In this TedTalk, Lee Mokobe gives a soul-baring description of what it feels like to be transgender in a highly gendered culture.
Lee Mokobe’s mother said, “You can grow up to be anything you want.” According to the TED Speaker’s Bio, “Based in Cape Town, Lee Mokobe is an award-winning slam poet who explores social injustice and gender identity issues. Founder of Vocal Revolutionaries, a volunteer-run organization focused on empowering African youth.”
It takes just a few moments of watching this to realize how personal this mission is. Lee was one of those youth. Rather than being celebrated for who Lee was, Lee was mourned for what others believed Lee would or would not be.
This is a portion of the transcript. You can read what Lee says, but the video is so much more. Lee’s voice and body language say as much as the words.
The first time I uttered a prayer was in a glass-stained cathedral.
I was kneeling long after the congregation was on its feet,
dip both hands into holy water,
trace the trinity across my chest,
my tiny body drooping like a question mark
all over the wooden pew.
I asked Jesus to fix me,
and when he did not answer
I befriended silence in the hopes that my sin would burn
and salve my mouth would dissolve like sugar on tongue,
but shame lingered as an aftertaste.
And in an attempt to reintroduce me to sanctity,
my mother told me of the miracle I was,
said I could grow up to be anything I want.
I decided to be a boy.
It was cute.
I had snapback, toothless grin,
used skinned knees as street cred,
played hide and seek with what was left of my goal.
I was it.
The winner to a game the other kids couldn’t play,
I was the mystery of an anatomy,
a question asked but not answered,
tightroping between awkward boy and apologetic girl,
and when I turned 12, the boy phase wasn’t deemed cute anymore.
It was met with nostalgic aunts who missed seeing my knees in the shadow of skirts,
who reminded me that my kind of attitude would never bring a husband home,
that I exist for heterosexual marriage and child-bearing.
And I swallowed their insults along with their slurs.
Click here for Transcript: This is what it feels like to be transgender.
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Lee Mokobe is seeking to be the first transgender African to compete at the Brave New Voices International Poetry Competition. In 2013, Mokobe’s South African slam poetry team, also called Vocal Revolutionaries, made it to the final stage of the Brave New Voices global poetry competition in Chicago. The first team from the African continent to compete, they came second of the 55 teams in the world that were shortlisted.
This is an amazing piece of art – and completely captures what I think a lot of us trans folks feel.