Interview with Arya Jeipea Karijo - Part 2

Monika: And workwise?

Arya: My activity in the tech community has been recognized e.g. in 2016 I was a TOYP outstanding person of the year, I had many speaking and training opportunities then. These have reduced to a single consulting position for a UK-based company now.

Last year between November and March I was really desperate for employment. I feel some of the positions with tech companies that I made it past the first round of evaluations didn't work out because they realized I was a transgender person and while in their home countries I would be fit for the positions, they want to blend into the Kenyan society that is hosting them and so having a transgender person as your local face is a "no-no".

I am now working for an indigenous LGBTIQ funding organization known as UHAI and I also work for decolonizing i.e. the internet campaign known as Whose Knowledge? So, there has been a huge shift in my life from working as a changemaker using technology and social enterprise to more of a changemaker who is using knowledge and activism.

Monika: What is the financial situation of transgender women in Kenya?

Arya: Right now I am privileged in terms of work opportunity and earnings. Livelihood is difficult for transgender people in Kenya - already for the general Kenyan population only 2% of the population earn above $1,000 per month.

A 2019 survey showed only 5 transgender people in Kenya earned above $750 per month and most of the community was in informal employment with income fluctuating around the $100 per month average. This kind of earnings makes life impossible; my full dosage for over-the-counter hormone replacement therapy medication would usually cost about $89 a month.

When my earnings were poor in 2019 and before March 2020 I would cut corners e.g. reduce my blockers dosage to half $30 and also estrogen to half about $14.85. Then I would negotiate with my landlord. At the time my housing used to be about $80 a month so then I would gamble with food for the whole month.

"As transgender people we are free
from the cishet binary."

Often this kind of pressure leads many transgender women to do sex work. Livelihood and documentation are connected. Documentation is still an issue, and Audrey's organization Transgender, Education and Advocacy help transgender people to navigate the murky name change process, which ideally should not take more than a month but individuals in the system often use their position to block our applications when they realize the person seeking the name change is transgender. While they have no legal basis for blocking it, they could take you round in circles for more than a year.

Financial transactions are also largely done by Mpesa the mobile money service and having your dead name pop up every time you make a payment or receive a payment makes it really hard for any transgender person to function in our society.

Monika: I assume that many transgender women have to buy over-the-counter hormones. Is it difficult? Where do they learn about how to take hormones?

Arya: I think this is different for all of us. Like I said I came into my authentic self in 2011. I downloaded most of the information I would need from transgendercare.com but I kept it until 2019 when I started on hormones. In 2019, it was the first time when I met the transgender community in Nairobi.

Afterward, I would attend support group meetings that were really helpful not just for my medical transition but also for my social status, starting to unapologetically live as myself even if it made daily interactions like catching the bus, getting money from a Mpesa agent difficult.

It was also important for my legal transition, which I started in 2020. For the younger folk, social media make it a bit easy as they can find other transgender people and eventually find the community through these channels.

Many pharmacies do not follow regulations on over-the-counter meds. Only one pharmacy asked me for a prescription for Androcur. The only major disadvantage is that you cannot use any type of medical insurance for over-the-counter medication, and I still haven't found a doctor willing to prescribe meds specifically for transgender transitioning.

Monika: Based on your words, the whole situation seems to be hopeless for the Kenyan transgender community. Is there any beacon of hope?

Arya: I guess age makes one largely pessimistic and a bit of a cynic. But I guess the only reason I have found to keep speaking up and pushing systems is meeting young transgender people in their 20s and teens. We cannot afford to have no hope. Their lives need to be better than ours have been.

Monika: The transgender cause is usually manifested together with the other LGBTQ communities. Being almost the last letter in this abbreviation, is the transgender community able to promote its own cause within the LGBTQ group?

Arya: I think the work of Audrey has been a key in everyone finally respecting transgender people as a group with their own specific needs, unique areas of oppression.

"As for the LGBTIQ family, we share so much with
LGB people."

Monika: Would it not be better if the transgender community was not a part of the group that is influential but still based on sexual orientation?

Arya: We share too much in common with each other to start infighting. In 2019 I attended the hearing for repeal 162 on May 24. This was the day the Kenyan court decided to continue criminalizing same-gender relations.

Not many transgender people attended because it didn't seem to directly affect us - we aren't criminalized in Kenya, we are stigmatized. A world buzz photographer took a picture of me and my lesbian friends in a group hug crying outside the court. That was traumatic for all of us.

The things the Judge said that our existence was against national values, that our lives were an attempt at destroying the "moral fabric of Kenya" - at that point, it was clear to me that not just the law needed to change but we needed to take back the narrative and prove our existence was valid in Africa, in our culture, and to take apart myths built by religious supremacy and Victorian morality through colonialism.

If there is somewhere transgender people should not try to fit themselves into it is the cisgender binary. We aren't cishet women and cishet men, and trying to fit into those little boxes undermines everything we are and the beauty and uniqueness of our gender.

Monika: What unites us all?

Arya: As for the LGBTIQ family we share so much with LGB people. Research on brain structure and the BsTC has shown we are transgender from birth. Still, research on sexual attraction has led scientists to study the points activated in the amygdala, also a lot of African cultural narratives that validate gender diversity go hand in hand with sexuality and same-gender relations. 

