses to hate on people. KIE censors score a first by picking gay author’s novel
Although it may be as a result of an oversight at the conservative Kenya Institute of Education (KIE), Kenyan students have, for the first time, had the opportunity to read in class a book by an author who is openly gay.
To be examined as a set book this year, The Whale Rider (1987) is written by the New Zealand gay author Witi Ihimaera. It is a highly accomplished novel about the Maori culture in the wake of European colonialism.
Written by a father of two daughters before he separated from his family, The Whale Rider is overtly feminist, criticising the retrogressive aspects of Maori culture that allow discrimination against women.
Gay references in the novel are subtle but keen readers won’t miss them. But going by the guidebooks on The Whale Rider in Kenyan bookshops, teachers will likely ignore or suppress the gay undertones in the novel and the gay part of the author’s life and writing career — assuming they know about it.
A founder member of the Maori gay organisation Te Waka Awhina Tane, the 1944-born Witi Ihimaera married a librarian, Jane Cleghorn, in 1970. They had two daughters. But the couple broke up when he wrote the first Maori gay novel, Nights in the Gardens of Spain (1996).
Like Ihimaera, the main character in Nights in the Gardens of Spain, David Munro, is a university professor, married with two daughters, and a founder member of the Maori equivalent of the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya.
With searing honesty, the novel offers a graphic and frank depiction of the complex “underground” gay scene in Auckland, New Zealand, and the author’s pains of coming to terms with his own homosexuality.
We don’t encounter gay bathhouses or accounts of Aids or suicide in The Whale Rider, but keen readers won’t miss the subtle suggestions of the legitimacy of gay generosity.
To decode homosexuality in The Whale Rider, you may need some basic knowledge of queer theory, which literature teacher-training programmes in Kenya don’t offer because the theory is wrongly assumed to be the preserve of gay and lesbian critics.
But sometimes you don’t even need Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s Epistemology of the Closet to get the hints of gay invitations in the novel.
The pet name “Paka” that it gives one of the principal characters is one of the hints. It is the name the masculine wife of the chief of Whangara calls her husband in jest.
According to a glossary in the New Zealand edition of The Whale Rider, “Paka” stands for the offensive word “bugger”, usually impolitely used to describe a silly or annoying person. The word also refers to the act of having anal sex or sex with animals.
According to the queer theorist Lee Edelman in No Future: Queer Theory and the Death of Drive (2004), “queerness can never define an identity; it can only ever disturb one.”
In The Whale Rider, Witi Ihimaera keeps disturbing heterosexuality by portraying ostensibly heterosexual characters whose sexual identity is indeterminate because they display characteristics of the opposite gender.
In a scene full of irony because the eight-year-old heroine doesn’t fully understand the broader implications of what she is rambling on and on about, Kahu insists that she’s not the kind of girl who “likes boys”.
Homosexuality is used humorously in one incident when Koro Apirana mistakes the male narrator for his wife as they share a bed, both having been turned away by their female partners.
According to the Maori myths of origin, the first Maori man came to New Zealand riding a male whale. The most beautifully narrated passages in the novel involve the sentimental male whale’s longing for its male rider.
The language is lyrical and homoerotic, as the old whale remembers his youth with nostalgia, the Maori male rider on his back. The whale so misses the rider, he is suicidal.
But will teachers explore these suggestive elements alongside the author’s biography? This is very unlikely.
In fact, although I have taught Ihimaera’s books for a few years now in post-colonial and animal studies literature classes, when a Nation editor asked me to review The Whale Rider in February after it was chosen as a national set book, I strategically suppressed details about the author’s sexuality.
Maybe I was wrong, but I feared that if Kenyans knew about Ihimaera’s sexuality before the magnificent book was already fully settled in the classroom, it would be withdrawn from the curriculum, thanks to a homophobia-soaked brigade of hypocrites that calls the shots in the media, churches, schools, and mosques.
I also suppressed the fact that alongside Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Margaret Ogola, Witi Ihimaera says he enjoys the work of the locally unknown but internationally acclaimed Kenyan gay writer Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla, the author of Ode to Lata (2002).
Dhalla’s novel, which has been made into a film, is about the experiences of Ali, a gay man who leaves Kenya for Los Angeles and is haunted by his past as he narrates about his present relationships with men.
It is while writing a guidebook to The Whale Rider that I decided I shouldn’t be quiet about the author’s sexual orientation and the issues that the novel subtly presents.
If I have any fear in life these days, it is that my child, when she grows up, might lump me together with the gang of Kenyan homophobes who will demonise a novel just because of the author’s sexual preferences.
There is a likelihood my publishers will delete from the guidebook the sections discussing homosexuality, but that will be between them and their God, if they believe in Him at all.
Ironically, the KIE has been forcing publishers and authors to expunge anything to do with sexual desire from the literary works they prescribe for schools.
The KIE censorship is so draconian that the situation is worse than it was during the worst of Moi days, when students would read even revolutionary books by Sembene Ousmane and Alex la Guma, in spite of the government’s anti-Marxist paranoia.
Works that referred to homosexuality were also read as set books in Moi’s Kenya, including Francis Imbuga’s Betrayal in the City, which suggests existence of men having sex with men in prisons, and John Ruganda’s The Burdens, which talks about “priests pressing their chests on young boys”.
Today, KIE would most likely have those “offensive” parts deleted. Unfortunately, royalties from set book sales are so attractive that eminent writers like Ngugi wa Thiong’o and the late Francis Imbuga have agreed to play ball, allowing KIE to bowdlerise and mutilate their works for approval as set books.
For fear of offending the powerful government body, upcoming writers neither experiment with language nor explore the complexity of life in the 21st century. The result is a heap of new novels that read like advanced primary school compositions.
If the choice of a gay text was not deliberate on KIE’s part, it should teach us a few lessons.
One of this is that it is time KIE stopped policing books too much. Let the kids giggle and sblack person at the clever way writers cloak “dirty” meanings for the readers to decode.
After all, secondary school students are not toddlers; they are young adults who will need skills to decode dirty messages in real life, where they will always encounter people with hidden sexual agenda to decode.
The outcome of KIE censorship is ridiculous and counter-productive. When one reads the Kenyan version of The Whale Rider against international editions, it appears that the Kenyan editors have been compelled to drop colloquial and slang words used in the original.
Words such as “cous” (for cousin), “guy” and “fella” are dropped in some parts of the work probably because KIE envisions the use of the set books as pedagogical tools in teaching formal English only.
But you can’t imprison language however much you try. Good texts are uncanny and subversive. They even rebel against their own authors, leave alone government mandarins whose reading skills are questionable.
This is why the struck out words mischievously sneak back in some parts of the KIE-sanctioned edition of The Whale Rider.
The Ministry of Education should also know that there is nothing wrong with the use of informal language. In fact, if you have a teenage child who doesn’t know Sheng or doesn’t “nkt” in the “xmx” text-messaging language Kenyan teenagers use these days, you have every reason to book him or her an appointment with a shrink.
The problem is not the use of informal language; it is the context in which the language is used that matters. Ihimaera uses colloquial language and a variety of other informal registers to create a bond between his young narrator and his young target readers.
Funnily, the more KIE tries to clean up The Whale Rider, the more vulgar the story becomes. The replacement of informal words with formal ones makes the text obscenely stiff, a structural phallic symbol that unknowingly privileges the patriarchal and hetero-normative ideals that the author is against in the novel.
The other lesson is that KIE should make the process in which they select set books more transparent than it is. At the moment, the method used to select books is shrouded in mystery, with allegations of corruption and caprice on the part of KIE.
In the new era of transparency and open vetting in Kenya, KIE should publish the list of submitted titles and the various shortlists to enable the public to weigh in on the materials best for use in schools.
Critical thinkers
It is good to remember that the duty of a teacher is to facilitate the students to be critical thinkers and to sharpen their ability to judge whether a text is good or not.
As long as a story is not pornographic and, therefore, out of contention as a set-book, KIE should not aspire to a perfect text by editing out the parts that it feels are inappropriate.
