Nigeria’s small but richly vibrant corner of Twitter is not the place anyone will go to for nuanced conversation about the diversity of being. Violence is aplenty, yes, not peace, love and light.
That’s not because peace, love and light aren’t there but because they get swallowed up in the overwhelming banter, some harmful others harmless.
We collated major tweets from last week that for the themes of our non-binary blog. Some add to an existing conversation, others stand alone in the freshness of their perspective, while more yet shifted the conversation wholly to places we can’t wait to see play out.
Read, enjoy, and add your 2 cents. Respectfully …
Words carry weight, often very far-reaching. We need to do better with what we put out into the world.
A now-deleted series of tweets by Kelvin Odanz, threatening another Twitter user @Ulxma with what he called “corrective pleasure” – rightly known as corrective rape, sparked a conversation about men creating sexual violence against women they perceive to have stepped out of line.
Every day Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and other sexual and gender minorities (LGBT+) wake up to cis-heterosexual Nigerians probing them like they are less human and more lab rat. This particular victim didn’t cower, she went in for the kill and vanquished her assailant.
In case you were wondering, this is what everyday misogyny looks like.
Involved male parents are hailed as a rare gift, but when they are treated as unicorns, what we end up creating are emotionally and physically distant fathers that will later lament their children don’t love them.
We must strive for better!
Inclusion is vital in every space. And it begins with intentional acts like fashion brands being honest about where they stand in creating outfits for plus size people.
You can’t give with one hand and take with the other then turn around to pat yourself on the back for being ‘inclusive.’
This seemingly inarguable truth is still contested by many cis-hetero Nigerians. But the receipts disagree.
Unprovoked …
Casual violence …
Every single day. And for what? A natural difference no one can help.
Women are speaking up about their child birth experiences and male doctors swooped in to mansplain childbirth. No qualification should grant anyone this much audacity. None.
Because sexuality is not written on anyone’s forehead for all to see, things like what this Twitter user complained about are bound to happen.
It now takes the grace of seeing the humanity of someone who finds you attractive and responding in way that isn’t undignifying for them.
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