T
rifonia Melibea Obono is a writer,
academic and activist from Equa-
torial Guinea. An award-winning
author of three published novels and
one short-story collection, she has now
written her first work of non-fiction – a
j’accuse about the reality of LGBT+ lives in
Equatorial Guinea today.
Yo no quería ser madre (‘I didn’t want to
be a mother’) is a collection of testimonies
by 30 lesbian and bisexual Equatoguin-
ean women about their experiences of
forced pregnancy.
These stories come from women
across Guinean society, but they all
chronicle betrayals by their families and
their communities, when their same-
sex activity is suspected or discovered,
leading to violence, both physical and
psychological, to try to ‘correct’ forcibly
these ‘deviant’ behaviours.
Girls and women have been beaten by
their families, starved, locked up, sold off
in marriages, and treated by traditional
healers, Catholic priests and other reli-
gious figures. They have been tortured
by the military or police, drugged and
subjected to ‘corrective’ rapes, sometimes
by family members. Many are pimped
by their families or turn to prostitu-
tion themselves as their only means ofsupport outside of the traditional family
structures from which they are ejected
because of their sexuality.
While homosexuality is not illegal in
Equatorial Guinea, neither is homopho-
bia, creating a legal vacuum.
The institutions – police, courts, edu-
cational establishments – do not protect
queer Equatorial Guineans from their
families and communities. The institu-
tions themselves often inflict homopho-
bic violence.
The alarming truth, revealed in these
testimonies, is that these homophobic
punishments, performed in the name of
preserving tradition and traditional family
values, usually begin at an early age.
This collection of testimonies serves as
an educational tool, for people inside and
outside the country.
It is a denouncement that, hopefully,
will raise awareness and exert social and
legal pressure for change.
Here follow two testimonies, as spoken
to Trifonia Melibea Obono, and translated
from Spanish into English by myself.Content warning: the following accounts
contain references to sexual violence.THE LONG READ
In a groundbreaking new work, Trifonia Melibea Obono has sought
out and recorded the unheard stories of lesbian and bisexual women
living in the small West African state of Equatorial Guinea.
With raw and graphic candour, the women recount a harrowing
reality of forced pregnancy and the violent imposition of
heterosexual norms – and their feisty struggle to be themselves.
Introduced by translator Lawrence Schimel.‘I didn’t want
to be a mother’
Illustrations — Nadia Akingbule64 NEW INTERNATIONALIST