Even before I turned 16, I knew I liked girls. I also knew I liked boys. I didn’t understand it. Why was I drawn to women? During that period of my life (between 11 and 16 years of age), I was also in a boarding school. An all-girl boarding school for that matter. It was torture. It went against everything I knew to be “right”.
That was the first time that thought occurred to me: The world can think something is right, even when it is untrue.
I was born, “bread”, buttered and slightly burned in Nigeria, one of the most religious, yet most corrupt, and most homophobic countries in the world. Back when I was young, one didn’t see it too much, but in today’s Nigeria, much like in many developing countries, as in the Bible belt of the United States, Abrahamic or organized religion has become somewhat of a noose around the necks of its practitioners.
When I told my dad at the age of 16 that I also liked girls… His response was swift yet gentle. “It is a phase, you will grow out of it, Nne”. Like any obedient child, I listened intently and believed all of it; hook, line and sinker, as they say. You see, it’s what kids do. They believe their parents. They trust their parents; they want to please their parents.
And so, I went about my business and tried everything in my power to squish the life out of that tendency to like girls. I decided to only date men and eventually married one. But that didn’t stop the feeling, it didn’t stop my reality. I still had an intense attraction to women. Thankfully, I am fiercely monogamous, so I never acted on it.
Then I had my first child.
I watched with a mixture of disbelief, shock, fear, anxiety, shame, uncertainty, then certainty, and hoping against hope as this beautiful human whom we assigned male sex at birth acted nothing like a boy! Not their mannerisms, speaking style, energy, body gestures, likes, choices, nothing! I mean nothing! I was tormented. I cried to sleep every night. I had nowhere to turn to, no one to tell, no one to ask.
So, I kept it all in, and prayed and prayed and prayed fervently for my suspicion to be incorrect. It was the loneliest time of my life, the hardest time of my life. I hated God for doing that to me. I hated God for “blessing” me with a child who would cause me so much pain. A child who the world would not give a chance to just be. I hated God for making humans who hate each other, I hated me for bringing such a child into the world.
As much as I blamed myself, my ex-husband blamed me more. He took the stance that homosexuality is not in his family. That it must have come from mine. It must have come from me. He despised me for “making his first son gay”. He was mean to me, he called me names, and wouldn’t speak to me for months sometimes. I, in turn, hated myself much more for causing the demise of my marriage.
I tell you all this to give you a bit of background. I eventually filed for divorce and met someone who loved me as much as I loved her. But even that relationship was doomed from the start. With internalized homophobia from my own Catholic upbringing to straight-up homophobia from friends and (some) family, coupled with our own individual histories of trauma, our beautiful relationship had no chance.
I would like to blame Covid for its demise, but truth be told, we had started matching to separate beats long before the lockdown.
The summer of 2020 brought with it my first child’s graduation from college, Stanford University. It also brought in new vocabulary: the phrase non-binary, transgender, and they/them pronouns. Apparently, my kid had been identifying as this through most of their college life. They hadn’t told me because even as a queer person myself, I had not created a safe enough space for them to invite me in.
I, on the other hand, was going nuts with questions… What is it? What does it mean? Who are you? Why this? Why now? What will become of my “son”? Is this a phase? What on earth will my friends say? What will the church say? What will my family say? How can I protect you? What am I going to do? On and on and on…
Then one day, my kid pushed back, and I heard the words I will not forget soon; “Mom, it’s not about you!”
That was when it struck me. That I had been making it all about me. I had been thinking about myself the entire time. I had not taken a moment to ask myself what my child was experiencing. How did they see the world? If I was scared and afraid of not being able to protect them, how much more fear were they feeling? What is it that they really want from me?
Surely it isn’t fear, guilt and shame. It is love, compassion, and affirmation. Support and acceptance with or without understanding. It is parental responsibility and a motherly hug. It is an open heart and a welcoming smile. It is me being their mom, periodt. Nothing else. It is also me unlearning, learning, and becoming the parent my child needs.
