Africa: On Transgender Human Rights Issues in Africa

7 December 2006
opinion

In most African states, homosexuality is illegal. Juliet Victor Mukasa writes that in Africa, transgender people are punished and ostracised for being who they are. "While still with my parents, I was always beaten by my father for "behaving" like a boy. In school, the same story. While peeing one day my neighbour's daughter found me peeing while squatting and she screamed like she had seen a monster."

As a transgender person who is attracted physically and emotionally to other women, issues that African women and trangenders face are of particular concern to me. The one thing that all transgender people have in common is that we do not fit into traditional gender categories.

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