Sexuality! How does one even start to explain the diversities we have today? LGBTQ has become an unmuteable community. It’s no longer easy to shut them out as it was few decades ago. In today’s world, sex and gender have taken on a whole new meaning deviating from what it used to be fifty years ago. While growing up, I recall that when you’re asked your gender or sex, you simply reply male or female! But today, I know that sex and gender are two different things. While sex is the biological differences between male and female, gender is a societal construct. Whoa, right! Let me explain.
Akin has masculine features and most noticeable will be the presence of a phallus (penis) while Ekanem, on the other hand has a vagina, so we would normally conclude that the sex of Akin is male and that of Ekanem is female due to the presence of the penis and vagina as the determining difference between them. Now what happens to gender?
What happens when Akin who is a male decides he doesn’t want to hold on to what the society expects a man to act like? What if Akin decides to start wearing leggings which are peculiar to women? Starts wearing full make up – I mean the full thing?! Akin upgrades to wearing of fake breasts (such things are found just in any shop these days), flaunting them by wearing low cut tops, he starts walking like a woman.
This begs the question, what gender is Akin?
Of course he had a phallus and hasn’t cut it off through surgery yet. So he’s still a male genetically. But in terms of societal standards, or the definition of a male by the society, he’s definitely not one. The same could be said of Ekanem when she decides to walk and dress as a man.
And if Ekanem has a vagina and balls as well (Shocker!) , is she still a female?
Now, they could be wrongly or rightly called homosexual by some people depending on their taste. And most societies as we know especially in Africa are homophobic. So what gender is Akin or Ekanem considering all these facts about them? If both decide to fill a form online for a training or something, do they choose male or female?
Now provision has been made for other when it comes to selecting gender, especially on international platforms. What does it mean to be the other? Do intersex persons or transgender persons or homosexual persons belong to the category of other? How complicated is this? These and many more questions surrounding sexuality and it’s related issues will be answered in the next article.
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I think as Africans we shouldn’t just copy everything from the western world, while the advancement in technology and gender equality is good, I think some of our African cultures still help to keep us any. personally, I think those that denied their sex is another form of mental problem it likes fighting with nature, Its a lost battle.