On September 03, 2024, I attended an intense grief ceremony in Zurich; it was also my first time leaving my country Ghana as a transwoman. I was assigned male at birth (intersex), and a few months before my trip to Switzerland, I had started the journey to both socially and medically transition. During this ceremony, the facilitator asked us to reflect on grief. ‘Why do we grieve? What do our bodies grieve for? How often have we allowed our bodies to rightfully grieve just like we allow them to be happy?’
Allowing myself to ask these questions, something I had never done before, opened me up to such overwhelming emotions. It was my second time experiencing this two days after I left Ghana. In Ghana, I had concluded that being sad was an emotion I could not afford after discovering how expensive it was. After allowing myself to be sad about an issue once in the past, I cried for days and ended up sick for almost a month- amassing a lot of bills that my friends had to crowdfund to support me with paying.
Now, here I was in Zurich, crying for the second time in front of strangers. Streams of tears I have refused to let out for a long time fought for a place out of my eyes, emotions so overwhelming and overpowering for minutes all I could do was wheeze. Later at night, I lay in bed, trying to understand why. What happened and what had triggered such powerful emotions in me?
Is it just a ‘gay walk’, or is it my body’s recognition of how unsafe it feels?
Have I been masking my body’s chronic flight mode, the attempt at seeking safety as soon as I leave the house with humor? Is my identity and presentation as a transwoman living in Ghana the reason I walk the way I do- fast, unacknowledging, looking down to avoid faces, and sometimes pressing my phone to stop people from talking to me? I consider this as much a personal inquiry to understanding my wide-ranging and sometimes complex emotions as it is also an invitation for other queer people who share my experience to reflect with me on living in a chronic state of fear as queer Africans; and what it may be doing to our bodies.
In University, it was often a standing joke to ask any one of my queer friends how fast they walked. The gay walk, if you were an effeminate boy, is characterized by walking as fast as you can, sometimes breathless while you are nowhere near late, and avoiding faces and conversations as much as possible. If you met someone you knew, you either pretended to be on your phone if they were close or waved hello and kept walking. One of the things that bonded us was our ability to walk fast and leave strangers who sometimes made us uncomfortable behind.
Even as a young university student, it intrigued me that something as common as walking could bond us queer men who came from such different backgrounds. How has the recognition of our walk developed into a basis for bonding for all my effeminate friends who came from nearly entirely different social classes, communities, and educational backgrounds? How was it possible that my friend Hanson, raised by catholic parents in Volta Ghana, walked in as much haste as Annobi, my classmate from Upper East Ghana who lived in Tamale all his life? And what had influenced them to recognize this as a common trait among effeminate men? How did this gradually develop to be a source of social bonding, communing, and even a way for gay effeminate men to have sex and “hook up”, as we called it?
Growing up as an effeminate boy, it was not uncommon for people to name me.
Kojo Besia, Martha, Awo, Kojo Baa, Atw33. While a lot of these came as mean-spirited jokes, they were also sometimes received as terms of endearment. As I fondly recall, some of my favorite market women would call me Martha or Awo, watch me beam with smiles, and then give me money or shower me with gifts. Christmas was my favorite holiday as my sister, and I dressed up in our favorite newly sewn clothes on Boxing Day and visited all our favorite neighbors seeking gifts. I was also very bubbly, friendly, and pretty extroverted— characteristics I deem worthy of mentioning as I consider them important for this inquiry. I would spend hours during school vacations sitting with women, playing with women, getting named by women, and naming women. This is partly why I chose Awo as my first name when I started my transition journey. Maybe now it also reminds me of a time when I did not have to walk so fast.
As a teenager, the name-calling never stopped but somehow shifted from friendly jests and mean-spirited joking to becoming more violent, meant to draw a reaction from me and occasionally became physical. The ‘Kojo besia’ and ‘Maajoa’ no longer held the friendly tonation they did before. It was meant to be a slur, to shame me into conforming and being a “real man”. It became a regular part of my life to half expect anyone — usually children and women to shout an insult at me to walk well every time I went on an errand.