With intersex people, the same beliefs that result in their oppression due to their sex characteristics are the same beliefs that result in our oppression due to our gender.

We ask society similar things in terms of documentation and healthcare services. Personally, I am attracted to femininity, so lesbians have been family to this "transgender lesbian". In 2020 during COVID we shared a house, six of us all lesbians, feminists, and this year I am still with my lesbian enby daughter.

Monika: We are said to be prisoners of passing or non-passing syndrome. Although cosmetic surgeries help to overcome it, we will always be judged accordingly. How can we cope with this?

Arya: This construct of passing and non-passing and its related construct of being a "real woman" are patriarchal constructs. Their only purpose was to oppress women. More than anyone transgender people whose existence has led them on an unimaginable journey of gender should be the ones who help cisgender women to free themselves from the male gaze and from society’s non-ending demands on womanhood.

The only reason I am doing hormone replacement therapy and why I intend to save up for surgery is not to pass and fit into a societal box. No, I am doing all of this for me, for my body to finally align with my brain structure and my spirit. I am not putting my body through all of this for validation by an amorphous intangible society through male approval, and women self-policing. I believe lots of love and self-care and being at peace with our identity is one way to avoid falling into this trap where society defines what our identity should look like.

"This construct of passing and non-passing and its
related construct of being a "real woman" are patriarchal
constructs."

Also psychotherapy is important otherwise we will find ourselves quickly shifting from transitioning into cosmetic surgery addiction - which is such a thin line. As transgender people, we are free from the cishet binary and our trans binary does not owe society anything in order for us to start emulating that binary. It is also the same in queer relationships where you find lesbians trying to have a "man" in the relationship - I am always adamant that "We are lesbians, two women who love each other’s womanhood". There is no man here, we are not importing heteronormativity and all its negativity into our queer relationships.

Monika: You already mentioned Audrey. Are there any other transgender role models that you follow or followed in Kenya?

Arya: Audrey is the one I admire the most. She was out there being genuine while I was still closeted trying to "fix" myself and "become normal". Now I look back and I feel those were the most wasted years of my life and I just delayed the awesome self I am now to exist.

I also look up to Arnest Thiaya, as Thiaya is like the father of the transgender community in Kenya. He is 50, which in itself is a reason for celebration, given that our life expectancy in Kenya as transgender people is 50.

Thiaya is as tough as nails, he is always the person giving us a reality check and telling us how to navigate surviving in a society that has no definition for us. It is always really nice to listen to him talk and his logic. He is always laughing at us saying we are the generation with the most information yet we seem to be the most confused.

Then there is my friend Ava Mrima. If I hadn't met Ava, I would not have met the transgender community and my life would have been totally different from what it is now. She and I are into technology, she was also one of the transgender people in the community who was interested in pursuing a knowledge angle to validate our existence. Then there is the whole Jinsiangu family: Alesandra, Samantha, and also EATHAN's Barbra, who have worked so hard in building community and serving the community.

Monika: Do you remember the first time when you saw a transgender woman on TV or met anyone transgender in person?

Arya: The first transgender woman I came across was model Lea T. This was in 2011 when I first had home internet and I had locked myself up in the room to research what "was wrong with me". It was beautiful to find Lea, to find the word transgender. It was such a liberating feeling. I remember heeling up, wearing a turquoise blouse, and navy women's suit pants, and stepping out to the grocer after my discovery.

Afterward, a couple of months later, of course, the panic set in, and in 2012 I was in my first relationship and working in a bank, and "fixing me" seemed to be an idea borne in love and for my own good.

"I believe lots of love and self-care and being at
peace with our identity is one way to avoid falling
into this trap where society defines what our identity
should look like."

For TV that would have to be Audrey. I don't remember the TV thing well but I remember when I met her in 2016. I was Community Manager for the tech space in Nairobi and that Sunday the EdTech community was meeting to discuss curriculum reforms. I remember our security manager asking me if I was okay opening the space on Sunday. I said "yes" of course as I had a relationship break up in 2015 and work was the only solace.

Monika: Did you work a lot?

Arya: I had taken to opening the community space 24 hours a day from Monday morning and closing it Saturday evening and staying at work anywhere between 48 hours to 72 hours and crashing on Sunday. So I was happy to come in for an extra. My sitting place used to be a "mini loft", which also had a sound system and was a vantage point for taking pictures. It was from this point that I saw Audrey. I was not 100% sure it was her and waited for introductions to happen. I knew most of the people in the room from the EdTech community. Finally, I confirmed it was her and then the rest was more of self-torture if I wanted to introduce myself.

The event ended and there were a ton of people all trying to talk to her. I finally caught her outside the lift - she asked me "What are you?" - "I am transgender", probably this was the first time I had ever owned up to my gender. My ex knew and we had talked about it but we had both thoughts we could "find a way out". Anyway, Audrey explained that gay men were a bother at the time and she thought I was one of them. She asked me if I was in any groups and I told her I was on Susan's place an online transgender group. We exchanged contacts, emails but I didn't get in touch for a long time. I didn't think for the life of me that there were Kenyan community groups and that we were so many, which is why 2019 and meeting the Jinsiangu community for the first time and meeting Audrey for the second time was just an awesome experience.

END OF PART 2

PART 3

 

All the photos: courtesy of Arya Jeipea Karijo.

© 2021 - Monika Kowalska