A leading African writer has transfixed the internet with her comments on gender - but fellow Nigerians say they feel hurt.

Transgender women in Africa have benefited from "male privilege" because they grew up as men. With this argument, writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie kicked off a vexed discussion, trending everywhere from Facebook to Teen Vogue.

But a less noticed discussion has been the pained one among gay and transgender Nigerians. BBC Trending has been speaking to the leading voices.

It all began last weekend when Adichie, a best-selling Nigerian novelist and outspoken feminist, was asked in an interview with Channel 4 News whether a transgender woman was "any less of a real woman."

She replied: "trans women are trans women."

"I think if you've lived in the world as a man with the privileges the world accords to men, and then switched gender, it's difficult for me to accept that then we can equate your experience with the experience of a woman who has lived from the beginning in the world as a woman, and who has not been accorded those privileges that men are."

The interview has sparked a passionate online debate around the world. But specifically among Africans, one of Adichie's most vocal critics is London-based, Nigerian transgender model Miss Sahhara, who runs an online support community for transgender women called transvalid.org.

Writing on her Facebook page she said Adichie - who has written several essays and given a viral TED talk on feminism - was divisive in her comments.

"Ahhhhh, I am fuming, these TERF (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist) feminists always think they are above all women who don't fit into their narrative of what a woman should be."

"What happened to being inclusive and tolerant of all women, no matter their life histories?"

"I get a lot of online messages from Nigerian trans girls who are there now and they find it so difficult. A nightmare," Sahhara told BBC Trending, "there's no male privilege for trans women in Africa."

Growing up in rural northern Nigeria, where homosexual activity can be punishable by death (although no executions by law for homosexual activity have been verified), Sahhara says that it was "obvious to all" that she was "a girl in a boy's body".

Nigeria is one 34 African countries that outlaws same-sex relationships, and since the Nigerian government tightened its anti-gay laws in 2014, punishments have become much harsher.

"My uncles beat me up for the way I behaved," Sahhara says. "It's the way it's done in Africa."

Sahhara moved to the UK 13 years ago, but is in close online contact with the LGBT community in Africa.

She says that social media is a vital lifeline for the transgender community there, who often live in secret. Sahhara lives openly as an LGBT activist in the UK, and many of these women get in touch with her through her Facebook page.

"I've had transgender women from South Africa get in touch with me and ask what hormones I recommend," Sahhara says, "or women from Nigeria saying 'listen sister, a friend of mine has been locked up, can you raise awareness online?'."

"They communicate with me on my Facebook page, or secretly through private digital groups I refer them to".

Beyond the Circus - Chidi Amuta

Mike Daemon (not his real name) who runs an LGBT advocacy website called No Strings Nigeria told BBC Trending: "Africa's transgender women rely on a secret digital life involving Whatsapp groups and closed Facebook groups."

"People are added through referrals and recommendations when they are trusted."

However he reflected the nuanced response Chimanda Ngozi Adiche's comments. Many of those commenting acknowledged Adicihie's feminist contribution and that the issue is complex. Daemon said Adichie was being "realistic" and that trans women and biologically born women have "different journeys."

Miss Sahhara, for her part, is hesitant when BBC Trending asked her if she identifies as a feminist.

"I believe in equal rights and pay for women," she says but, "when I start hearing the ladies from the TERF (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist), it discourages me from wanting to be part of feminism. We are fighting for equality and yet you say other women are not equal because you don't feel comfortable with who they are or who they used to be."

Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, a vocal advocate of LGBT rights in Africa, declined an interview with BBC Trending and referred us to her statement on Facebook

"I think the impulse to say that trans women are just like women born female comes from a need to make trans issues mainstream," she says there. "Because by making them mainstream, we might reduce the many oppressions they experience. But it feels disingenuous to me. The intent is a good one but the strategy feels untrue. Diversity does not have to mean division."

BBC
http://www.sustainabilitywatchngr.com/index.php/transport/item/637-why-transgender-africans-turned-against-chimamanda-adichie

Chai




Imagine.


Trans kwa?

.
honestly speaking chiamanda can do no wrong in my eyes

it's not easy being her and saying the things she does say.
how many Nigerian women can choose not to answer their husbands name after marriage

how many Nigeria women can profess support and love on live TV for LGBT

How many Nigerian women can excel in literature both home and abroad

I mean Gosh god damn it

this woman. has brains... She is a literature god
.

story for the gods

This post is useless, just like it

Meanwhile


Wetin consign me

Adichie is right,

When the world is turning upside down

Things like this persists...