At 15 years I received my first punishment for taking my time to walk when a man – a stranger- severely beat me up because I did not walk as a “man” after he shouted behind me to walk like one. This is a case I could never even report to anyone out of fear of further punishment. But after that, I learnt to walk fast. I learnt to walk as quickly as I could get away from trouble, but this also meant letting go of what I considered integral parts of myself — like my extrovertedness. It became important to concentrate on one of the only things I was not ashamed of —my intellect.
I gave up performing poetry and dancing; I even dropped out of the church choir because the choir mistress funnily attempted to imitate my voice in the ugliest highest pitch. I committed to reading in my house, a habit I even enjoy doing — but has it always been my body’s comfort zone? Has my body always recognized my home, specifically my bed a safe haven so much that whenever I am outside, all it worries about is getting home?
Learning to walk fast was to be away from the judgemental eyes and mouths of the people who saw me. Was learning to walk fast also a way of running away from my own fears, either real or made up, of people who did not make me safe? Was it self defense?
As a transwoman and an adult at 27, a core part of my decision making has centered around fear from when I could remember. To make choices as simple as grocery shopping or morning walks, I am required to carefully weigh how safe it is. My friends have offered to drive behind me to ensure my safety while I walk in the morning; some have even offered to do my shopping. While these acts are well-meaning, in the end, what they have done has been to set me up for a lot of self-blame whenever I wrongly made the decision to walk unaccompanied and met the wrong fate, which often ultimately happened. How has this state of unconsciously having to be on constant alert for danger – asking questions about a bar’s security and washrooms before I can go for a drink, relying on my friends for what will be considered daily activities like morning walks — made my body? What has this unconscious state of fear of when I will be criminalised, when/if Ghana’s 2021 anti-LGBT bill gets signed into law — done to my body? Am I in a perpetual state of chronic fear so much that my body assumes this is what is all that exists?
I first noticed that my body was in a state of heightened fear when I went through the visa application form for Switzerland. The process had been so violent that at one point my friend Kwaku had to continue and finish my correspondence with the embassy. First, I had to use my official name and work I had done in the past in my dead name and prove they related to me- a transwoman called Awo Dufie. It felt as if it was the first time the embassy had heard the word Transwoman or even processed a visa application for one. Second, it was my bank account, and I did not have enough money despite my travel being fully funded. Again, Kwaku had also offered to cover whatever was needed for my trip, but despite this, the embassy still required tons of correspondence and calls — sometimes confusing instructions. I became so exhausted that I decided to give up on the process and miss the opportunity, something Kwaku refused and highlighted in no short words when he emailed the embassy on my behalf.
When I finally received the email that I had received the travel permit, instead of relief, I still feared. If Switzerland did not make accommodations for trans women travelling to Switzerland, was it going to be a safe place for trans people, a black trans woman from Ghana? During my first walk in Zurich, I was stunned by the silence. It was not the people moving quietly or the buses not honking that shocked me, it was my head. The absence of the familiar voice constantly reminding me to be quiet, look down, and walk shocked me. It was as if I had attended a church gathering and everyone had been asked to shush, keep quiet and listen for the holy spirit.
Before I left my apartment that day, I had to contemplate what to wear. Was it safe to wear this dress and my wig? I could not believe I had left my pepper spray in Ghana. About ten minutes into my walk outside the apartment, I realized no one had said a word or noticeably batted an eye. Imagine my shock! I have spent my entire life getting catcalled by men, women, and children with the most inventive names, getting chased for going on morning walks, and having my personality turned inside and out. My body suddenly not feeling this threat, this chronic state of danger felt like it was going through a state of withdrawal from an addictive drug, overwhelmed with emotions and empty at the same time. Tears forcefully rushed out of my eyes, my heart pounding, my knees buckling.
“Are you okay?” the white woman standing beside me on the bridge overlooking the river asked me.
Am I okay? I mumbled to myself silently. I don’t know if I am okay. I don’t think I am OK. I noticed I walked differently on my way here. Slower. I took my time to take in my surroundings and everything I saw. I think the river is too clean, unnaturally clean. Why do I hear it? Where is the voice in my head and why can I hear myself thinking? Why is no one watching me or threatening me? Trumu Trumu, Kojo Besia?What is going on? Of course, I am not okay!
