Sex change is a process by which a person or animal changes sex – that is, by which female sexual characteristics are substituted for male ones or vice versa. Sex change may occur naturally, as in the case of the sequential hermaphroditism observed in some species.
Most commonly, however, the term is used for sex reassignment therapy, including sex reassignment surgery, carried out on humans. It is also sometimes used for the medical procedures applied to intersex people. The term may also be applied to the broader process of changing gender roles (living as a woman instead of living as a man, or vice versa), including but not necessarily limited to medical procedures.
Several medical conditions can result in an apparent sex change in humans, where the appearance at birth is somewhat, mostly, or completely of one sex, but changes over the course of a lifetime to being somewhat, mostly, or completely of the other sex.
The overwhelming majority of natural sex changes are from a female appearance at birth to a male appearance after puberty, due to either 5-alpha-reductase deficiency (5alpha-RD-2) or 17-beta hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase deficiency (17beta-HSD-3).
A relative handful of male to female changes have been reported, and the etiologies of these are not well understood. (Source: Wikipedia)
Nigeria is one of the countries where some people change their sex based on reasons based known to them. Today, we will be talking about some famous Nigerian transgender people and how they have become famous.
The first Nigeria transgender man, Oche Clifford who is now Ms. Sahhara, was born a male before becoming a model and singer. She spoke of how happier she is that her dream of becoming a woman was achieved. Crying tears of joy when she saw her transformation.
She has been known to stir the hornet with offensive speeches about how she supposedly hates God who created her. The 28-year-old Ms. Sahhara contestant was born a man, lived in Abuja for several years before moving to the UK about 7 years ago where she’s now living as a woman.
She’s now a beauty queen, having participated in a few pageants. She (He) was 1st runner up at the 2011 Miss International Queen pageant.
Stephanie used to live in Ile-Ife, Nigeria. Both of her parents worked at the Obafemi Awolowo University, so she attended the university staff school and then the OAU itself.
However, during her college years, Stephanie realized that she was not like the others. She started wearing make-up and feminine clothes, which alienated her peers and made her the victim of bullying.
When the pressure from the transphobic Nigerian society became too much, Rose dropped out of the university and fled the country in 2001.
What has made this transgender woman so infamous? Well, around 2015, her name appeared in Nigerian media for two reasons. First, as you might have guessed, it was because of the fact that she was transgender. The second one was far more controversial.
Apparently, Stephanie moved to Amsterdam and became very interested in God, or rather in slandering His name. She wrote a book titled Nobody Goes to Heaven Because Nobody Goes to Hell Fire, where she shared her very unusual and controversial opinions about God, to put it mildly.
The news of this book, as well as Stephanie’s weird posts on Facebook, made her very infamous among many Nigerians.
Another transwoman that decided to leave Nigeria in search of a better life is Noni Salma. She was born and raised in Lagos. Noni attended the University of Lagos, where she received a degree in Theatre Arts.
However, since she was little, she did not really fit in with the other kids.
Noni was often bullied for looking feminine. At the same time, she was suffering from the internal turmoil of questioning her gender identity. For almost thirty years, Salma tried to deny the fact that she was trans, but eventually, she embraced it and decided to transition. As transitioning in Nigeria was never really an option, she moved to the United States.
While in the US, Noni started her transition and began attending the New York Film Academy. Soon, she graduated with a degree in Filmmaking and began making movies.
One of her most notable works, Veil of Silence (which she wrote, directed and produced), was screened at numerous film festivals. The short documentary depicted the sad reality of LGBT people (mostly gay men) living in Nigeria.
Salma currently lives in the Bronx, where she is able to be her true self and enjoy the company of like-minded people. She continues making movies and even plans to become an actress.
Not often do you hear about famous (and successful) Nigerian transgender men. However, Rizi here managed to make something of himself, even though it meant leaving Nigeria. When he was young, he started questioning his gender identity and turned to religion for answers.
However, people closest to him tried to ‘cure’ him of his ‘predicament’ and used the Bible as the way of justifying their bigotry. Because of that and constant bullying, Rizi went down a slippery slope and developed an addiction to illicit substances.
Nevertheless, he was able to climb back up after a journey of self-discovery. In his quest, Rizi found out that, despite what he has been told, God actually loved all people. That inspired him to become a church minister so that he could spread this message to others. He now lives in Los Angeles, where he helps the trans community both financially and spiritually.
During the past few years, Rizi has been making a difference for transgender people in the US by opening The Happy Transgender Center and establishing Rizi Timane Annual Transgender Surgery Scholarship.
In addition to that, he is also a writer, singer, actor, and entertainer. Timane appeared in several well-known TV shows and performed at numerous Pride events. Rizi is happily married to his wife of five years, Christina Ros.
Not much is known about Mandy Candy. Apparently, Ms. Sahhara’s example inspired her to come out as transgender, which seemed to be enough for many media outlets to make the news out of.
From what little information we could find, we figured out that she is of Nigerian origin and currently lives somewhere in Europe.
Probably, the only other thing she is known for (apart from being transgender) is sharing photos of her scantily clad body.
For some reason, she seems to have disappeared from social media, so we have no idea what she is up to now.
Sources: www.legit.ng and www.withinnigeria.com