BIKO BEAUTTAH: Pride Toronto board member, refugee and trans rights activist (@bikodesigns)
Growing up male in Kenya, I was always the shortest and the smallest of all the boys and could never live up to society’s masculine ideals. I hated this about myself, and as a teenager I’d eat multiple servings of meals every day to try to gain weight. This was before I knew the science of burning calories: I was a competitive swimmer in high school who trained three hours a day, seven days a week, so my attempts to gain weight were in vain. I would look in the mirror and hate myself.
Finally one day I looked in the mirror and saw myself as myself: a woman. To my surprise, the body I hated met the idealized standards of Western feminine beauty. Let’s just say that I have weighed the same since my late teens and love my body it’s my temple. It’s amazing the positive impact that going through life as your authentic self can have – not only on yourself, but on others around you.
I have always loved my legs. I still remember the day in Kenya when my aunt told me, “If you were a girl, you would have the hottest legs.” I was nine years old and knew nothing about being transgender or even gay, but her words were prophetic.
I am passionate about a lot of things but mostly about being a trans and refugee advocate. When I moved to Canada to seek asylum, the first place I slept was a detention centre, where I arrived in handcuffs. Talk about hospitality! The next place I called home, for the next six months, was a refugee shelter. I met the most beautiful souls there.
For many of my fellow refugees, the shelter was the first place in a long time where they did not live with the fear of being shot by rebels, eaten by wild animals at night, beaten or raped by soldiers. It was this magic fairy tale land where everybody was just happy to be there, living and breathing. I got to hear everyone’s story and promised myself that when I left the shelter, I would devote my life to giving a voice to refugees, as they are the most vulnerable among us.