Indeed, these “bad” parts should be used to help the student point out instances of language use, character’s speech, or authorial thematic emphasis to be avoided in a healthy society.
We should also remember that these days you are not likely to come across a good text that does not offer itself to gay interpretations. The essays in Madhavi Menon’s Shakesqueer (2011) are just some of the many interpretations that show that almost all Shakespeare’s works have gay subtexts.
These include Romeoand Juliet, Julius Caesar, and The Merchant of Venice that have been used as Kiswahili and English set books in Kenyan schools in the recent past.
Further, as Pauline Kiernan demonstrates in Filthy Shakespeare (2008), the Elizabethan bard’s works are full of coarse jokes about everything including same-sex desire. Will we try to edit sex out of Shakespeare?
Remember also that one of the most important writers in Kenya, Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye (fondly called MOM), has argued in the 1996 book Moral Issues in Kenya that in a modern Kenya, where sex and procreation are no longer tightly linked, homosexuality can no longer be termed “unnatural”. She even argues that homosexuality should be legalised.
This is a fairly radical position to come from a writer whose novels are based on conservative family values and to whom “abortion is murder”. Her works, such Coming to Birth, have been used as set books in schools.
Prof J. Roger Kurtz observes that Macgoye’s view on homosexuality may have been influenced by her friendship with the respected poet Jonathan Kariara (1935-1993), whose poems, such as A Leopard Lives in a Muu Tree, are popular in schools.
Although Kariara never directly treated the theme of homosexuality and did not say openly that he was gay, there are many hints in his poems and short stories about the insecurities and hypocrisy of heterosexual unions.
The Moses series author Barbara Kimenye also has a children’s book, Prettyboy, Beware, that broaches the theme of homosexuality. Used as reader in lower secondary school, the book talks about “men being attracted to each other and even living together.”
If authors get jettisoned from the syllabus because they treat gay themes sympathetically, even Ngugi wa Thiong’o will have to be expelled.
Although the satire is somewhat lost in the English translation, in Ngugi’s Kikuyu Murogi wa Kagogo (Wizard of the Crow), he mocks characters who are hostile to “ucoga” (homosexuality) as part of what they crudely dismiss as “nguiko njogomu” (queer sex).
So if we suppress works such as Ihimaera’s novel in the future just because we consider ourselves too holy for a certain kind of authors and texts, let’s be ready to get rid of Ngugi, Macgoye, and even Shakespeare as well.evanmwangi@gmail.com www.nation.co.ke/News/KIE-censors-score-a-first-by-picking-gay-authors-novel-/-/1056/1657730/-/14qow9s/-/index.html
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2013 7:53:44 GMT 3
Inside Nigeria's secret gay club
About 50 people, mostly men, crowd around the front porch of a social club in Nigeria's biggest city, Lagos, cheering on a shy-looking young man, who proceeds to sing a ballad.
Backstage, another man puts on his wig and takes a quick glance at his pocket mirror, before adjusting his tight-fitting red dress.
Five other men also dressed in drag outfits appear, checking on each other's make-up as they wait for their turn to perform for the crowd.
"A friend invited me here a few months ago," one chatty spectator says excitedly. "I love this place because it makes me feel at home".
This gathering of members of the gay and lesbian community in Lagos is held regularly, albeit discreetly, but it could soon be illegal.
The vast majority of gay Nigerians may not be interested in this kind of event but they still have to hide their sexuality in this conservative society.
Whilst already illegal, homosexuality is widely frowned upon across Nigeria and has been the subject of several bills in the National Assembly.
The Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Bill specifically outlaws same-sex unions.
It also bans gatherings of homosexuals or any other support for gay clubs, organisations, unions or amorous expressions, whether in secret or in public.
The bill has been passed by Nigeria's Senate - the highest chamber - and is now being reviewed by the lower chamber, the House of Representatives.
If approved, it will be sent to the president to sign it into law, after which same-sex couples could face up to 14 years in prison.
But Nigerian homosexuals complain that the stigma they face is already enough punishment for their way of life.
Kunle (not his real name), a gay man living in Lagos, is outraged by the proposed law: "How does a government think that sending someone to prison would change his or her sexual orientation?
"How logical is that?"
One of Nigeria's few openly gay human rights activists, Rashidi Williams, notes that the bill seeks to ban something which is already illegal and which no-one is publicly advocating.
"All we are asking for is to repeal the repressive laws in this country," he says.
Growing anxiety
The bill has been condemned abroad - most recently by Australian lawmakers - making its proponents see this piece of legislation as a way of protecting Nigerian society from foreign influences.
"Ours is to weigh the aggregate of opinion - what the majority of Nigerians want," says Abike Dabiri, a member of the House of Representatives.
"If majority of Nigerians want same-sex marriage, then why not?"
She adds: "You have a right to your sexual preference but by trying to turn it into marriage do you realise you could be infringing on the human rights of the other person who finds it repulsive?"
This view is echoed on the streets of this country, where religious influences, particularly from Christianity and Islam, are heavy.
"How do you even become gay, not to mention wanting to get married to another man?" asks Okechukwu Ikenna, a 33-year-old software engineer, visibly irritated by the topic.
Friends and family members of gay people could get implicated if they do not report cases of same-sex unions because they could be seen as being in support of them.
Critics of the bill also worry that health workers who provide HIV counselling and treatment to homosexuals could be committing an offence as well.
However, some of these doctors say they hardly ever know the sexual orientation of those they attend to because it is not a requirement for treatment and counselling, and even if the patients were to reveal that they were homosexuals, it would not affect the quality of healthcare offered.
Some lawmakers have condemned violence against homosexuals but this has done little to prevent the growing anxiety among those the bill would target as its likely adoption, in whatever form, approaches.
Mr Williams says some gay Nigerians may seek asylum in countries where homosexual people are accepted, while others will have to go underground.
At the gay club, despite the jovial atmosphere, there is heightened caution, and no-one is allowed to take any photos.
The thought of being identified as being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender in a country where the public still turns to mob justice haunts some here.
And that is a huge concern for Richard (not his real name): "If you don't become discreet and try to hide yourself, even the man on the street will want to also act on the bill because it has been passed.
"If you're walking on the street and he stones you, he knows the law would stand for him because the law is against you."
-BBC-www.africareview.com/Special-Reports/Inside-Nigeria-secret-gay-club/-/979182/1656688/-/ee12cmz/-/index.html#commentsAnchor
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2013 8:04:59 GMT 3
Transgender rights not simply gay rights
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2012 - 00:00 -- BY AUDREY MBUGUA
There is a systematic ploy to erase the transgender community, experiences and lives. The ubiquitous actions that are slowly expunging transgender people from our civilisation and their pernicious nature are weighing heavily on the transgender community.
It’s worth dissecting the issue of human rights activists to get a better perspective of how their activism is of benefit to transgender people.
Luckily, there is a growing momentum in the transgender community to ensure the restoration of the dignity and autonomy of the community. There is a plethora of pitfalls – and mostly among the people who are targeted for re-education about the transgender concept.
Richard Feynman, an American physicist, once said that if you think you understand quantum mechanics then you don’t understand quantum mechanics.
Without the fear of sounding cocky, I will say this: if you think you really think you understand the transgender concept, then there is a chance you don’t have the slightest clue what it is all about, and might never be able to get it.
The field of human rights activism targeting the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community is overflowing with fundamental flaws on the subject and issues of transgender people.
The problem is further compounded by a similar lack of awareness among a large section of the donor community. The result of course is that you end up having a huge chunk of funds being utilised to marginalise and spread misinformation about transgender people.
While I appreciate and recognise people’s freedom of speech – the right to say anything under the sun or moon (but away from the police) – and that there are communities out there who have been vilified and their rights violated, I will not don kid’s gloves in addressing the matter at hand due to the people involved. This is an educational approach and it would be immature for anyone to blow a gasket because they have been told they are wrong.
