Amy Abdo; A journey from the past that changed the present and the future

Interviewed by: Simsim

Translated: Tamaya Amaros

Out of observance of November as Transgender Awareness Month and our belief in the importance of relaying the voices of Sudan’s LGBTQ+ community to Sudanese society at large, we’ve contacted Amy Abdo, so who is she?

Amy is a Sudanese transgender woman who left the closet early in life, deciding to take the initiative and live her ideal life. This decision subjected her to no shortage of difficult situations that saw her dignity challenged, her rights violated, and her safety endangered. Yet, in spite of all this, she remained steadfast in her challenge to the norms of society and its religious traditions, never relenting on the path of her transition (including hormone replacement therapy and surgery). Amy never gave up any of her rights, either, and fought a fierce battle against a government that does not acknowledge those rights and actively criminalizes her existence.

With my being in Sudan and Amy being outside the country, our first conversation was over the phone since I didn’t know her myself but had learned of her through my girlfriend. Despite this, our conversation was not of the cold, functional sort one has with strangers, but a cordial and exciting discussion. It held my interest for three entire hours, though it didn’t feel that long. Rather, it felt like a dialogue of utmost honesty and beauty in distinction. Amy told her story candidly, relaying all of her experiences: The happy days, both lived and yearned for; the low moments, of sadness, desperation, and collapse; the full extent of the resistance she faced. Her honesty carried through in her calm, confident tone, rising and falling with the mood of her words, themselves concisely spoken. Her distinction lay in the great war she fought alone, and the courage with which she tackled its responsibilities and consequences, and the helping hand she extended to many among Sudan’s trans community.

Although Amy’s experience failed to garner enough attention from LGBT+ activists and allies in Sudan, she is undoubtedly among the pioneers who have paved the way for Sudanese trans people. Thus, we were keen to document her experiences out of admiration, respect, and a queer thirst yet to be sated.

This discussion will center on the key points around Amy’s transition, her life in Sudan, and some of her key experiences—although I sorely wanted to transcribe the full three hours, as all of her words deserve to be published and read.

Additionally, this dialogue will be in Colloquial Sudanese dialect, to maintain authenticity.

Q: Who is Amy?

This question, to me, is a philosophical one and very difficult to answer. So I’ll suffice with the following: “A forty-year-old trans woman, Taurus, currently residing in Germany. I am 158cm tall, contrary to the usual impression people get of me, and I am the only Sudanese woman to hold the name of ‘Amy (after transition)’ on her documents.

Q: Being Sudanese, there are certain questions that we automatically ask whenever we meet someone new. For example: Where are you from, Amy?

I’m from Khartoum, and I have roots in the far north of Sudan. Specifically, the city of Abri (in the heart of the Sukkot lands/Northern Sudan).

Q: Did you grow up there, or elsewhere?

My childhood was spent in Khartoum, the French city of Rennes, and Cairo.

Q: Where were you educated? And to what extent?

I completed the majority of my studies in Khartoum and Cairo. Because I was feeling unstable and generally lost at the time I wasn’t able to lay out any plans for the future, so I found myself studying a number of professions, the first of which were sharia and secular law, but I did get bachelor’s degrees in business administration from the University of Science and Technology, fine arts from Helwan University, and accounting from the Open University of Sudan.

Q: When was the first time you felt you were in the wrong body?

I knew of my femininity from a very young age, but at the time I didn’t feel like anything was wrong with my body or that it was inappropriate and I imagined that I’d grow up like any ordinary girl, that any parts I did not want would fall like autumn leaves. I imagined myself the black swan, growing up among golden ducklings, and that I would grow up beautiful and elegant, and that God would recompense me for all the bullying I faced from people who didn’t understand the truth.

Q: Who was the first person you turned to for help or to vent about what you were going through? And was it positive?

My cousin, and I regretted it dearly.

Q: Did your family know from the start, or did they learn later? How did they react? 

Unfortunately, they knew even before I did. In France, Children are medically and psychologically examined before they go into daycare, and undergo IQ testing. At that time, my parents were called in to discuss the possibility that I might be transgender and the options available to them.

Q: The immediate family by necessity plays a role in the life of any person. How was the family environment you grew up in, especially after they learned about your identity early? Tell us about your family and how life was for you!

My father had studied law, and the Sudanese government had sent him to France to complete his higher studies in business administration, and it was possible for international scholars at the time to bring along their families. I was young then, but the time we spent there would help forge my belief in individual rights and freedoms later in life. After we returned to Khartoum, I was shocked by the massive difference between the two societies and felt unsafe, so I withdrew from a young age and isolated myself. Even home was terrifying; to illustrate this point as best I can, please allow me to quote from the diary I kept at the time I was five years old when I asked my mom for a doll like the ones my cousin was so fond of showing off. Looking as if she hadn’t heard me properly she gave me a signal one could interpret as agreement, and so it was with great excitement that I searched the contents of the plastic bag she brought home with her and gave me that evening:

- A train

- A robot

- Knives and guns

Mother, where is my doll?!

