Free to live as a woman, at last

Lindsay, a 22-year-old transsexual raised as a man, shares her hopes and fears about her decision to live as a man

“Today, I’m living my life the way I was meant to,” Lindsay* begins.
Born male and named Leo*, Lindsay had lived all her life as a man.

Then, in September last year, she began her journey to womanhood.

Recalling her feelings of being “trapped” in the wrong body she says, “I remember playing with dolls and other girlie toys.

I hated boyish toys. I also remember secretly trying on some of my mother’s clothes, shoes and make up.

I especially loved walking in her high heels. Emotionally, I felt like a girl,” recalls the finance assistant with a local NGO.

Perturbed by Leo’s behaviour, his mother gave him a serious tongue-lashing. “I felt sad because I couldn’t understand why she was angry with me, yet I was only behaving naturally,” Lindsay explains.

Afraid that she might have had too much “feminine” influence on him, Leo’s mother took him to a mixed boarding school in Standard Four.

But that did not help.

“I associated with girls and enjoyed spending time with them. The boys teased me for being ‘one of the girls’ but I didn’t mind.

I enjoyed girlie talk and games, and felt like one of them,” offers the 22-year-old.

Come puberty, Leo was a late bloomer. “While my peers were breaking their voices, developing broad shoulders and growing beards, I remained baby-faced, smooth-skinned and had a high-pitched voice.

Worse still, I had a feminine gait. But when I was 13, I started getting attracted to boys,” she recalls.
Leo’s new feelings both scared and confused him, so he sought refuge in religion and became born-again. “I spent endless days and nights begging God to make me normal, but my feelings remained unchanged, and the stress sent me into a depression.”

After completing primary education, the Nairobi-bred Leo joined a boy’s boarding secondary school in Central Province where, thanks to his effeminacy, he was nicknamed ‘kasupuu’ (pretty girl) shortly after admission.

“I did not engage in aggressive sports and instead preferred interactive activities such as acting, dancing and singing.

I joined the school choir and drama club, where I was always given female roles, which came to me naturally so I did not need to act,” Lindsay recalls of her secondary school days.

Leo’s attraction to boys never ceased, and Lindsay confesses to having engaged in relationships with one or two boys while in high school.
When he mentioned this attraction to his mother, she dismissed it, saying that, as an only child of a single parent, he liked boys because he lacked a father figure. “But I knew this was not true because I was not gay,” Lindsay offers.

While in high school, Leo resolved to stop living as a man and began searching the Internet for information on his predicament.
“It is thanks to this research that I learnt that there were many other people like me.

Better still, I learnt that I could do something about it, that I could actually become a woman. That’s when I decided to transition,” she explains
But he could not find a way to tell his mother. “Every time I thought of telling my mum, my heart skipped several beats.