Anonymous

West Africa

“I haven’t achieved my goals yet. But I’ve cleaned up the path, allowing my peers, people like me, to speak up and thump the table to say no. To claim their own space and remind people of their existence and of their needs. To talk about their experience. I can say I have contributed to that a bit. My vision is to see all those paths unite in order to take action, not at the level of the whole country but in the subregion. I want to see organizations of queer women in francophone Western Africa unite, in a clear political vision.”

Anonymous’s Story

The person sharing this story would like to remain anonymous. They are from West Africa, have fought for themselves, and are now doing the same for others. For our conversation, we’ll use Anonymous to refer to them.

Through the four-part conversation curated by Eyala, Anonymous shares about their childhood in West Africa as a young girl who liked cartoons, music, and wearing pants and combat boots instead of dresses and skirts. They resisted first for their sexuality and later for creating safe spaces for other marginalised people in our heteronormative and patriarchal society.

Trigger warning

This conversation contains mentions of violence and abuse which may be triggering for readers. Kindly take a moment to decide if you want to keep reading.

This is a summary of the conversation.

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When you talk about being different, what do you mean?

It was strange, from the beginning, when I started going to school. See, we spoke French at home. I did not understand the vernacular language. So, when I started going to school, everybody teased me. They nicknamed me “the little French girl” and no one wanted to be friends with me because we couldn’t communicate. Once I got back home, I told my mom: “Speak vernacular to me because I can’t take this any longer”. As I started to make friends, the girls thought I wasn’t girly enough. I was told my thoughts were too “boyish”. Then, when I began befriending the boys, they said I wasn’t a boy either. I had to fit into one category, girls or boys, but none of them wanted me!

This was deeply hurtful. I hardly had any friends and didn’t fit into any group. When I went to play with my schoolmates, I heard: “No, she can’t play ball with us. She’ll beat us, and that’s not fair.” It was constant trouble, so I stayed home, and enjoyed it. I like music. I spent time with my uncle (my mother’s younger brother) who could play the guitar. At the time he would play many Tracy Chapman songs and they inspired me a lot.

You told me that for you, the end of your girlhood was around 24-25 years old, a few years after leaving the convent. Could you tell me why you chose this specific age?

A few years prior, I had started some research to know what I was exactly. If I was the only one in this situation or if it was a disease. At 24, I was invited to an event organised by an NGO fighting AIDS. A friend of mine, with whom I spoke a lot, worked with them. I hadn’t planned on going. I didn’t want to hear rumours about me, that would make me have to explain myself. Anyway, he insisted: “You must come! You must come! You’ll find it interesting!”

So, I went there, and then BAM! I saw people like me! I thought “OK, I’m not alone.” In my research, I only saw things about the West that reinforced the idea that “White people are the only ones who do this.” My participation in this event was liberating to me. I saw that in my country, the city where I grew up, there were people like me. Younger, older people who were like me. That’s when I thought: “Life begins now.

When you look to the future, what do you hope to see change? What do liberation and change look like to you?

Something that pains me is seeing the new funders that are currently interested in this movement. I remember when we started working on the issue of queer women in West Africa, especially in the francophone region, nobody was interested. We didn’t see what it could bring. AIDS and most of the results and research were about gay men and nothing else. When we started talking about queer women’s existence, their needs, how to build a movement, and how to get them involved in other social justice actions, nobody listened to us.

But now that the movements and organizations have started to take shape and become strong, we see funders who previously turned us down, and closed the door on us, coming back to join the fight. Worse, they want to define the agenda. But these newly created organizations aren’t strong enough and thus accept to take money from these funders at the expense of their agenda to survive. This is the new battle. Yes, we need the money, but we get to determine how and when we use it.

I want to see queer women’s groups, especially in francophone West Africa, united with a clear and independent political vision. We need authentic, radical organizations that are independent and autonomous, and that set their agenda for their funders. My vision is to see all these voices united to act, either nationally or within the sub-region.