Her voice was firm. “These are boys’ toys.”

I replied naively, “What’ve I got to do with boys’ toys?”

This was the first and last sentence I ever spoke freely before my father shattered my world beneath me. He had no compassion for my tender age, my undiluted innocence, or that I hadn’t yet understood the vast difference between male and female. “You deviant. Today you play with girls’ toys, tomorrow you’ll go searching for a man to mount you.”

From the moment I heard that bullet-like proclamation of his, I carried with me a feeling of guilt and shame. From that I learned to bury myself through funerary rites performed a thousand times each day, only to dig it back up every night. I became his main concern, tolerating for years his attempts to fix what he viewed as my deviancy. He put together a list of things of prohibitions, which he would change from time to time, but whether I complied or not was the closest thing my country had to a traffic policeman; if he pulled me over and found my conduct void of errors he would not hesitate to create a hundred imaginary violations to fill that void. Indeed, my analogy might be a little generous; the policeman can be persuaded to get out of your way for a few pounds, whereas my father would settle for no less than my complete degradation and dehumanization with each stop. It got to a point where, whenever I knew he could see me, my blood would run cold in my veins and I’d try to withdraw into my own skin, frantically revising the list of his prohibitions and my compliance with each, until I came to the realization that my greatest sin was actually my very existence. For that alone, he would riddle me with the worst insults and slurs he could muster, while I stood in front of him like a scared dog, taking as much spite as could pour out of his mouth and then, in addition, as much as he could dish out with his hands. Even now I struggle to hold back my tears for fear of provoking them; they’re among the list of his prohibitions. I’ve never loved him, but I never wished death upon him either. In the daydreams I slipped into on my own he hung from a noose, neither alive nor quite dead. At other times I’d imagine him in his old age, bereft of friends and family and anyone else aside from me, that I might tell him, “everyone reaps what they sow; see now what you have sown.” 

Q: Aside from the difficulties you faced early on at home, did being perceived as different by society cause you any trouble outside or at school?

Of course! Our societies, being collectivist and without care for difference, diversity, or individuality, strive tirelessly to hammer down any proud nails and force them to comply with the traditions, customs, and views of the majority. As a transwoman I hadn’t any options other than resistance, or I would cease to exist. I was shunned, rejected, cast out from just about every space you can imagine; subjected to verbal and physical abuse alike; sexually harassed everywhere I  went, from the same people who pride themselves on virtuousness and devotion in their face. I was even chained up in a Sufi sheikh’s maseed, abused and insulted. All my rights were stripped of me and I had no safe haven, whether familial, social, or legal. The older I grew, the better I understood the society I was in, until I was able to tackle all of the harm brought to me as a result of my challenging norms.

Q: Societal rejection and the designation of gender transition as a social taboo have created a sort of linguistic vacuum around the topic in Sudan and the Arab world at large. So what do you think of the terms currently used in discussion of transgender issues, such as “gender transformation” for example, or the new term that’s served to replace “gender identity disorder,”, “gender identity uncertainty?”

I don’t really focus that much on the specific words, and have no problem with any term that has no negative effect. As for “uncertainty,” I don’t believe I was ever uncertain; I, without a doubt, knew I was a girl. The only word I’ve yet to reconcile with to this day is “Sodomite,” because of the trauma associated with that word.

Q: Your instinctive certainty in your truth, which later manifested in your hormone therapy and surgery, cannot have been easy. How was the experience?

Unfortunately, in Sudan, it’s difficult for trans people to even exist—never mind transition—owing to the antiquated understanding of medicine. As for me, I consider myself lucky that I was able to get one of my surgeries in Sudan courtesy of a friend in the field. I’d gotten five beforehand; some in Cairo, and the latest one at that time in Germany to undo the collateral damage done by Arab doctors unqualified for the operations I had.

Q: What did you do [to cope with your dysphoria] before your gender affirming surgery?

I was seven years old when I decided to pursue hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and gender affirming surgery, and this was contemporaneous with the outcry Sally Mohammed Abdallah had caused in Egyptian society through her transition. Of course, estradiol (the artificial estrogen replacement) was unavailable in Sudan, which forced us to resort to multiple doses of birth control pills, but I personally resorted to herbs and traditional medicine at 14. My first surgery came later due to societal, medical, and legal resistance.

Q: During your physical transition, there wasn’t much awareness of queer expressions of sex and gender in general and particularly trans identity, compared to today. You’re considered the first Sudanese trans woman to come out of the closet and this has subjected you to plenty of difficulties and challenges, so what have you had to contend with after your surgeries and transition?

In 2008 I decided to face society and submit a petition to the Family Court, and I’d expected a veritable flood of resistance. But, strangely, everyone around me took the situation better than expected, to the point of even holding a naming ceremony for me with everyone’s participation.

