There are few books in Arabic which openly discuss sexuality. Fewer still talk about homosexuality, and none have dared to mention transsexuals. None, that is, until Lebanese journalist Hazem Sageigh wrote a biography about a pioneer of the Arab underground transgender movement, telling her story of becoming a woman in Algeria. Published in 2010, ‘Muzakerat Randa Al-Trans’ (‘The Memoirs of Randa the Trans’) describes Randa’s struggle to forge her identity while battling family, society, country and religion. Both beautiful and brutally candid, the book traces Randa’s life from boyhood to her first sexual experience with a man, an episode which is described in this extract below, translated exclusively by the Arab-Israeli Book Review.
——
‘My name is Randa’
I constantly wished to change my name. I felt what colonised countries must have felt when, upon gaining independence, they hastened to choose a different name from that which the coloniser had given them. One’s existence, I felt, couldn’t become complete unless her name were identical with her personality; nor could she genuinely present herself to the world, or properly identify herself, if her name remained contrary to who she really is.
Once I thought of renaming myself Miriam. The revered statue of Miriam (Mary), and her symbolic representations in Christianity, didn’t put me off, even though I am a Muslim. A burning obsession overtook me to get rid of Fouad, my male name: Fouad must die; I must kill and bury him. I settled on Randa. It was the name my mother once told me she would have chosen had I been born a girl.
'Fouad must die; I must kill and bury him.' (Photo: AFP)
I had been deprived of my name the same way I was deprived of being the person I loved to be. When I was fourteen, I loved to sew clothes for my siblings and myself. I thought of myself as a good tailoress, but I was rebuked because sewing, I was told, was for girls. Even now my thwarted desire leads my memory back to our sewing machine, to the scissors, needle and thread.
I liked cooking too. I prepared delicious recipes which were loved by everyone who tasted them. But I was told that for a man to stand in the kitchen is shameful beyond description. I used to wait for my family to go out so I could go into the kitchen and prepare the recipes I’d dreamt about. I carried out all this as though it were some secret activity totally prohibited by common laws, and once finished I’d rush to conceal all traces, washing pots and dishes, and airing the whole house to get rid of the smell, so that my family wouldn’t come back and catch me red-handed. The more complicated the recipes were, the more I liked preparing them.
It was the same when I once fancied belly-dancing. I loved to dance, performing delicate movements, especially ones through which femininity and sensual signs are clearly revealed. The desire to practice belly-dancing lingered with me for a long time. I used to watch dancing programmes on the telly, wishing to learn, but of course this was not a wish I could contemplate fulfilling. This sort of thing was for women. And I, alas, was a man.
I also wanted to be a fashion designer. Again I was rebuked. This is not a bread-winning career, I was told. Most importantly, it’s not for men. But I persevered, though it felt as if I were climbing a mountain barefooted. It felt as if only with tears and blood could I forge my right identity and occupy the space which my imagination sought.
'When he penetrated me and I had an erection, I felt embarrassed; I was meant to be a woman.' (Photo: AFP)
It’s expected that women eat less than men to look slim, so I starved myself until I became anorexic. Like all those obsessed with being skinny, I felt dirty and guilty every time I ate, and rushed to throw up. Being full of food disgusted me and made me want to cleanse myself. If I couldn’t control the insides and depths of my body, I could at least take charge of it from the outside. I could make sure it didn’t look like that of a man.
These concerns over my appearance aside, existential questions persisted. I constantly asked myself: who was I? Who was the person whose name and gender and will seem to go against her? Who was deprived of possessing her own body, deprived of hobbies and sources of pleasure? And where do you expect me to start searching for meaning in a narrow-minded world, a world which is particularly ungenerous with meaning?
It’s impossible to exist among the people of Algeria, at work or in the street, being nothing but a ghostly figure, who cannot acknowledge her interior demands. Who might look at herself and suspect there is no self there. Worse still, who lives among such strictness and ignorance that she might be tempted to believe all this and give up.
My search for names and meaning met with little success in a world which kept persecuting and rejecting me; not allowing me the slightest acceptance.
I was fourteen when I first heard the word gay. It was said in English, probably because homosexuals’ names, and homosexuality generally, are often mentioned abusively in Arabic. I thought then that every gay-bottom thought of himself a girl, and that his whole body language became feminine.
I was confused. My mind was suspended in a vacuum. The link between words and things remained unsettled, shaky. The freedom which was available for me didn’t really mean much; it was their freedom. As for my freedom to enjoy myself, the freedom I desperately sought but couldn’t possess, I had lost its meaning. I felt as if I had been kept in a freezer. My freedom had been frozen and postponed. My awareness of it came slow and late.
But something happened when I was sixteen. A crack in the life of secrecy appeared, and a new light shimmered through. I began watching porn films. In my room I’d lower the TV sound and watch the adult channels. I especially enjoyed seeing the male organ of the actor, erect and potent.