‘BE A REAL WOMAN, DON’T CONFUSE PEOPLE’
There are a number of stereotypes about women: they are soft, don’t fight back, are timid, cry for no reason, walk swinging their hips and, the most ubiquitous one, they all have broken wrists.
There is a whole array of laws transsexuals have to abide by, some extending to who they should date. This phenomenon is referred to as gender-normative garbage.
Some activists refer to it as hetero-normative (they are wrong) but that’s a topic for another day. Pamela Hayes reveals that transgender women get entrapped by this to the point of being defenceless in the face of oppression.
"Some transsexuals are so concerned with how they appear to people, that they come across like robots. I have been in the company of transwomen who seem like they have no personality. They are so preoccupied with being sweet and ladylike that they come off acting like a machine.
"So many times, transwomen have been out in public and have been insulted by a store clerk or have had people to get in their face and utter pejoratives… “Why didn’t you say something to the person who insulted you?” … “But I don’t want to be unladylike.”
"I don’t think saying something derogatory to someone who has insulted you is being unladylike. And maybe transwomen need to knock it off with this perpetual ladylike garbage. Sometimes you can’t be ladylike. Circumstances preclude that."
This gender policing means that transgender women have to conform to these laws or face censure, which can take the form of being called a man in a dress, sissy boy or bottom.
At times the pain of seeing what transgender people have to put up with is so intense you nearly get an anger stroke. For example, we all recall the arrest and trial of Auntie Tiwonge and her boyfriend Steven in Malawi that sparked condemnation from local and international human rights fora.
Despite the evident transgender status of Tiwo, these activists humiliated her over and over again for them to perpetuate the gay agenda in Africa.
Instead of these activists taking the opportunity to educate others about the transgender concept and challenge the lack of laws that cater for people who are changing sex, they branded her and her boyfriend as male homosexuals. It’s only after their release that some gay activist made token noise that Tiwonge is indeed transgender, but the damage had already been done.
This gaynisation trend by some gays among gays is spectacularly unnecessary and in fact yields more transphobia by some gays and lesbians towards transsexuals.
What consequences are there as a result of this mislabelling? Homosexuality is criminalised in Kenya – note the difference for some gays and lesbians to say that LGBT people are criminalised (it’s wrong).
You go around telling members of the public LGBT people are the gay community (but being transgender does not make one gay), then a transgender woman goes to the hospital for gender reassignment.
Don’t you think she will be denied access to medical services because the doctors will think by providing hormones and surgery to her they are assisting to legalise homosexuality? And, extrapolate the same on changing names in identification documents like the ID card.
Additionally, transgender people are more visible than gays and lesbians. During and after the transition, the parents/guardians or family and relatives will actually know about the transition (unless they are blind).
Then amidst these ‘difficult’ times, they see some LGB individuals calling transgender people gays/homosexuals. What will be the reaction? They form a twisted and wrong picture of who their daughters or sons are.
Note that I am not saying it is okay for gays to be denied access to medical services. But you cannot turn transgender people into sacrificial lambs for the sake of activism. You are messing up people’s lives and surely they never gave you their consent for you to do so. Who loses out of this misinformation?
And let’s consider the ever-ridiculous habit of the images that LGBT organisations use to depict transgender people. What happens is they use a picture of a person busy applying a tonne of make-up and a wig.
Then this person has to have features that are meant to say ‘it’s a man putting on make-up’, or a picture of a person with a very hairy torso and in a dress.
This results in the world believing that transgender people are female impersonators, pretending to be women and going late at night to get unsuspecting straight men to sleep with them. They get accused of the crime of deception, which results in hostility and violence against transgender people.
Most people would point out at my imbalanced perspective of the dynamics of the LGB and transgender activism. There are some gays who are mature and don’t oppress transsexuals.
I totally agree but am not in the business of counting evil sheep. I have so far refrained from making sweeping generalisations about gays and lesbians.
Not all gays and lesbians oppress transgender people and in fact some great strides that have benefited transgender people have been made with the support of some gays and lesbians.
And still there are people who are not gays and lesbians or bisexuals who have also made significant contributions in the lives of transgender people.
We appreciate all these contributions but that should not preclude us from challenging all forms of oppression by the LGB community. If it’s a trade where some gays help us in return for us acquiescing our identities and lives and take on theirs then that’s unacceptable and we shall resist it to our graves.
- This is an edited version of an article Audrey Mbugua did for an online magazine last year.www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-97626/transgender-rights-not-simply-gay-rights
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2013 8:17:45 GMT 3
Gender identity: The other sex
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2012 - 00:00 -- BY BRENDA OKOTH
CHAMPION: Audrey Mbugua.
The Transgender day of Rememberance is marked annually on November 20. It is a day to memorialise those who have been killed as a result oftransphobia-which is the hatred or fear of transgender and gender non-conforming people. This is first of a three-part series into the lives of the Kenyan transgender society.
The confident Audrey Mbugua, 28, kicks off our interview by taking a bite of her fries and sandwich. “I didn’t get a chance to eat last night, was busy working on a paper,” she says.
She pushes back her glasses to sit more securely on the bridge of her nose before she rubs her hands, covered in gloves that have the tips cut off.
She has this daft punk look going, if you met her on the streets, you would probably think she had her own band. Far from it, Audrey is actually an aspiring biomedical scientist.
“I am searching for masters scholarships; I want to do virology and molecular biology. I have always been fascinated by viruses. Look at the HIV, it is one complex retro-virus. Its genetic material codes for a paltry nine proteins yet we have spent millions of dollars trying to tame it. They are resilient and versatile, much better than humans in my opinion. I admire that and the fact there is no cure for any viral disease,” she tells me as she stares at me intently as if deciding whether she can trust me or not. After a long pause in between bites of her food, she shares her story.
Five years ago, Audrey had gotten her degree in Biomedical Sciences from Maseno University. Fresh out of campus, she was a few weeks into her first job with an agricultural research institute.
Like she had every morning since the beginning of June that year, she got up early and prepared for work, straightened her long hair and brushed her teeth, wore her slacks and boots and headed off to work.
Unknown to Audrey, this would turn out to be one of the darkest moments of her life. Soon as she got to office, word reached her that her colleagues were blaming her for the failed bounty wheat harvest that they had been expecting.
“I heard one of them whispering to another, "She came in June, then we had healthy crop, but by the end of July the wheat has failed." They implied that I was some sort of abomination or a jinn (evil spirit) and because of what I was and they having associated with me, their crops had failed, Audrey says as she gives a weak smile, trying to hide the pain in her voice.
Despite the fact that this accusation hit her hard, Audrey was no stranger to snide remarks from her workmates. She recounts how one of the lab technicians once told his friends that whenever he saw her first thing when he arrived in office, his day would be ruined.
“He said that on seeing me, his experiments of the day would all turn out wrong, or he would be a totally klutz and end up breaking his equipment.” Her workmates and neighbours’ aversion for Audrey stem from the fact that she is a transsexual/transgender woman.
Transgender persons are those whose gender identity, gender expression, or behaviour does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth and seek a sex transition.
Audrey's sex on her birth certificate is male but she has an internal sense of being female, thus she identifies as a trans-woman and is seeking sex change therapy.
Audrey has adopted a social and personal identity that corresponds to her gender identity/psychological sex. Audrey is one of the first transgender women in Kenya who has publicly declared her identity.
Apart from discrimination from some of her workmates, using the bathroom was a trip. “It was pretty tough because when it came to using the bathroom, I had to use the gents and it got to a point I decided that I would just hold my pee or whatever till I got home.
One of my workmates I remembered told me, “If you were my child, I would really beat you.” His statement really angered me and I retorted, “If I was your child, I would have probably killed myself by now.” That hushed him up.
“Then there was a group of guys who tried to strip me in Nakuru, lucky for me I got away before they did. A person can only be subjected to so much hate before you start spewing it too.”
After the whole debacle of the failed crop, Audrey was let go by the organisation and she got another job (volunteer) with an NGO working on diabetes.
