Revisiting dialectics on transgender phenomenon
KAYODE KETEFE
Today is the International Transgender Day for Visibility, a day set apart to celebrating transgender people and raising awareness of discrimination faced by this people worldwide.
The following conversation between a Nigerian "Conservative" and "Liberalist" underscores the perspectives on and understanding of the transgender phenomenon in this country.
Liberalist: Hurray, today is the International Transgender Day for Visibility! Let's join hands to raise awareness on LGBTI rights.
Conservative: What is that supposed to mean? I hope you know there is anti-gay law in Nigeria? Thanks to our leaders, our country is being protected against foreign bad practices trying to make incursions into our territory.
Liberalist: Well done! You have a law by which people of different sexual orientations would be clamped into jail; those who support them and agitate for their rights will also suffer similar fate. Is that what you are excited about? Don't you think this amount to trampling on other people's human rights?
Conservative: What human rights? Don't tell me you support immorality? Do you think it is appropriate for a man to be sleeping with a man and a woman with a woman? That is an abomination; it is alien to our culture!
Liberalist: Our culture! In some parts of Nigerians twins had been killed in the past under "our culture" which saw twins as evil people; it was a foreigner, Mary Slessor of blessed memory that stopped that practice of infanticide. Today, it is no longer our culture to kill twins. We had engaged in human sacrifice in the past, it was our culture! Was it not? Today, such practice is seen as evil. Let us critically engage all the components that made up the so-called our culture and see if they can stand to test of reason.
Conservative: Those that killed twins in the past did so under ignorance. But there are practices that cannot be justified; they stand out egregiously as immorality. We simply cannot justify homosexuality and allied nonsense under any guise. What is not good is not good!
Liberalist: The problem with your position is that you have already assumed a number of things and jump into conclusion on the basis of your assumptions. These people, I mean the Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transgenders and Intersexes (LGBTI) are unanimous on one thing. They say they did not choose to be the way they are and that nature made them like that. Just consider for the moment if nature truly made them the way they are and their sexual preferences are not their own making, will punishing them not amount to punishing a dog for barking and a bird for singing?
Conservative: I don't agree with you! God will not create anybody in an immoral way. People would choose to practice abominable things out of their own perversion and still have effrontery to blame God for it.
Liberalist: But what evidence do you have that it is not the way they are made? You are just expressing personal opinion by saying they chose to be like that.
Conservative: You may call it personal opinion, but it is an opinion based on human experience. If you look at human anatomy, you would find that God designs a man for a woman and vice versa. Even in the animal kingdom, you would not find a male dog mating with a male dog nor would you find a goat mating with a goat. It is only among us, human beings; with our capacity for mischief, you would find such sexual incongruities!
Liberalist: Now, let us get down to being factual. It is not correct to say that homosexuality does not occur among animals. It is a well-documented scientific fact at least 1500 animal species practice homosexuality! You can google that to dig up the information on the internet!
Conservative: Much of the information on the internet is put there by the Western powers to deceive us. This forms part of conspiracies to make all of us go gay! Whatever may be the case, we should not allow bad practices to spread into our land.
Liberalist: Thinking it can spread unless curtailed is an emanation from an unyielding mindset that these people deliberately decided to be like that. If you start to punish all babies born with dreadlock (Dada) and throw them into prison for instance, will it stop the birth of babies born with dreadlock? If you start to ostracize all the albinos born in the society, will that stop the birth of albino babies? Freakishness is part of nature.
Conservative: Those are different!
Liberalist: You said so! Now let us get more factual. Let me ask you a question: who is a male and who is a female?
Conservative: Why? Don't tell me you cannot distinguish a male from a female if you see one.
Liberalist: Well, not always! Did you know that you cannot absolutely say a person is a male or female though physical appearance alone? This is determined in absolute sense through scientific tests. At times someone would have physical appearance of a particular gender, but inwardly he/she would belong to the other sex.
Conservative: Are you talking of the hermaphrodites, they are not….
Liberalist: No I am not talking of hermaphrodites. Did you know that gender tests are conducted these days by the organisers of the competitive sports to determine true gender of athletes? Even in female football, they do it to ascertain the true gender. So determining the gender goes beyond the physical assessment alone!
Conservative: how does that justify being gay?
Liberalist: So if a person claims, I may have the appearance of a female but I am really a male inside me and my sexual preference is towards females. What rights have you and your government to throw the person into prison when you cannot even determine who is really is a male or female by merely looking at them, except through scientific testing.
Conservative: Government has the right to protect the society. See, no intellectual argument can persuade me, I want to follow the ways of God!
Liberalist: But God is said to be fountain of fairness and justice.
Conservative: Na you sabi!
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