When the actor took the woman in public, I used to fantasize that he was taking me instead. Right there in public, in the sunlight, in front of all those people. He’s the man and I’m the woman. During such sessions of fantasy I’d gently touch up my body, avoiding my penis. This was for me alone, and not for it. I’d fantasize about the actor’s penis penetrating me, in whatever orifice he wished. I was willing to welcome him anywhere in my body.
Male domination became a source of excitement and joy for me. Male force and potency thrilled me, awakening what had been dormant. The man who could dominate me best would be a typical brown-skinned stud. I wanted him to be strong, to touch my backside and excite me, but not to hurt me. I’m not a masochist; I never fantasized about being raped. I wanted him to be strong, yet friendly, passionate and caring; someone who lusts and loves, but still respects his partner.
'I’d believed that Islam condemns homosexual relationships. But was I a man?' (Photo: AFP)
It seemed I had made up a man who is impossible to find in the real world. Someone who, on the one hand, represents our myth of the first man, the cave-man; but who, on the other hand, could restrain the first, tame him until he takes the shape of the second, another mythical and yet non-existent man. I don’t know whether I was trying to link the past to the future, tying up the man who I wished would invade me with the woman that wanted to defend herself against his invasion. The adult TV carried me into a world which stimulated all sorts of ideas, letting my imagination travel and grow.
In spite of all the ups and downs, I found myself getting into my first serious relationship. Malek seriously loved me, but he had a weird temper and a relentless propensity for self-destruction. Whenever I rejected one of his requests he’d punish me, or himself, lacerating his body with sharp objects. It was terrible and absurd, yet it engendered in both of us an extraordinary desire in which death was compounded with love and lust. It wasn’t easy for me. It was my first relationship and I was still reluctant. I always hesitated before surrendering my body to him. I’d believed that Islam condemns homosexual relationships. But was I a man? And why does Islam designate me as a male? Indeed, what does my religion say about this?
With Malek I knew my body better. I recognised its peculiarities as mine. When we slept together, Malek treated the whole thing as a simple homosexual relationship. I didn’t. When he penetrated me and I had an erection, I felt embarrassed; I was meant to be a woman. Malek didn’t understand my reaction, nor did my closest friends, who wouldn’t concede that a man’s source of pleasure is his penis, while for a woman it’s her whole body. It lasts longer for a woman; that’s what men fear and won’t admit. Reaching climax remained a costly process; either it was mixed with great pain or followed by it. And things only got worse.
One night I returned home from an evening with Malek and found my father sitting in the kitchen, smoking. I assumed that his staying up had nothing to do with me, that he was just suffering a slight insomnia or because he had some troubles relating to his work. But then without any forewarning he started telling me how one’s reputation is established from one’s childhood onwards, and how I, Fouad, didn’t come from an ordinary family but from a well-known clan. He went on, asking rhetorical questions: what will people say if you keep behaving this way? Do you want them to make fun of you? To treat you the way they treated the mayor?
The mayor of the town was homosexual, and people called him Pamela, after Pamela Anderson. I switched off. I stopped hearing his voice, or the voices in the street of people not yet asleep. I only saw his lips moving, appearing in different forms and shapes as if they were a rubber band, while I felt as if I were in a silent film. Mechanically and nervously I started eating, hoping he’d leave me alone. But when I raised my eyes and saw his lips still going on, I left him without asking his permission and rushed up to my room. I tore down posters and threw my books and ornaments across the floor.
I was furious. If I were so bad, I thought, then it was only because of my parent’s education, or because of something they had done or that was done to them. My anger seemed like it would never end. I threw myself over the things I had broken and scattered across the room. I didn’t know whether I was punishing my parents or myself, whether I meant to attack my tendencies and moods, or just to exhaust my body throughout that long night. I slept.
The surprise happened the day after. I’d expected mother to tell me off for what I had done with my room. I’d been getting ready for an inescapable confrontation, rehearsing for the expected row: ‘If she says this I’ll say that, and if she accuses me of this I’ll reply with such and such. If she raises her voice, I’ll raise mine!’
But to my utter surprise I saw her laughing in an unusually cheeky way, as if nothing serious had actually happened. She seemed to be saying, ‘No problem now, it’s finished and gone!’ I suspected it was actually her, the stronger of my parents, who had put my father up to it. And perhaps because of that, she felt that she needn’t be angry for what I had done. The point that she wanted made had been made, and that was the end of the matter.
But who’s to say that’s the end, who’s to decide the end of a matter that concerns my life and body and desires? The inevitable question recurred: what felony was I being punished for? If I believed in reincarnation, I would have suspected that I had previously been a tyrant or murderer, and had to suffer for this in my present life.
The story needed an ending, and that ending must mean my own, I believed. So I borrowed my father’s car, pretending that I was going to do some shopping, and tried to run myself down a high hill. The car crashed but, ironically enough, because I didn’t put on the safety belt I got stuck between the two front seats and, unfortunately, survived.
—
