ABSTRACT
This chapter unleashes silenced voices by documenting transgender Swazi experiences as they navigate the education, health, and legal sectors of Swazi government. It starts an overtly overlooked conversation which sits at the intersection of being a Swazi citizen who experiences gender dysphoria in a country that is oblivious to gender variance. It nullifies the erasure from Chief Mgwagwa Gamedze, who claimed that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, asexual, and pansexual plus Swazis do not exist. Transgender Swazis experience violence from schools which enforce rigid gender binary norms, teachers who gatekeep these norms and penalise gender expressions that transgress the norm, and a national school curriculum which either erases or pathologises non-cisheteronormative ways of being. These social ills are also found in the healthcare system where uninformed healthcare providers punish transgender Swazis by invasive questioning and, ultimately, refusal of healthcare. Similarly, bureaucratic entities refuse to issue legal documentation to transgender citizens if they do not conform to the state assigned gender. At the intersection of Swazi citizenship, gender dysphoria and wilful ignorance are transgender Swazis who are bullied in schools, are not catered for in public healthcare systems, and are gendered as fugitives (their gender expression is incongruent to their legally assigned gender, which translates to being perceived as fraudulent). This chapter introduces TransSwati, a non-governmental organisation concept by transgender activists in Swaziland which was conceptualised to drive behaviour and policy reform in the aforementioned government sectors. It summarises the strategies that transgender activists in Swaziland are planning to take in order to improve the lives of transgender people in Swaziland.
