Misgendering News

May. 27th, 2010 10:17 pm
eumelia: (queer rage)
[personal profile] eumelia
Back in December 2009 I wrote about Malawian gay couple Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza being the first same-sex couple to hold an engagement ceremony in the African country.

Chimbalanga and Monjeza have been sent to seperate prisons to serve the 14 year sentence given for crimes of indecency.

The problem is that there has been gross misreporting on this case.

They are not a same-sex couple.

Tiwonge Chimbalanga is a transgender woman:
According to Ian Swartz from OSISA (Open Society Institute of Southern Africa) Tiwonge Chimbalanga sees herself as a woman. “Tiwonge so clearly identifies as a woman and she has expressed her identity as such more often than not. I think if she knew the word Transgender she would come home to a world of understanding of herself” he said recently after visiting the couple in prison. A local activist who calls her “Aunty Tiwo” visited her too and to him she said: “I am just a woman who loves my man. I’d rather remain in prison than to be released into a world where I am kept away from Steven”


I have to admit I'm disgusted. This kind of erasure is an insult to grievous injury. Trans people, women more often than not, are maligned and dehumanised. Trans identities are not a secondary issue. Tiwonge Chimbalanga is being misgendered not only by her own society, but by the western media (mainstream and queer) that is supposedly supporting hers and Steven Monjeza's engagement.

More information to be found at AKIMBO, Question Transphobia and this piece at The HuffPo.

I'm really irritated at myself for not knowing and writing about this sooner.

h/t [livejournal.com profile] kynn.
  • feeling angry
  • hearing The Eurovision (help...)
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January 2020

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V and Justice

V: Ah, I was forgetting that we are not properly introduced. I do not have a name. You can call me V. Madam Justice...this is V. V... this is Madam Justice. hello, Madam Justice.

Justice: Good evening, V.

V: There. Now we know each other. Actually, I've been a fan of yours for quite some time. Oh, I know what you're thinking...

Justice: The poor boy has a crush on me...an adolescent fatuation.

V: I beg your pardon, Madam. It isn't like that at all. I've long admired you...albeit only from a distance. I used to stare at you from the streets below when I was a child. I'd say to my father, "Who is that lady?" And he'd say "That's Madam Justice." And I'd say "Isn't she pretty."

V: Please don't think it was merely physical. I know you're not that sort of girl. No, I loved you as a person. As an ideal.

Justice: What? V! For shame! You have betrayed me for some harlot, some vain and pouting hussy with painted lips and a knowing smile!

V: I, Madam? I beg to differ! It was your infidelity that drove me to her arms!

V: Ah-ha! That surprised you, didn't it? You thought I didn't know about your little fling. But I do. I know everything! Frankly, I wasn't surprised when I found out. You always did have an eye for a man in uniform.

Justice: Uniform? Why I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about. It was always you, V. You were the only one...

V: Liar! Slut! Whore! Deny that you let him have his way with you, him with his armbands and jackboots!

V: Well? Cat got your tongue? I though as much.

V: Very well. So you stand revealed at last. you are no longer my justice. You are his justice now. You have bedded another.

Justice: Sob! Choke! Wh-who is she, V? What is her name?

V: Her name is Anarchy. And she has taught me more as a mistress than you ever did! She has taught me that justice is meaningless without freedom. She is honest. She makes no promises and breaks none. Unlike you, Jezebel. I used to wonder why you could never look me in the eye. Now I know. So good bye, dear lady. I would be saddened by our parting even now, save that you are no longer the woman I once loved.

*KABOOM!*

-"V for Vendetta"

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