“My new boss was really understanding and she tried to help me cope.” However, following her bouts of manic depression, Audrey admits that she was on a path of self-destruction and even tried to take her life by overdosing on medication to “black out”.
“The NGO had to let me go because I wasn’t pulling my weight and that is when I decided to set up an organisation that would deal with the problems of transgender/transsexual people in Kenya. A colleague – Samantha King’ori - joined in and another journey begun.”
Audrey is now the programmes manager for Transgender Education and Advocacy (TEA). This is a human rights organisation working towards defending the human rights of transgender people in Kenya.
TEA was established in December 2008 and it works with transgender people from all over the country. “We are about 40 members.
The members range between 18 and 45 years. We don’t allow anyone who is less than 18 years old in the group. But we do assist such clients with information, legal aid and referrals to doctors,” said Audrey.
Audrey's Story
“I was born completely male and was brought up as such but I was never comfortable in my own skin; my mind and everything else within me knew that I was female.
I started my transition around 2004 when I was going to college; I decided to plait my hair.” Her father was furious but there was no deterring Audrey. “When I first started transitioning, I used to get threats, people trying to get me to move out of my home but I held my ground.”
Most of her family and relatives stopped speaking to her and her friends did not want to be associated with her. “ They started excluding me from family functions and when I did attend, they said some really spiteful stuff behind my back.
I remember one of my aunties actually told me never to speak to her if I decided I wanted to live as Audrey. It would have been easier to conform but this not something that you can just bury or hope it goes away.”
In college her hopes to be incognito and just breeze through class were nothing but a pipe dream. For years she was the butt of jokes because her fellow students could not understand why she chose to live the way she did.
“I was an introvert and everyone used to avoid me." In class whenever a lecturer would ask a question and I put my hand up, he would go, “Yes, lady at the back. And the whole class would burst out laughing.”
He would then ask why they were laughing and they would go like, “she’s a he or he’s a she.” Then the whole issue of who I was would come up. It was cruel. They used to call me Barbara or Patricia; I think it was based on some soap opera character.
At the end of my third year in campus. I was really depressed and stressed out and I wanted to quit but if I did then it would have meant that all my hard work had been for nothing and I couldn’t have that.”
By the time Audrey was graduating, she was battling depression and had to get some help. “I remember, I asked my sister to take me to a psychiatrist and we went to Mathare Mental Hospital, Kenya's only referral psychiatric hospital.
We were broke and I remember an aunty gave me Sh1,000 and told me to go get help. We got there and they opened a file under my former names Andrew Mbugua. When it was our turn to get in, the nurse called my name and my sister and I both went in.
The doctor then asked us who Andrew was. She was very stern and he thought we were just mucking about because we both looked like girls.
Initially I wanted to leave but the psychiatrist figured it was a case of gender identity. I was admitted for a psych evaluation for two days but it helped me because I was really depressed and I got some medication to deal with that.
Those doctors saved my life. After that treatment, I got transferred to Kenyatta hospital and they did a total mental and physical evaluation.”
After certifying that she was indeed sane, Audrey was released and began working with a psychologist who prescribed some anti-depressants for her.
“The psychologist talks to you about your medical history, before they start you off on hormonal therapy, they try to find out what your condition means to you and what your hopes are if you do make the switch. I was in therapy for about three to four months.
Then I had to do what is known as the real-life test. This involves living as your preferred gender for about a year, before you are eligible for a sex-change surgery.
Then there is the modulates of after surgery, follow-ups, hormone therapy. I was prepared for all of this and I became more comfortable with myself.”
Audrey began making steps to get a sex reassignment surgery. Sex reassignment surgery, also known as SRS, is the surgical procedures by which a person's biological sex is altered to resemble that of the other sex.
It is part of a treatment for gender identity disorder/gender dysphoria (GID) in transsexual people. “In March 2009 after a series of evaluations from a number of doctors, I was supposed to get the sex reassignment surgery. On the day of my surgery, March 17, the then KNH Director Dr Jonathan Micheni said he had received a call from the Minister of Health Dr Anyang’ Nyong’o to hold off the surgery. When I asked why, he said that the minister had cited a case from 1989 where the parents of a transgender lady who had received the surgery gave the state a lot of grief following her surgery.
“The director then set up a committee of doctors to review my case but I think it was just a façade – the whole system kept moving goal posts. I tried to talk to them when they asked me to come before the board. They wanted me to bring in my parents to give their consent, which is ridiculous because I am an adult and I am not mentally incapacitated.
“So anyway, I spoke to my mother and asked her. Her response was, ‘I don’t know if you are crazy or what but it’s not our job to give you our consent, you are an adult and you understand these things better than us. I will not give you my consent and I will not speak to your psychiatrist for a consent’.
I could sense their ambivalence about the surgery. I remember my mother reminding me that if I went through with the surgery, I would not be able to bear her grandchildren.
When I told my doctor this, I think it sounded like I hadn’t got their consent, but it didn’t matter because I am an adult and they had no legal argument for refusing to let me have the surgery .
It was a wild goose chase. The committee did a report that I never got. I got no feedback.” Following this incident, Audrey wrote a number of complaints to the medical board and was then referred to a doctor with the public health and fitness committee. “I met the doctor there who asked me a series of questions and nothing came of it.
I tried to see the director of medical services without much success. After about a year of this constant back and forth from all possible outlets, I decided to go directly to the director’s office without an appointment, of course he wouldn’t see me but I kept coming back.”
After a number of fruitless visits to the director of medical services, Audrey decided to write a letter to the Minister of Health Dr Anyang’ Nyongo’ in 2011.“Surprisingly I got a call from Kenyatta National Hospital. The minister had forwarded my matter to Kenyatta Hospital and told them to look into it.
I received a call from the office of the deputy director of clinical services. They asked whether I used to be a patient and asked me to come in and speak to the deputy director.
I thought my breakthrough was finally here. When I met him, he asked what had happened. He said he would follow up the matter.
I waited, made calls. Then I was told my file was misplaced and they said that they needed time to find it,” she says a little exasperated.
“Then they said management had changed. In October I walked to the director’s office. He was able to see me and once again, I had to explain my situation. He scheduled a meeting with my doctors for 2pm on November 3, 2011.”
On the day of the meeting, a hopeful Audrey went to make her petition but was surprised when the director asked her why she hadn’t been accompanied by her parents.
“I remember I told him he hadn’t asked me to. Then he took my parents and siblings numbers and requested we move the meeting for another two weeks to November 17, 2011.
Two weeks later I was told the doctors were not ready. I discovered it was a lost cause when KNH’s legal officer told me she had to consult with the attorney general on the legal framework on sex change in Kenya.
Still determined, Audrey waited another two weeks before calling for a follow-up. “When I did make the call, I was told that the doctors had already submitted their reports but they were waiting on the legal officer’s input.
So in December I called again and I was told that the doctors were on strike and that they could only attend to my matter after the strike.”
What followed was an agonizing three months of calling and following up without much success. On one occasion when she insistently called Kenyatta Hospital and asked the operator to link her with the chief executive’s office, her call was redirected to the mortuary to deter her from pestering them.
“In March 2012 I was referred to another legal officer because the other was bereaved. She called the doctors and they told me I could not get the surgical procedure because my younger sisters felt I should not have the surgery.
I then asked her to put it to me in writing. She asked me to write a request for it which I did but then I never got a reply from her.
I wrote to her, Dr Anyang Nyong'o, the medical board, Commission on Administrative Justice and got no response. The CAJ “response” jolted me into the realisation that most commissions in Kenya are either useless or a pain in the neck.
The last meeting I had with one of their legal officers (Ruth Emanikor) and their deputy chairperson (Dr Regina Mwatha) on June 26, 2012 elicited a spark of hope.
I loved the fire in Dr Mwatha, an educated commissioner who ended our conversation with ‘hata mnyonge ana haki' ( even the weak have rights)…those doctors will get it’.