And so, when the governor or the government comes after my trans child, they are in essence coming after me. They are invalidating all the thoughts I have had. They are invalidating all my pain, all my suffering, and my entire journey thus far. They are saying none of that matters. They are saying I don’t count; my feelings don’t count; my child’s existence doesn’t count.
They are drawing a line on the sand and asking me to prepare for battle. They are asking for war.
And that’s what I am prepared to give them.
Dr. Lulu aka the Momatrician is a Pediatrician, Author, Speaker, Life Coach, and Mom of a Non-Binary Transgender Young Adult. You can find her at Dr-Lulu.com and @askdoctorlulu on Instagram and Facebook, and Dr. Lulu on Tik Tok and Linkedin.
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First off, I was one of, if not the oldest student in that regular MBA class! I was not happy about that at all. I hated the fact that I was in class with late teens and early twenty-something-year-olds. Their mannerisms were a total lack, they were disrespectful, noisy, lackadaisical, and sometimes rude to the professors(s). What struck me the most was their tendency to not do the work! They were very content with not showing up for class, joining in class discussions or even doing their portion of the school work at all… (I guess I am seriously old school) This bothered me so much that after that first semester, I went back to my student adviser and requested to disenroll. Luckily, she was kind enough to understand my position and suggested I sign up for the Executive MBA program instead. I was really lucky because I literally made the interview on the last day! Reminds me of a similar incident with Howard University Hospital Residency interview, I also talked about 
As the only physician and one of 2 Blacks of the lot, 33 of us to be exact, I had no one else wearing my exact shoes, hmmmm. I had no one to hold on to when Statistics got tough (yea, I know, I did biostatistics in med school, so I recalled sensitivity and specificity, but certainly not Anova or Covariance Analysis) I had no one to hold on to when Accounting reared its ugly head, or when Finance got crazy (my poor mom, a retired accountant, who was visiting at that time, got a daily dose of complaints from me). As a self-proclaimed hater of numbers (except those on my paycheck and bank account) I loathe Excel…still do! First of all, I had never really heard about it, furthermore, I not only had to learn its basics, but I also had to learn to apply it to Accounting, and Finance, WHY!? All of which made for many a tear-filled day at the professors’ office. Every now and again, I did feel lonely and left out in my cohort, but my resilience and adaptability would kick in and I would win the little battles.
Economics was good as long as it was Macro Economics and the professor who worked for the 
I must say the highlight of our entire MBA experience was the 12day international trip to South East Asia! A trip that cost me the attendance of my youngest brother’s wedding in Nigeria, which just happened to have been scheduled for the exact same day. We left San Antonio bright and early that January morning and went through LAX. The 17hour flight both ways was no match for the excitement I felt in finally seeing the world famous Singapore and Vietnam! I grew up in the 70s and 80s and remember listening to the song 
architecture, eclectic suburbs, fine dining, high-end shopping, educated minds, and multiracial indigenes all living harmoniously in spite of differences in religion, language, customs, cultures, etc. A hard lesson for all African countries to learn (sadly). Singapore welcomed me with open arms. I even got a chance to sing old Karaoke tunes with a local band at a local pub! Vietnam was different. More real, dirtier, noisier, almost “happier” than Singapore. Our class got to visit the Crocs factory, eat with the locals in a traditional Vietnamese home, and take a canoe ride on the river to the coconut village, where my sense of smell was completely mesmerized by the indescribable smells of coconut. Since my wife is part Island girl, and I am the quintessential Tropical Chic, this, was HOME! I was immediately taken back to my childhood, my grandmother’s hut…her smell, her heart, the essence of her being my Nne Akuobu. As unbelievable as the trip was, I topped it up, by finishing the final edits of my first of many Amazon bestsellers on the plane ride home! BTW, get your copy on 
Until we meet again, I will echo M.J, in saying, “you keep dreaming…”
Words by Black Butterfly 