The Girl who Wrote to Uganda’s Parliament

 

I was really smart growing up, the kid who was more interested in science and how things work than playing and toys, but I eventually came to realize that when people first see you, they don’t see your intelligence, or all the wonders that your brain holds or stories that your soul could tell, which for me, of course, was a lot, what they see instead, is who you are physically, and for a lot of people, I am a question, and people don’t like questions. They don’t like what they know to be being challenged, that’s a threat to them, a question to the knowledge they think they have. So they end it there. They make their conclusions there, not bothering to seek further, not bothering to know who I really am.

Hi, my name is Cleopatra.

You may know me as the girl who wrote the letter to Uganda’s parliament, politely asking them to be kind, and grant as the same rights as everyone else, since we deserve them. I thought, back then, that activism was a bit too extreme. Why were Ugandan queer activists using condoms on bananas and campaigning for comprehensive sex education? Why did they have to be so loud, marching, shouting, demanding? I thought that all you had to do is ask the powers that be, approach them full of humility, that they’d listen. And anyways, all this was unnecessary to me, because if everyone just kept quiet, we would have continued carrying about our lives. Even though it would have to be in hush tones and behind closed doors and secret gatherings.

You may also know, that shortly after that, people started looking for me, and not with any good intentions. I had to seek refuge in Kenya, because the Anti-Homosexuality "Kill The Gays” bill had just been passed by a president who went into power when I was born, and has clung to that seat till then.

That, made me understand the need to shout, and scream, and question the high powers because the one thing that fuels them, and a language that Africans are very fluent in, is silence.

As a trans woman, the biggest pain that I can tell you we go through is erasure. And not just because we are not recognized by the law, but because all the violence and harm that is metted out against us gains as much attention as a child dropping a cup in the market. All it gets is a side-eye, a shrug, and people going about their business, or worse yet, people blaming the child for being careless. How can you say you were harmed, who is ‘you’? We don’t understand what you are, why can’t you just stick to what you were told you are at birth? What’s all this for? We can’t do anything about your kind being killed, or beaten up, sexually abused or persecuted, because who will we say was harmed?

And that’s the thing. The determination to stick to all these binaries. The determination to cling to what you were told, what you were taught. This complete refusal to acknowledge transgender people, acknowledge queer people, then realize and accept the differences between them. I am not a gay man who happens to be too sassy, the same way a man who identifies as gay but takes part in drag is not a trans woman. Understanding the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity isn’t that hard, but in a continent that till date teaches sex as being just for procreation and shuns away any other truths or interpretations about it, I see how that would be challenging. I see how explaining pronouns and explaining that beyond boy and girl there’s trans and gender non-conforming and so much more. 

 

I mentioned earlier on that I’m a smart person (which really helped me understand who I am better, because except using common logic, I had science to back it up.) Did you know that sex in human beings is determined by eight determinants? So when did we get to the point that we used only one thing- genitalia- to ascertain that someone is boy or girl? A quick glance in between a newborn’s legs and the doctor proudly announces to the whole room one out of two genders.  Heavens forbid that you are born intersex, then the scalpels are brought out, a snip here, a stitch there, and they get to pick your gender for you, without your input or consent.

Then, you become like me, and you are crazy enough to defy the doctors and midwives. Crazy enough to say no to the toy trucks your parents get you, and instead you go for your mother’s lipstick and dresses. Mad enough, even, to prove wrong the adults who said it’s just a childhood phase, and go on to become this glorious trans woman that I am today. 

This glorious woman that became the first in Uganda to have a national ID in my correct name and gender, not some deluded "boy".

I have asked myself if the sun shone differently when the history we read about was made. But today as history was made, the sun shone the same, even as the skies were bluer, but Ugandans just went about their day as any other.

One day it was monumental for Rosa Parks to refuse to give up her bus seat for a white man, and nowadays, a bus ride is barely something we think about. It was monumental for the first black slave to be registered as a legal citizen, but now, everybody, everywhere, has the legal right to citizenship.

 

Today it is monumental that my country chose to register me as a woman, recognizing me as a transgender woman. My prayer is that this win will be a win for other trans Ugandans and that one day it shall not be special for a trans person to be recognized by their own country.

Look, I made it, we made it.