I reminded her that I had nothing against those doctors and I would not be alive wasn’t it for those doctors. The problem lay in Afya House and the Director of Kenyatta National Hospital.
On September 4, 2012, I called Ruth Emanikor at around 10am. I was told to call after five minutes. She told me that she and Dr Mwatha had decided not to follow up on my case since I was a transsexual and not a hermaphrodite.
“Laws are made to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. Thus when that doesn’t seem to be the case, it feels frustrating and heartbreaking.
It would be easier to just try and get the surgery abroad but its very expensive and its not fair that as a transsexual, you can't get the same service as the normal public because we are seen as being different.”
Listening to her speak about becoming self-aware of herself and the hurdles that transgender Kenyans are currently going through, reminded me of a movie I had watched years ago about Renee Richards, a professional tennis player from the 1970s.
She is the world's most famous transsexual athlete. Richards, who was born Richard Raskind, and managed to create a new life for herself as a woman after a sex change operation in 1975.
In 1976, she took the US State Tennis Association to court for banning her from playing in women's events at the US Open as she was a transsexual. She won and became known as a pioneer for transsexual rights. Unlike Renee, however, Audrey's battle it seems has only just began…www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-97307/gender-identity-other-sex
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2013 8:33:47 GMT 3
The politics of mmmes: Myths about transgender peopleAudrey Mbugua2010-07-28, Issue 492 The struggle against gender oppression in Kenya endures. Following the recent unlawful arrest and assault of a transgender woman in the country, Audrey Mbugua voices the subordination of those who do not comply with the restrictive gender-based identities adopted by society at large. Mbugua unlaces these societal constructs that tie their subjects to an existence of marginalisation and abuse. Mbugua suggests ignorance and bureaucratised discrimination amongst Kenyan society is to blame. 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 mmmes are evident in this sad tale. This is the assumption: A mmm is a male organ and anyone having a mmm is male/man. I have the greatest sympathy for this flabbiness in reasoning. A mmm can also be a transgender mmm. A transgender woman who has a mmm 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 mmm (and is therefore male), and Steven has a mmm (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. transgriot.blogspot.com/2010/06/chill-with-gayjacking-of-trans-lives.htmlThere are 7 comments on this article. www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/66281/print
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2013 20:53:02 GMT 3
Taboo: Transgender
In the west, our gender defines us as individuals and as a society. It influences how we act and interact, even our characteristics. Strength and aggression are seen as masculine, sensitivity and insight are feminine – so when you can’t tell who’s male and who’s female, it can be confusing, disturbing and at times; frightening. This is the story of America’s post-operative transmen, Thailand’s kathoeys, the Fa’afafine of Samoa, the sex-reassignment surgery capital of the world, Trinidad, Colorado, USA and a couple in a long-term relationship in which both partners are transgender. Around the world, customs differ, but almost every society shares one thing the concept of gender. Many believe that there are only two: man and woman. But in India, transgender women who cut off their genitals live as women and form a third gender. In Indonesia, hermaphrodite priests lead a society that recognizes five genders. And in rural Albania, women swap one gender for another to gain equality. Sometimes even the most conservative cultures must make room for those who challenge convention. But for many, embracing additional genders is still taboo.topdocumentaryfilms.com/taboo-transgender/Me, My Sex and I
What is the truth about the sexes? It is a deeply-held assumption that every person is either male or female; but many people are now questioning whether this belief is correct. This compelling and sensitive documentary unlocks the stories of people born neither entirely male nor female. Conditions like these have been known as intersex and shrouded in unnecessary shame and secrecy for decades. It’s estimated that DSDs (Disorders of Sexual Development) are, in fact, as common as twins or red hair – nearly one in 50 of us. The programme features powerful insights from people living with these conditions, and the medical teams at the forefront of the field, including clinical psychologist Tiger Devore, whose own sex when born was ambiguous.topdocumentaryfilms.com/me-my-sex-and-i/
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2013 21:18:50 GMT 3
THIS IS ABOUT PERFORMING GENDER. GIRLS PASSING FOR BOYS STRICLY TO SURVIVE THE LIMITATIONS IMPOSED ON GIRLS AND WOMEN'S LIVES BY PATRIARCHY. TRANSGENDER OR CISGENDER DOESN'T MATTER. WE ALL PERFORM GENDER CONSCIOUSLY OR OTHERWISE. www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15262680By Maria Caspani
LONDON (TrustLaw) - In Afghanistan’s largely conservative, male-dominated society, a son is often viewed as a family’s most valuable resource.
So important for the family’s reputation that the parents sometimes decide to raise one of their daughters as a boy.
“When you don’t have a son in Afghanistan…people question the good life that you have,” BBC Persian reporter Tahir Qadiry told TrustLaw in London this week.
Qadiry is the author of “The Trouble with Girls”, a documentary on the long-standing Afghan practice of dressing girls as boys (bacha posh).
Despite progress in women's rights since the fall of the Taliban a decade ago – and the constitution stating the two sexes are equal – women in Afghanistan are still widely treated as second-class citizens.
“Women can’t go outside, they can’t walk freely, they get raped and sexually assaulted,” said Qadiry, who was born and raised in Afghanistan.
By taking a boy’s identity, a daughter gains freedoms that are normally inaccessible to girls, such as going out, playing cricket, going to the mosque and help run their father’s business. While it is a common practice in Afghanistan, it is impossible to know how many girls are brought up as boys in the country, Qadiry said.
Qadiry had always known about this custom, but had never talked about it as it is considered a taboo, and it was only during an assignment he went on less than two years ago that he realised how widespread the practice was.
LIFE AS A BOY
Mehran, 8, has short hair and wears a suit, like every other Afghan boy. She’s the youngest of four daughters of a family from Kabul.
Her mother, a former MP in the Afghan parliament and now a women’s rights activist, decided to raise her as a boy to grant the family a respectable status in the community.
She told Qadiry that, in Afghan society, “your life is only complete if you have a son amongst your children.”
“My life was going to be misery and my husband was pushing me to have a son," Qadiry recalled her as saying.
So, in the end, she convinced herself it was a good idea to raise their last-born daughter as a boy.
In the documentary, Mehran looks happy with a male identity. She is allowed to do things her sisters can only dream about and, when asked, her siblings say they envy her freedom.
While Mehran has been told she will have to go back to being a girl eventually, this won’t happen until she’s 15 or older.
“MESSED UP”
An older girl interviewed by Qadiry, who had been raised as a boy until she was 17, was struggling to cope with the sudden changes in her life.
Despite her feminine looks, she said she will never get married and that – if forced to do so – she would beat up her husband in revenge.
“She’s such a beautiful girl, she’s such a character…but then she’s completely messed up,” Qadiry said.
Some of those Qadiry spoke to cited the young woman as a positive example for other girls as she was fierce and stood up to boys at her university, who dubbed her “The Commander”.
And both Mehran’s mother, and a senior women’s rights official who appears in the documentary, said they both had been raised as boys and that the experience had helped them develop a stronger personality.
However, Qadiry said it is impossible to assess the psychological repercussions this ancient custom has on girls.
“These women have no choice,” he said. “Once they go back to living as females they have to get married or get used to being ruled by men”.
“The Trouble with Girls” was broadcasted on the BBC Persian service in January this year and triggered enthusiastic reactions from viewers, according to Qadiry.
On Facebook, people – especially Afghan youths – responded in large numbers and voiced their approval for breaking such a deeply-rooted taboo, Qadiry added.
Over the past five years, there have been positive signs, Qadiry said. As he was over there to shoot the film, he followed a demonstration against sexual harassment in the streets, an endemic problem in Afghanistan. It was the first time such an event took place in the country, he said.
Mehran’s mother said she hopes things will improve for women in Afghanistan.
“Why should a mother disguise her daughter as a son?” she asked. “Why should a boy’s face give freedom to a girl?”
