Spare us the forked tongue

Ukuthatheka That's what we call the fear of missing out (FOMO) back home in Durban. It can also mean to be easily taken in by things - things one could probably leave alone or do without.

But FOMO persists, doesn't it? It gnaws at you, it says to you, "You have a voice and you deserve to be heard." It catches us all, especially on Twitter, where the currency of likes and retweets is assumed to be glowing endorsement and proof of our popularity.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the enviably erudite and eloquent literary queen, appears to have contracted the disease yokuthatheka. You know, that silly desire to take on things that aren't our forte, things we think we should do or know of (and, therefore, provide responses to).

Adichie put her foot in it last week when she was asked about trans women. The Half of a Yellow Sun author was asked: "If you're a trans woman who grew up identifying as a man, who grew up enjoying the privileges of being a man, does that take away from becoming a woman? Are you any less of a real woman?"

She responded by saying that "trans women are trans women". She continued to say that she didn't believe their experiences should be "conflated".

"I don't think it's a good thing to talk about women's issues being exactly the same as the issues of trans women because I don't think that's true," she said.

Being a prominent feminist of our time, one understands why Adichie was asked about trans issues; she has been at the forefront of activism for LGBTI rights in her home country, Nigeria, and in the US. Indeed, she advocates for equality in all spheres of society.

This is the same woman who so delightfully put a Donald Trump-backing Emmett Tyrrell (founder and editor-in-chief of The American Spectator magazine) in his place for suggesting the US president's language during the presidential campaign had not been racist. "I'm sorry, but as a white man, you don't get to define what racism is, you really don't," she shut him down.

Similarly, Adichie cannot define the experiences of trans women when she isn't one. Unfortunately, the LGBTI acronym throws millions of people under one umbrella and leaves no room for people to be individuals - it serves up to society, to use Adichie's own quip, a dangerous single story. Consequently, it gives us the impression that we're all the same, that we have the same struggles, that all our struggles have already been documented and are no longer unique.

It is the reason an acquaintance of mine, upon hearing I was trying to write a novel, immediately said: "It better not be a gay novel." As if to suggest I would be flogging a dead horse, because gay lives and stories have all been told. I am not working on a gay novel and even if I was I know it would not reflect the doubts and fears and oppressions and suppressions of a 30-year-old Australian gay man, for instance. Or a lesbian woman. Or a bisexual woman. Or a trans man like Siphe Magudulela, who I found out about via Twitter on Monday for his crowdfunding efforts to raise thousands of rands so he can afford to pay for his gender-affirming surgery and therapy (by Tuesday evening, he had raised just over R11500 - two-thirds off his goal of R33000).

Magudulela turned 22 this week, six months after beginning his hormone replacement therapy.

I had to read up on the costs involved and then speak to him about why he so desired the transition from being a woman to a man. (I felt nervous and stupid for even asking, lest I appeared ignorant.) He told me that surgery would "allow me to feel like I can finally breathe" and that it would symbolise "lifting off all the years of being treated like someone" he doesn't identify with. Identity is something we all grapple with, individually.

I can empathise with him on feeling tentative within his skin, but I cannot claim to understand his internal struggles - or what he means when he calls surgery potentially "a dream come true". Every day is an opportunity to educate ourselves about things we know little to nothing about, and to admit to being insufficiently aware of certain things - that's what it means to grow up. To open yourself up to learning.

Of course, we live in a world of clarifications and retractions and alt-facts. Naturally, Adichie subsequently clarified her comments. But transgender activist Raquel Willis's series of tweets summed up the argument impeccably. Willis wrote: "Chimamanda being asked about trans women is like Lena Dunham being asked about black women. It doesn't work. We can speak for ourselves ... We don't need public debates on trans women. We need trans women elevated and allowed to speak for themselves."