Biko Beauttah, Kenya
To be a trans person in Kenya is the same as being a trans person anywhere in the world. It’s like hell on earth.
I was born in Mombasa, Kenya where if you identify as gay, lesbian, bi-sexual or trans, things could go very badly. You can be attacked by mobs in the street, and if you get caught by the police you’ll get abused even further. Growing up, I didn’t have any references to any kind of sexuality that wasn’t heteronormative. It was hard to understand what being trans was because there was no language around it and there were simply no trans people out in the open. I always felt though like I was different but also special, but without language, I thought I was gay. When I was older, I traveled to the US for college and visited my first gay club where I saw Maya Douglas - the first trans person I’d ever seen. I thought to myself “wow, these are drag queens but Maya must be a biological woman that they let in for diversity!” That’s the moment I not only discovered what it meant to be transgender but that was also how I viewed myself. I felt liberated. That year, for halloween, I actually dressed up like a woman for the first time and felt like I was finally in my own skin. I knew I couldn’t go back to Kenya where I could be killed so I applied for asylum in Canada in 2006. I was detained for 36 hours upon arrival and spent my first six months in Canada in a refugee shelter before a landlord finally agreed to rent me an apartment. Everyone in Kenya knows that I’m trans and for the longest time, I was the only trans person I would see in Kenyan media. I’ve been on the Tyra Banks show and am now one of the faces of Nordstrom. Despite these successes, I still experience transphobia here in Canada, just like every trans person anywhere in the world. In fact, this year on the National Day of Trans Visibility, a black trans woman was murdered in the US. At the end of the day, no matter where you live, you go home and it’s the same emotions of fear and anxiety.
PhotoGRAPHED by
Bushira is passionate about photographing portraits and landscapes. Currently her work dives into understanding personal stories and how to represent them in an unconventional way.