(Editing by Rebekah Curtis)
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2013 21:59:06 GMT 3
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2013 0:49:54 GMT 3
An oversight i hope they don't try to undo by withdrawing the book from the curriculum because of homophobia, carrying on about religion and culture and such excuses to hate on people. KIE censors score a first by picking gay author’s novel
Although it may be as a result of an oversight at the conservative Kenya Institute of Education (KIE), Kenyan students have, for the first time, had the opportunity to read in class a book by an author who is openly gay.
To be examined as a set book this year, The Whale Rider (1987) is written by the New Zealand gay author Witi Ihimaera. It is a highly accomplished novel about the Maori culture in the wake of European colonialism.
Written by a father of two daughters before he separated from his family, The Whale Rider is overtly feminist, criticising the retrogressive aspects of Maori culture that allow discrimination against women.
Gay references in the novel are subtle but keen readers won’t miss them. But going by the guidebooks on The Whale Rider in Kenyan bookshops, teachers will likely ignore or suppress the gay undertones in the novel and the gay part of the author’s life and writing career — assuming they know about it.
A founder member of the Maori gay organisation Te Waka Awhina Tane, the 1944-born Witi Ihimaera married a librarian, Jane Cleghorn, in 1970. They had two daughters. But the couple broke up when he wrote the first Maori gay novel, Nights in the Gardens of Spain (1996).
Like Ihimaera, the main character in Nights in the Gardens of Spain, David Munro, is a university professor, married with two daughters, and a founder member of the Maori equivalent of the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya.
With searing honesty, the novel offers a graphic and frank depiction of the complex “underground” gay scene in Auckland, New Zealand, and the author’s pains of coming to terms with his own homosexuality.
We don’t encounter gay bathhouses or accounts of Aids or suicide in The Whale Rider, but keen readers won’t miss the subtle suggestions of the legitimacy of gay generosity.
To decode homosexuality in The Whale Rider, you may need some basic knowledge of queer theory, which literature teacher-training programmes in Kenya don’t offer because the theory is wrongly assumed to be the preserve of gay and lesbian critics.
But sometimes you don’t even need Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s Epistemology of the Closet to get the hints of gay invitations in the novel.
The pet name “Paka” that it gives one of the principal characters is one of the hints. It is the name the masculine wife of the chief of Whangara calls her husband in jest.
According to a glossary in the New Zealand edition of The Whale Rider, “Paka” stands for the offensive word “bugger”, usually impolitely used to describe a silly or annoying person. The word also refers to the act of having anal sex or sex with animals.
According to the queer theorist Lee Edelman in No Future: Queer Theory and the Death of Drive (2004), “queerness can never define an identity; it can only ever disturb one.”
In The Whale Rider, Witi Ihimaera keeps disturbing heterosexuality by portraying ostensibly heterosexual characters whose sexual identity is indeterminate because they display characteristics of the opposite gender.
In a scene full of irony because the eight-year-old heroine doesn’t fully understand the broader implications of what she is rambling on and on about, Kahu insists that she’s not the kind of girl who “likes boys”.
Homosexuality is used humorously in one incident when Koro Apirana mistakes the male narrator for his wife as they share a bed, both having been turned away by their female partners.
According to the Maori myths of origin, the first Maori man came to New Zealand riding a male whale. The most beautifully narrated passages in the novel involve the sentimental male whale’s longing for its male rider.
The language is lyrical and homoerotic, as the old whale remembers his youth with nostalgia, the Maori male rider on his back. The whale so misses the rider, he is suicidal.
But will teachers explore these suggestive elements alongside the author’s biography? This is very unlikely.
In fact, although I have taught Ihimaera’s books for a few years now in post-colonial and animal studies literature classes, when a Nation editor asked me to review The Whale Rider in February after it was chosen as a national set book, I strategically suppressed details about the author’s sexuality.
Maybe I was wrong, but I feared that if Kenyans knew about Ihimaera’s sexuality before the magnificent book was already fully settled in the classroom, it would be withdrawn from the curriculum, thanks to a homophobia-soaked brigade of hypocrites that calls the shots in the media, churches, schools, and mosques.
I also suppressed the fact that alongside Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Margaret Ogola, Witi Ihimaera says he enjoys the work of the locally unknown but internationally acclaimed Kenyan gay writer Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla, the author of Ode to Lata (2002).
Dhalla’s novel, which has been made into a film, is about the experiences of Ali, a gay man who leaves Kenya for Los Angeles and is haunted by his past as he narrates about his present relationships with men.
It is while writing a guidebook to The Whale Rider that I decided I shouldn’t be quiet about the author’s sexual orientation and the issues that the novel subtly presents.
If I have any fear in life these days, it is that my child, when she grows up, might lump me together with the gang of Kenyan homophobes who will demonise a novel just because of the author’s sexual preferences.
There is a likelihood my publishers will delete from the guidebook the sections discussing homosexuality, but that will be between them and their God, if they believe in Him at all.
Ironically, the KIE has been forcing publishers and authors to expunge anything to do with sexual desire from the literary works they prescribe for schools.
The KIE censorship is so draconian that the situation is worse than it was during the worst of Moi days, when students would read even revolutionary books by Sembene Ousmane and Alex la Guma, in spite of the government’s anti-Marxist paranoia.
Works that referred to homosexuality were also read as set books in Moi’s Kenya, including Francis Imbuga’s Betrayal in the City, which suggests existence of men having sex with men in prisons, and John Ruganda’s The Burdens, which talks about “priests pressing their chests on young boys”.
Today, KIE would most likely have those “offensive” parts deleted. Unfortunately, royalties from set book sales are so attractive that eminent writers like Ngugi wa Thiong’o and the late Francis Imbuga have agreed to play ball, allowing KIE to bowdlerise and mutilate their works for approval as set books.
For fear of offending the powerful government body, upcoming writers neither experiment with language nor explore the complexity of life in the 21st century. The result is a heap of new novels that read like advanced primary school compositions.
If the choice of a gay text was not deliberate on KIE’s part, it should teach us a few lessons.
One of this is that it is time KIE stopped policing books too much. Let the kids giggle and sblack person at the clever way writers cloak “dirty” meanings for the readers to decode.
After all, secondary school students are not toddlers; they are young adults who will need skills to decode dirty messages in real life, where they will always encounter people with hidden sexual agenda to decode.
The outcome of KIE censorship is ridiculous and counter-productive. When one reads the Kenyan version of The Whale Rider against international editions, it appears that the Kenyan editors have been compelled to drop colloquial and slang words used in the original.
Words such as “cous” (for cousin), “guy” and “fella” are dropped in some parts of the work probably because KIE envisions the use of the set books as pedagogical tools in teaching formal English only.
But you can’t imprison language however much you try. Good texts are uncanny and subversive. They even rebel against their own authors, leave alone government mandarins whose reading skills are questionable.
This is why the struck out words mischievously sneak back in some parts of the KIE-sanctioned edition of The Whale Rider.
The Ministry of Education should also know that there is nothing wrong with the use of informal language. In fact, if you have a teenage child who doesn’t know Sheng or doesn’t “nkt” in the “xmx” text-messaging language Kenyan teenagers use these days, you have every reason to book him or her an appointment with a shrink.
The problem is not the use of informal language; it is the context in which the language is used that matters. Ihimaera uses colloquial language and a variety of other informal registers to create a bond between his young narrator and his young target readers.
Funnily, the more KIE tries to clean up The Whale Rider, the more vulgar the story becomes. The replacement of informal words with formal ones makes the text obscenely stiff, a structural phallic symbol that unknowingly privileges the patriarchal and hetero-normative ideals that the author is against in the novel.
The other lesson is that KIE should make the process in which they select set books more transparent than it is. At the moment, the method used to select books is shrouded in mystery, with allegations of corruption and caprice on the part of KIE.
In the new era of transparency and open vetting in Kenya, KIE should publish the list of submitted titles and the various shortlists to enable the public to weigh in on the materials best for use in schools.
Critical thinkers
It is good to remember that the duty of a teacher is to facilitate the students to be critical thinkers and to sharpen their ability to judge whether a text is good or not.