Let's remind them though, that they are still the minority

Trans amadi or even trans ekuluku not our problems. Any day u feel like switching gender try lagoon

Nothing concern me wid anybody wey wan port from one body network to another buh for the one wey be feminism, I swear down, any woman wey come my house as my wife and start to dey open eyes for me unto xay equal right nonsense, I no go send her go back her papa house o, buh as I go dey share all the manly duties and expenses dey dash am, she go know xay her grandmother and her direct mum never practiced those stupid nonsense wey dis over coloured white men dey do.

EQUAL RIGHT MY BLACK NYASH

Feminism for me, it's about empowerment. It's not about being more powerful than men - it's about having equal rights with protection, support, justice. It's about very basic things. It's not a badge like a fashion item.
#AnnieLenox

ok

I no even know wetin I go talk for this their matter. I just tire for this feminist and transgender abi na transactions issues.

What gender category defines "their" life experience as a child? Chimamanda is probably right on this one. If you changed gender at a point in your life, then it implies you have a prior different gender experience.

Super story

Abeg make them leave her joor. No be question them ask her she answer her thoughts? All these gay sick people just looking for who said what make them pile their miserable nonsense on the person. Na person say make una dey confuse gender?

Sick people.

If she no support gays. Problem.

She kuku support una small problem again

Useless lab experiments

Trans-gender ko, trans-atlantic ni

Transgender ke
is their pénis transgendered as well

In as much as I am pro trans, I can't fathom what's the fuss has been about?

Adichie stated the obvious which is the " said difference " between trans woman and cis women" despite all being equated as women. Why is that so hard to comprehend? Yet the trans community had grudgingly spike her as though she said anything different than what already is.

SweetBoyFriend:

They're senseless and possessed by the evil spirit

Tell me why someone who was born a man would wanna become a woman and still have a dick ??

These people disgust me

Let everyone in this world turn gay, humanity​ will go into extinction

Put a very strict rules and 50 years imprisonment for gays and transgenders in Africa

If you want to play that shiit, you move to the USA

In the USA, you can enjoy sex, get pregnant and legally kill your baby (abortion) but you can't smoke a grass (weed).. bunch of idiots

Keep that gay shiit in the USA

Do you think it's right for people who are not causing other people harm to be imprisoned?

It's this mentality that made white people treat blacks like lesser human beings because they thought we were beneath them and too different from them.

We should treat all human beings equally.

Please before talking, go look up dysphoria. It's a very serious condition.

Chimamanda Adichie is grossly overrated.

All her statements and controversies are centered around 'first world problems'

She's a house nigger who addresses her message to the white people she so dearly wants to please and is irrelevant to contemporary Nigerians in Nigeria

I totally agree with chimamanda trans gender remains trans gender. In fact i think they should form their community. Let them stop fitting in where nature didn't put them

I agree that trans women do have struggles which aren't insignificant. But they are not the same as those of women who are female from birth. The goal is not to divide but to ensure that every woman has a voice speaking for her in matters that affect her uniquely

The truth is, we have had great women in the past. Great women who knew their onions. Great writters like Flora Nwapa and Buchi Emecheta who never pester us incessantly with this sissy idea of feminism.
Amanda should biko, relinguish his ego and embrace the ultimate, that the idea of equality between men and women is nothing but pure illusory.

bo

I think she's right. A transwoman, especially in developing worlds, who had enjoyed the privileges given to a man before becoming a woman cannot be said to have journeyed a woman's world fully.

She's not fighting with anybody, she's just pointing out the facts. Sahhrah was abused because Nigerians have zero tolerance for sissies. However, there are several men who looked and acted masculine before opting to become a woman and thus treated as the gender they were at each point in their lives.

Whew, I still don't get why anyone would go as far as altering their natural sex for the other gender. It is well.

Evaberry:
.
honestly speaking chiamanda can do no wrong in my eyes

it's not easy being her and saying the things she does say.
how many Nigerian women can choose not to answer their husbands name after marriage

how many Nigeria women can profess support and love on live TV for LGBT

How many Nigerian women can excel in literature both home and abroad

I mean Gosh god damn it

this woman. has brains... She is a literature god
.

she is so fantastic to your ilk cos ur a simpleton. How does being a fiction writer make anyone smart on life issues. So when women are able to talk about LGbT rights on live television they are advanced beings ? Or when the refuse to answer their husbands names.

sisisioge:
I think she's right. A transwoman, especially in developing worlds, who had enjoyed the privileges given to a man before becoming a woman cannot be said to have journeyed a woman's world fully.
.

What privileges?