A three-minute context for 'Cross-dressers' tried under Sharia in Nigeria Court

Read the full article here.

Dan-Daudu, people born male who dress and live as women, have been around among the Hausa people for centuries. When Islamic rule came into the region originally, it found this tradition too ingrained to stamp out. Colonialism came and suppressed Sharia, along with other forms of Islamic expression. Now the recoil is resulting in even harsher penalties than before. 

People in most societies, including my own, fail to understand that the experience of gender variance is a cultural universal, and there have been transgender individuals called by many names since the beginning of human history. There is great risk to transgender people worldwide resulting from this misunderstanding and reflexive hatred.  

The murder of a gender-variant teen in California last week, and the murder of Sanesha Stewart last Saturday in the Bronx (and the subsequent horrible media coverage of that event) underscore the fact that my own society is not without fault.