As long as a story is not pornographic and, therefore, out of contention as a set-book, KIE should not aspire to a perfect text by editing out the parts that it feels are inappropriate.
Indeed, these “bad” parts should be used to help the student point out instances of language use, character’s speech, or authorial thematic emphasis to be avoided in a healthy society.
We should also remember that these days you are not likely to come across a good text that does not offer itself to gay interpretations. The essays in Madhavi Menon’s Shakesqueer (2011) are just some of the many interpretations that show that almost all Shakespeare’s works have gay subtexts.
These include Romeoand Juliet, Julius Caesar, and The Merchant of Venice that have been used as Kiswahili and English set books in Kenyan schools in the recent past.
Further, as Pauline Kiernan demonstrates in Filthy Shakespeare (2008), the Elizabethan bard’s works are full of coarse jokes about everything including same-sex desire. Will we try to edit sex out of Shakespeare?
Remember also that one of the most important writers in Kenya, Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye (fondly called MOM), has argued in the 1996 book Moral Issues in Kenya that in a modern Kenya, where sex and procreation are no longer tightly linked, homosexuality can no longer be termed “unnatural”. She even argues that homosexuality should be legalised.
This is a fairly radical position to come from a writer whose novels are based on conservative family values and to whom “abortion is murder”. Her works, such Coming to Birth, have been used as set books in schools.
Prof J. Roger Kurtz observes that Macgoye’s view on homosexuality may have been influenced by her friendship with the respected poet Jonathan Kariara (1935-1993), whose poems, such as A Leopard Lives in a Muu Tree, are popular in schools.
Although Kariara never directly treated the theme of homosexuality and did not say openly that he was gay, there are many hints in his poems and short stories about the insecurities and hypocrisy of heterosexual unions.
The Moses series author Barbara Kimenye also has a children’s book, Prettyboy, Beware, that broaches the theme of homosexuality. Used as reader in lower secondary school, the book talks about “men being attracted to each other and even living together.”
If authors get jettisoned from the syllabus because they treat gay themes sympathetically, even Ngugi wa Thiong’o will have to be expelled.
Although the satire is somewhat lost in the English translation, in Ngugi’s Kikuyu Murogi wa Kagogo (Wizard of the Crow), he mocks characters who are hostile to “ucoga” (homosexuality) as part of what they crudely dismiss as “nguiko njogomu” (queer sex).
So if we suppress works such as Ihimaera’s novel in the future just because we consider ourselves too holy for a certain kind of authors and texts, let’s be ready to get rid of Ngugi, Macgoye, and even Shakespeare as well.evanmwangi@gmail.com www.nation.co.ke/News/KIE-censors-score-a-first-by-picking-gay-authors-novel-/-/1056/1657730/-/14qow9s/-/index.htmlMUTULA HAS GONE AND DONE IT. BREATHING FIRE ABOUT HOW HE WILL PERSONALLY SEE TO IT THAT THIS BOOK ISN'T ON THE SYLLABUS. MINISTER OF HOMOPHOBIA WHAT'S HE AFRAID OF? WE CAN SEE THE "PROGRESSIVE" AGENDA THAT CORD ALLIANCE HAS IN STORE FOR US. WHAT ARE THEY SCARED OF? THE OTHER SIDE? WHAT COULD TNA POSSIBLY TELL KENYANS ABOUT HOMOPHOBIA. REMEMBER THAT DICK CHENEY WAS ALSO A HOMOPHOB UNTIL HIS DAUGHTER CAME OUT AS A LESBIAN. SO WHAT THE HECK COULD TNA POSSIBLY DO? THE MINISTER MUST HAVE READ THE BRILLIANTLY WRITTEN ARTICLE BY ONE VERY BRIGHT EVAN MARTIN. YET, HE IS UNMOVED BY THE COMPELLING ARGUMENTS MADE ABOUT EDUCATING OUR CHILDREN ABOUT ALL MATTERS HUMAN CONDITION RATHER THAN CHERRY PICKING ONLY WHAT CONSERVATIVE FORCES THINK OUR KIDS SHOULD HEAR AND SEE . I WISH SOMEONE COULD LITIGATE THIS. LET'S WHAT CJ MUTUNGA HAS TO SAY. Minister seeks school book ban over gay link
Education minister Mutula Kilonzo has threatened to ban a secondary school set book over claims it contained words and statements associated with gay relationships.
Although the government would not discriminate on grounds of sex or other orientation in line with the Constitution, Mr Kilonzo would not accept The Whale Rider to be taught and examined in secondary schools if it was found to contain same-sex nuances.
The Whale Rider, by New Zealand gay author Witi Ihimaera, was introduced in February last year.
It will be examined for the first time this year at the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education level.
It means the current Form Four class started studying the book last year. .“It is news to me that such a book was selected. I don’t care how intelligent the writer is, I will get it removed since Kenya is not ready for such a curriculum, at least not under my watch,” he said.
Set books, like all other books and teaching materials, are approved by the Kenya Institute of Education (KIE) headed by Dr Lydia Nzomo.
Mr Kilonzo said there was enough sexual education in the curriculum, which was limited to holy books like the Koran, the Bible and the Hindu.
Representatives of parents called for the immediate ban of the book and asked the government to re-evaluate all the other set texts to “weed out sections corrupting the minds of children.”
“Any literature with any element of gayism or lesbianism should not be allowed in our schools,” said Musau Ndunda, Kenya National Association ofParents Secretary-General.
Kenya Episcopal Conference Secretary General Fr Vincent Wambugu asked the government to order the banning of the book and its withdrawal from all bookshops.
“We must guard our society now and in the future,” he said.
“Gay practices are against the dignity of human person and human life.”
The Whale Rider,a novel about the Maori culture in the wake of European colonialism, makes subtle references to homosexuality which critics say keen students will not miss.
Although it isn’t overtly gay like Ihimaera’s other works, the gay nuances in the story include the playful nickname given to one of the principle characters, Paka, which is a Maori corruption for “bugger”. The word connotes a gay man, having anal sex or having sex with animals.
At some point in the narrative, the heroine Kahu prattles on about how she is not the type of girl who “likes boys” without realising that, to her adult interlocutor, she could be saying she is lesbian.
This is just before a humorous scene in which Koro Apirana (aka “Paka”) mistakes his grandson, the narrator, for his wife Nani Flowers while the men share a bed at night, both having been turned away by their female partners.
All heterosexual relationships in the novel are presented as dysfunctional or ill-fated, including the relationship between the narrator and his girlfriend.
When the narrator goes to Sidney, Australia, he puts up with a Maori “cousin” until the narrator makes a male “ friend of his own”.
But defending the novel first published in 1987, KIE chief communications officer Sam Otieno said the panel which evaluated the book never saw any element of same sex relationships in it.
Of the gay-leaning author, Mr Otieno said the institute only took interest in the content of books and not the backgrounds of the writers.
“So long as the content is suitable for our children, the book is good to be recommended,” he said.
Ms Alice Salama Kairichi, an assistant director of education, said the book passed key considerations.
“We usually check against syllabus specifications, the national goals and values of education and such policy documents as the Vision 2030,” she said.
She said novel was selected from literature from the rest ofthe world based on the fact that it had issues similar to Kenya’s.
“We looked at themes like environmental degradation and the place of the girl child,” she said.
Teachers want diversity
Responding to questions about the fact that Ihimaera is a well-known gay activist, Ms Kairichi said the literary skills of a book superseded who its writer was.
“Learners may never know who Ihimaera is,” she said.
Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers Akello Misori also defended the book.
“This is not the era to ban critical books,” he said, adding “we should expose our children to all forms of literary texts including those on same sex relationships”.
Mr Kakai Karani, the managing director of Longman, which is the local publisher of the novel, defended the book.
“This is one of the best books to be selected as it imparts positive values on the child like environmental conservation and promoting the place of women in society,” he said.
Kenya Publishers Association chairman Lawrence Njagi said: “If indeedthe book is advocating gay relationships in one way or another, then it is not right.”