Q: That’s quite a change of mind. What caused the people around you to open up their minds like this?

Despite the many confrontations and heavy resistance I faced I was careful to not lose my family. I think this was because I spoke loud and clear about my experiences and my feelings about those experiences, which helped define my popular characterization at the time. I think the legal support I received also played a role in the acceptance I found.

Q: Were there other trans people before you in Sudan?

Of course there were, but they faced plenty of severe problems, which I endured with many of them. However, I am the first Sudanese trans woman to come out of the closet within Sudan, and to obtain a court order changing her legal name and gender.

Q: Can you give us some details about the lawsuit you raised against the Sudanese government which ended with you gaining the right to legally transition?

I avoided speaking about this case because of a non disclosure agreement preventing me from talking about it beyond a general sense.

Q: No problem. Another experience you mentioned earlier was the religious conversion therapy that was forced on you. We’ve spoken a lot about the physical and psychological methods parents subject their trans kids to in Sudan, but how was this religious method?

After my first suicide attempt, it started circulating that I was possessed by an “Abyssinian djinn,” and I found myself in a well-known sheikh’s Maseed in Khartoum, chained up amidst mentally and physically disabled people atop old, frayed palm leaf mats. The strange thing is, we had someone with Down syndrome there, and I couldn’t figure out how his parents got him there. Sometimes a man —a filthy deceiver, he was, a sexual harasser of women and an outright pedophile— would come in holding a whip, reading out verses from the Quran littered with strange verses I later learned were excerpts from the Jaljalutiyah1 and sometimes the sheikh himself would come in to see us and mutter inaudibly before reciting al-Fatiha, or to (hit us with an eraser?) I’d completely lost interest in talking and life in general. Everything was the same to me, the days blended into each other—I couldn’t tell Saturday apart from Tuesday—until my family came and picked me up. Later I became more flexible, and rather than conversing and attempting to convey the fundamental truth of my rights and liberties I would simply play along with their fantasies and say (what is she saying here). My family, except my father, would take me to a different sheikh from time to time and so I grew skilled at playing the role of the possessed, jumping and flailing and screaming as loudly as I could and venting all my negative energies and the despair trapped in me... It is a much easier thing to be insane in my country than to be a “Sodomite.” To be insane is to elicit sympathy from your family and prompt kindness from them, as if they’re comforting themselves against their inability to understand that their ‘son’ of perfectly sound mind is actually just a girl, so they say to themselves, “he’s just mad... right?! He has to be mad. Or maybe he’s possessed by a promiscuous delinquent demon and with her Bashir, king of the eunuchs.”¹ However, in the case of the ‘slightly’ wiser Muslim sheikhs, their method was different. This however is a very long story I can’t summarize, because religion to me was a core part of my existence and an answer to the existential questions I’d had since my early childhood which in turn drove me to focus on varying religions and their philosophies such that you’ll find I have a story with just about every sect under the sun. You’ll find I have stories with Christian priests, rabbis, pagan monks and Buddhists, and this topic alone is as deep and complex as my entire journey thus far.

Q: What difficulties do you face now as a Sudanese transwoman?

At first I struggled with the futile attempts of some to force upon me the restrictions imposed upon women, and then against the ruling party and the security apparatus after I started writing my diary. Right now I face no problems related to my transition, aside from having to retell my entire story to potential suitors and in doing so relive all the suffering I went through. I also have to deal with the expectations placed on me as a woman. For example: Once I invited a Sudanese man to my house for dinner, so he could get to know me. While we were talking I lit a cigarette, and he suddenly got upset and told me that I need to quit smoking if we’re to continue our relationship. What upset me was that his reasoning was that smoking wasn’t ladylike, rather than it being unhealthy; people tend to forget I’m trans as I’ve broken out of that stereotype long ago and simply impose another stereotype on me.

Q: You were reluctant, at the start of our conversation, to relate anything about your personal life and childhood. Why?

Because, in my experience, people would take the time I spent in France and my family’s eventual acceptance of my transition as proof that my journey was easy, that I hadn’t suffered enough to qualify as marginalized, and sometimes compare their journeys and experiences with mine. Even though this is wrong; every person has their own journey, their own experiences and battles to endure and fight.

Q: No two experiences can be the same, but when people relay their experiences it’s often to tell those who suffer the same way and think themselves alone that they aren’t, that others have gone through and are still going through these struggles. As a member of Sudan’s LGBT community, I don’t think your experiences were easy at all, and that you were very brave despite all the suffering; you challenged your family, your community, and even your country.

I don’t consider that bravery, nor do I consider myself brave.

Q: What do you call it, then?

Resignation. A stage one reaches where nothing matters to them anymore; they resign themselves to fate. My experiences brought me to this point, and I hadn’t much to lose.

Q: To conclude our conversation, what advice would you give to the next generation of trans people, and queer people more broadly?

Don’t waste your energy on pointless side battles. Believe in your selves; love them, and hold them close.