Much of the hatred and bias that sexual minorities face stems from a lack of representation and a lack of transparency of motives from the dominant communities. This lack of representation is deliberate for the most part, with heterosexual cis men pushing for homogenous representation of people in media and silencing anything that doesn’t represent or resemble them. It has taken a long time and a lot of struggle but things are finally changing, if not in Nigeria, at least the rest of the world. This is especially true for transsexual persons, for whom 2017 was a watershed moment that forced many of our famous persons abroad and her in Nigeria (like Chimamanda Adichie) to  investigate their beliefs towards trans people and acknowledge their personhood.

There have been transpeople on television in hit shows, transpeople elected to office and publicly fighting for their rights to serve in the America military. Here in Nigeria there is Nigerian gender non-conformist Bobrisky, who while incredibly problematic towards cis women has really embraced his identity as a man who immerses himself and explores his femininity, creating the much needed space for other people like him to embrace their identities. But we can never have too much representation, so when we found out that online media channel, Slay TV commissioned a series of documentaries that focus on the inner lives of transpeople, we knew that we just had to share it.

The series called ‘Transparency‘ is especially important because it is predominantly populated by people of colour and goes to great lengths to represent transmen with as much grace and care as it does transwomen. And beyond that, it is pretty sublime and very well shot. We could all learn a thing or two from it.

Here are Transparency’s first five episodes below to get you started.

Episode 1: Angel Rose.

Episode 2: Sebastian

Episode 3: DeJaye

Episode 4: O’Shae

Episode 5: Paris

Editor