Prof Egara Kabaji of Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology said the book should not be dismissed wholesomely.
“Literature classes are not Sunday schools where evangelicals can comment on St Luke or the Corinthians. If we omitted any sexual mention in books, then classics as we know them wouldn’t be there.”
Prof Evan Mwangi of Northwestern University in the US said the government should not police literature too much and the gay nuances in the novel shouldn’t be suppressed in class discussions.
“Let the kids giggle and sblack person at the clever way writers cloak “dirty” meanings for the readers to decode,” he said.www.nation.co.ke/News/Minister-seeks-school-book-ban-over-gay-link-/-/1056/1657838/-/14ktwthz/-/index.html
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2013 1:12:37 GMT 3
careful where you order Bailey's. Court acquits 2 men jailed for ‘looking gay’ and drinking Bailey’s Irish Cream
Published on Monday January 07, 2013
The Associated Press
DOUALA, CAMEROON—
A court has overturned the conviction of two men who were sentenced for five years in prison for “looking gay” and ordering Bailey’s Irish Cream.
The Court of Appeals Monday acquitted the men and ordered their release. The two men had already spent more than a year in jail where they were subjected to abuse from guards and other prisoners, according to human rights advocates.
The new ruling has been hailed by human rights lawyers and gay rights advocates who urged President Paul Biya to release all other prisoners found guilty under the country’s harsh anti-gay laws.
On December 17, a Cameroonian court upheld the five-year-sentence of another man, Roger Jean-Claude Mbede, who was convicted of sending a text message that said “I love you” to another man.www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1311549--court-acquits-2-men-jailed-for-looking-gay-and-drinking-bailey-s-irish-cream
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Post by Deleted on Apr 30, 2013 19:46:40 GMT 3
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Post by b6k on May 11, 2013 18:36:33 GMT 3
The dark side of sex tourism. Do you blame it on the white guy, poverty & the love of the mighty dollar on the part of the 11 women, or the porn industry? Poor dog....
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Post by b6k on May 12, 2013 9:54:03 GMT 3
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Post by jakaswanga on May 12, 2013 10:51:57 GMT 3
Counsel b6k, I may wish to re-direct on your assertion that I enjoyed the previous video. You see, unlike Njakip, the blogger formerly known as Otishx2, who is a self-confessed semi-honourable African, and, in that capacity, has a running good rapport with his mascote act at diplomatic champagne festivals at mighty embassies, I and myself are fully honourable and the idea that I could enjoy any kind of video where Kenyan police dogs show just how good they are trained in bed, hurts my Christian morals to the last cell. Nevertheless, counsel, remind me of the pornography act/law in Kenya. That is, its illegality and boundaries. I was of the opinion for instance, you and your willing wife, using your homecam, in the privacy of your bedroom, are free to record all your heroic efforts, and should you wish, upload them on the net to exchange with other like-minded couples? [Aint orgies if you keep your ear on the ground quite often in Nairobi, domestic animals and all, drugs seks and rock and roll, and with mobile phones gone video these days... who knows!] Does the law prohibit home-made private porn for private use in Kenya? And, and I am now directing at Njakip, should the family-dog, 'who' I see you have trained to be digitally literate as per your avatar, in addition to having voted for you to be the family despot , put in a woofish application to be enjoined to further homely entertainment in the bedroom, would a rewarding nodd go against the grain of any known Kenyan WRITTEN law? And, b6k, Would it not be a good idea to shield these young girls, or prostitutes, from the glare of full publicity. As it is, perhaps the shame of having their relatives and even children see them so humiliated in public, is the greater injury to their souls than having done a dog, incase they did. In a case like this, I think this psychological stress of shame should be factored in by the court as punishment. So they should either be incognito, or released as having already been punished. And let us now be brutally honest: In how many tribes in Africa is seX with animals banned really? Is it not so that any rear-opening of dogs, hens, sheep, goats are the practicing arena of adolescent males in many societies [in Asia too]. Societies that prudently believe in training the tool to later be much versatile in act inside the woman, to Mutual awe in appreciation.In sexually restrictive countries in the middle east, I have even seen studies detailing structures --like the ones built to milk wild cows in the rural areas-- where the unfortunate or fortunate cow or donkey, is restrained so that the boys in the neighbourhood can come and practice their stamina inside hot orifices. An appreciated skill in matrimonial duty I gather. Practices that have gone on for thousands of years, but here we are pretending in modern law, that it is bestial. Anybody here to tell me they never heard boys screw hens in their village in Africa? FOR PLEASURE! But here, for this women, I am sure is the unchecked poverty oF our fwacking land that forced them into this 'moral' compromise. They are double victims here. That is the tragedy. The desperate economic situation that forces young Kenyan women to throw themselves to the dogs, so to speak. Sort me that out first, and I am happy to ban animal porn, for women actors. Men? aah, aint we already dawgs!?
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Post by b6k on May 13, 2013 6:56:55 GMT 3
Counsel b6k, I may wish to re-direct on your assertion that I enjoyed the previous video. You see, unlike Njakip, the blogger formerly known as Otishx2, who is a self-confessed semi-honourable African, and, in that capacity, has a running good rapport with his mascote act at diplomatic champagne festivals at mighty embassies, I and myself are fully honourable and the idea that I could enjoy any kind of video where Kenyan police dogs show just how good they are trained in bed, hurts my Christian morals to the last cell. Nevertheless, counsel, remind me of the pornography act/law in Kenya. That is, its illegality and boundaries. I was of the opinion for instance, you and your willing wife, using your homecam, in the privacy of your bedroom, are free to record all your heroic efforts, and should you wish, upload them on the net to exchange with other like-minded couples? [Aint orgies if you keep your ear on the ground quite often in Nairobi, domestic animals and all, drugs seks and rock and roll, and with mobile phones gone video these days... who knows!] Does the law prohibit home-made private porn for private use in Kenya? And, and I am now directing at Njakip, should the family-dog, 'who' I see you have trained to be digitally literate as per your avatar, in addition to having voted for you to be the family despot , put in a woofish application to be enjoined to further homely entertainment in the bedroom, would a rewarding nodd go against the grain of any known Kenyan WRITTEN law? And, b6k, Would it not be a good idea to shield these young girls, or prostitutes, from the glare of full publicity. As it is, perhaps the shame of having their relatives and even children see them so humiliated in public, is the greater injury to their souls than having done a dog, incase they did. In a case like this, I think this psychological stress of shame should be factored in by the court as punishment. So they should either be incognito, or released as having already been punished. And let us now be brutally honest: In how many tribes in Africa is seX with animals banned really? Is it not so that any rear-opening of dogs, hens, sheep, goats are the practicing arena of adolescent males in many societies [in Asia too]. Societies that prudently believe in training the tool to later be much versatile in act inside the woman, to Mutual awe in appreciation.In sexually restrictive countries in the middle east, I have even seen studies detailing structures --like the ones built to milk wild cows in the rural areas-- where the unfortunate or fortunate cow or donkey, is restrained so that the boys in the neighbourhood can come and practice their stamina inside hot orifices. An appreciated skill in matrimonial duty I gather. Practices that have gone on for thousands of years, but here we are pretending in modern law, that it is bestial. Anybody here to tell me they never heard boys screw hens in their village in Africa? FOR PLEASURE! But here, for this women, I am sure is the unchecked poverty oF our fwacking land that forced them into this 'moral' compromise. They are double victims here. That is the tragedy. The desperate economic situation that forces young Kenyan women to throw themselves to the dogs, so to speak. Sort me that out first, and I am happy to ban animal porn, for women actors. Men? aah, aint we already dawgs!? Jakaswanga, I don't do home videos. you raise some interesting points on AFRICAN SEXUALITIES but I will leave those to our resident cisgender moderator to handle. I prefer to take the perfidious route of letting sleeping dogs lie.... Meanwhile, back in the courts....
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2013 3:13:10 GMT 3
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