‘Trans moms are mothers’

ALFRED FORBESDEYONCE Naris (32) just wants to be a good mother to her children without the judgement from society.

This is because Naris, a Windhoek resident, is a transgender mother, and she is judged for being different.

“When I need to attend parent-teacher meetings I feel like the odd one out,” she says, adding that as a trans mother she takes her children’s safety and security seriously, especially as an activist.

Naris is a trans woman, activist and mother of three. One of the children is biologically hers and she fosters the other two.

Naris says she’ has always had a love for children, especially during her time in the south where she worked with orphans and vulnerable children.

She co-parents her children and had her oldest child with a non-gender conforming lesbian and they stay in the kids’ lives.

Naris says as a trans mother, it is difficult in certain spaces.

She has had to face a lot of hate speech and threats from the community she resides in. Naris and her partner are activists and because of that they must teach their children how to negotiate safety and how to facilitate safety for themselves, she says.

“These are not things that a 13-year-old should be dealing with at this juncture; my kids come home and tell me ‘mommy, we feel like somebody is following us,” says Naris.

She is raising her kids in a gender rights environment where she also teaches them to be gender neutral.

She says stereotyping also comes from other parents that teach their kids certain words and adds that she likes short dresses but she has to cover up because of how the other parents dress.

Naris has taught her kids how to reclaim power from derogatory words spoken by other people and make them have no meaning.

She still faces challenges in this country, like registering her kids at home affairs, because of what is written on her identification document, which has resulted in her not listing her paternity on her child’s birth certificate since her dead name is still listed on her official documents.

In the trans community, a dead name refers to the biological name given to an individual before their transition.

She also faces stigma as a trans mother, with people telling her she will turn her kids into f”gs. She says she is also being accused of molesting her children and abusing them and being a paedophile, which has resulted in her moving to another town.

Even hailing a taxi for her and her family poses a challenge, as taxi drivers will not stop because she is a trans woman, she says.

Another challenge she has faced for years is acceptance by her family, saying it was hard for her family to accept her children.

“I was so set on trying to raise them right and right being the cis gender heterosexual way and realised that I’m putting them in a box and doing the same thing my parents did to me.”

Naris says parenting as a trans parent has been quite interesting and she has raised her children freely without them having to see colour or be in a box.

Dez Haman, a Keetmanshoop resident, is a queer non-binary, who does not identify as a trans man or woman. She has three biological children.

Haman says in the beginning it was difficult as the children were scared to be seen with her or be around her, which resulted in her mother raising two of her children.

She says society judges queer and trans parents on the decision to become parents because they are seen as unfit to parent a child. Haman says her parenting style is quite normal as she is open with her kids to the fullest, and has an open channel of communication, especially regarding her sexuality.

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