Queer bodies are bombarded by so much warning, our bodies are constantly in a state of fight or flight, mostly flight. It is not just internal; it is not just the voices in our heads that have been warning us to self-preserve nearly all our lives. It is the voices of the people around us who care and try to show us this in the things they offer. It is the constant calls and warnings for us to be careful because we live in Ghana as if our bodies will ever mistakenly forget this. It is that look of “we told you so” on the faces of people who care and offer their time so we don’t get harmed. It is having to commit a map of the most dangerous and unsafe communities to memory. It is also from the constant worrying of our friends and reminders to leave Ghana. It is some form of care that sometimes seems to extend beyond care into assuming that trans and queer bodies have no agency, no capacity to take care of ourselves. It is a responsibility that has been placed on our bodies by nongovernmental organizations, to be responsible and shrink ourselves for our own safety instead of how to make society safe for us. What this has done is that our safe spaces have worried so much about our safety that they are no longer becoming safe for us. We can no longer talk to our safe spaces when we are hurt because every day they warn us to be safe, to stay home, like a caged bird. A life we never chose.
“Are you sure you are okay?”
Yes, sometimes I really am okay. Sometimes I am in a rush to jump straight to the conversation because “how are you doing?” leads to “but how are you really doing?” and “are you sure you are actually fine?” Sometimes checking in and needing me to prove to you that I am safe, an activity I did not sign up for. These constant reminders, talking about how bad it is and how much I need to take care of myself because, believe me, you do not know or understand more than I do.
As an introvert, my transition has given me an opportunity to rediscover a childhood I enjoyed. Being free. A caged bird, of course, craves freedom. Sometimes, I weigh my freedom over my safety and go to the beach because I just want the breeze on my face. My trans personhood is not a prison. These constant external reminders of how much danger I am in; even though they come from a place of care are also internalized, they become a part of a voice in my head that is constantly asking me first to poke my head outside to see if there are people, and then check what I wear if it isn’t too offensive before I walk briskly to my destination and back home where I feel safe.
The gay walk is not just humor; it is our body’s recognition of the constant state of fear it is in. It is our body’s conscious fear of getting attacked mentally, verbally, and physically.
It is the hairs on our body constantly chronically ready to rise and our pace quickening even further whenever we hear a man walk behind us. It is taking the longer route with lights, searching around us constantly for a weapon we can fight with even as we break in run and rush to open our gates. It is the fear of harm our bodies have absorbed for years since our childhood, and friendly jests suddenly became abusive and unkind. It is a translation of how unsafe black cisheterosexual and some homosexual men have made us feel over the years. A nonexistent but claim of Pan-African solidarity which does not apply if you are not considered African enough or in our case, masculine enough.
It is also a culmination of years of listening to warnings from people who once again believe they know more about my experience than I do- hearing their voices and understanding that I cannot fail them. No matter what, I have to press on and get home. I cannot fail; I carry years of warnings. My close friends constantly warn me to take care of myself and that I must do so. So onwards I walk, I must get home where it is safe.
Why do we grieve, and what do our bodies grieve? How do you recognize grief when you live all your life in fear of grieving?
Dedication
I am thankful for the people who have surrounded me with love since my coming out about my transitioning. Joan, Fatima, Obaa, Gustavo and everyone else who have provided me with the space, understanding, and love where I can be bold to sit with myself and reflect on my experiences in this light. I am also thankful to Kwaku, without whose wonderful show of allyship, understanding, and Canadian restraint I may never have had the opportunity to reflect on this experience. I am also extremely thankful to my flatmates Badha and Sidonna – as well as my sisters, Zahai, Micah, Mami Water, and Lady Smollet, without whose talks, gradual encouragement, and lovey emojis I may have never been able to write this. Finally, thank ayebainemi ése and Igohozo for their wonderful work facilitating the Aktionstage Grief Ceremony.
Feature photo by Anete Lusina/pexels.
Awo Dufie is a transwoman and decolonial queer rights activist living and working in Ghana. Over the years, she has worked to curate and document the lived experiences of queer elders in Ghana through her project “Queer Elders Speak”. She currently works to coordinate The Rainbow Business Directory, a trans-led business collective advocating for trans and queer rights in Ghana. Her current research interest explores how indigenous queerness and the impact of transnational LGBTIQ and anti-LGBTIQ rights activism on indigenous queer rights and perceived legitimacy.