Transgender

By now, almost everyone who follows news about trendy Hollywood films geared towards making that particular Oscar-worthy buzz have heard of the film The Danish Girl, an historical biopic based upon the life of Lili Elbe, one of the first recipients of gender confirmation surgery.

I am Sharp Kadijah, a trans man. I come from the Eastern Region of Uganda, from a town called Mbale. It was on November 22, 2013 when I came out to my family, initially as a lesbian. It was like entering hell.

I'm not a woman. I never was. Full stop.

Don’t ask me to explain how hormones can make a person feel so free.

Every little change is like a flower bursting open in my chest.

My fixation with my face wasn’t about my own vanity – it was just another manifestation of dysphoria.

I adamantly refuse to sacrifice my fierce femininity.

Have you ever lived somewhere and thought to yourself, “I’m not home yet”? That’s what my body has felt like the last 24 years of my life — a mere point in time; a temporary condition. Looking in the mirror was the equivalent of sleeping in a stranger’s bed. I felt like a visitor in my own body.