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By Joyce Mukucha
Feeling discriminated against can be hurtful! Encountering and dealing with discrimination can have negative effect on one’s mental and physical health.
When one is stigmatized, they mostly develop a sense and feeling of being an outsider or an outcast from the family and community at large as well as having a perception of self as less than or something is wrong.
The dilemma is unbearable. Unfortunately, this is what the transgender and intersex community in Zimbabwe experience on their day to day lives as they struggle for acceptance.
Against this background, the trans people have called upon Zimbabwean people to thwart rejection, isolation, stigma and discrimination.
The community stressed the need to promote the legal status of transgender people to eliminate discrimination and violence against the community regarding housing, employment, public accommodations, education, and health care among other important aspects.
During a Trans Smart Trust media gender identity engagement and training in partnership with Health Communicators Forum in Harare last week, brave and resilient transgender individuals committed to fighting injustice shared their stories pertaining discrimination and mistreatment they face in communities as well as when accessing public accommodations, obtaining housing, and seeking employment.
With tears flowing down her cheeks, a transwoman, Cleo (not real name) said as a result of discrimination, she chose to remain in the closet to an extent of wanting to commit suicide explaining that she experienced anxiety, depression, anger, and a sense of helplessness.
She emotionally explained that it was not by choice to be who she is thus the need for relatives, community and the nation at large to understand and accept the transgender and intersex persons the way they are without judging them.
“People should understand that someone can be trapped in a wrong body. As for me, I was assigned male at birth but growing up, I always felt that I was a girl. When other male kids were crying for toys I used to cry for dolls. Because of the way I liked to dress, relatives and neighbors began pointing fingers on me as well as judging me. I could even wear my mother’s dresses and high-heeled shoes and start walking around the house.
“I still remember when we were at church and my father was asked how many male children does he have and he said he only have one boy(my young brother) as for me, he said it explicitly that he doesn’t understand whether i was a boy or a girl. It really touched me and I decided to kill myself so I bought my poison and I left for the village where my grandmother stayed. I used the opportunity to drink the poison when my granny was busy cooking. Unfortunately, I started vomiting and that is when I explained my grandmother that I was living in pain of rejection and discrimination everyday.
“I’m pleading to people out there to understand that we don’t choose these situations, if it was possible to change it I would have done that but it’s something beyond my control,” she said.
Cleo said she was grateful to have found a family in Trans Smart Trust where she is now working as a peer educator and at the same time receiving unwavering support.
She added that it was important to reach out to trustworthy people and find support which enable one to regain confidence.
Cleo said there was need for legislative reforms that will allow a person to change their gender marker to reflect their gender identity such as provision for trans people to change their gender marker on their birth certificates so that they are not left open to accusations of having same-sex relationships.
“I’m receiving much support from Trans Smart Trust including psychological and emotional. I know I’m not alone and many others are going through similar experiences. Speaking about my experience and hearing about others’ stories worked as healing process for me. We are stronger when we can stand together and support each other.
“Trans Smart Trust gave me a job and I’m able to pay my rentals and taking care of myself. Transitioning from male to female has proved expensive but I’m happy that I’m living the way I’m and one day o wish to have breasts. As a trans woman, I plead for the legal right to change my gender.”
Another transwoman who prefer to be called Miss Ma said she grew up feminine and stigma and discrimination started at home.
“I used to feel it when I was young. Though I was assigned male at birth, I felt it deep inside that I was a woman. This is because the body itself has several variations but many fail to understand it and they easily draw conclusions and judge.
“When my family discovered that I was like that, they made my life so difficult. My stepmother was homophobic and she could play songs that criticize me. The situation was becoming unbearable until I decided to move out and started to stay with a friend. At home, I was the eldest child so I had my own room and during the times we had visitors, they would come and sleep with me in my room but the moment they started to suspect and accuse me of being gay, no one wanted to share a room with me. Visitors preferred to go and sleep with my siblings in their room we used to call Dangerzone because of the stinking urine smell caused by continuous bedwetting by my young siblings. People think that if you are trans or intersex you don’t have priorities, we don’t just sleep with anyone.
“As of now, things are better but I still face stigma at family gatherings and at roadblocks, bank, airport among other places I still face challenges. Transgender people are heavily marginalised in both the legal and social spheres. We face everyday discrimination. I’m facing difficulties relating to my national identity documents (ID), which state that I’m a man.
“As transgender people, we are part of society and we are equally entitled to have our constitutional rights protected and respected. It is imperative to have laws and implementation of health policies that speak to transgender health,” Miss Ma said.
Gumisayi Bonzo, the Executive Director for Trans Smart Trust said transgender and intersex persons continue to be left out yet they deserve the right to protection, equity and legal gender recognition just like any other human being.
She highlighted that stigma and discrimination experienced by transgender and intersex people causes mental turmoil which triggers suicidal tendencies.
In an effort to address these challenges, Bonzo said Trans Smart Trust was committed to continue working tirelessly to raising awareness within communities which discriminate the transgender people.
“We continue to make concerted efforts to ensure improved livelihoods for transgender and intersex people through capacity development and promotion of rights. We strive to provide information and build capacity for transgender and intersex people through participatory initiative. We will continue to gather strength and courage in speaking out against and challenging this unjust discrimination,” said Bonzo.
She also highlighted that they have sensitization programmes aimed at educating and raising awareness within the transgender, intersex communities and the larger community which views transgender and intersex people as outcasts.
The organisation also offer health and support to transgender and Lesbian and Gay Bisexual Trans Intersex Queer community focusing on addressing health related issues such as Sexual and reproductive health, STI’s, HIV and mental health ensuring access to health for marginalized transgender and intersex people.
According to a 2018 survey, 50% of gay men in Zimbabwe had been physically assaulted and 64% had been disowned by their families with 27% of lesbians also reported disownment.
Other surveys and studies indicate that due to stigma and discrimination from their families and communities, about 80 percent of transgender people had thought of committing suicide. About 40 percent attempted suicide, and 44 percent had harmed themselves.
Trans Smart Trust is an organization that focuses on transgender and intersex person’s wellbeing, founded in 2012 and registered as a Trust on the 16th of July 2016 after a long struggle in an environment where there is limited appreciation and acknowledgement of the existence of transgender and intersex persons.
The organisation works to promote the identification, inclusion, integration and assimilation of human rights issues affecting transgender and intersex persons with a focus on HIV / AIDS prevention and treatment, capacity enhancement as well as access to equal opportunities in the health and human rights sectors in Zimbabwe.