Cape Town: Members of the LGBTQIA+ community flocked to the Equality Court in Cape Town to support Jackye Majawie, a transgender who was allegedly been kicked out of the women’s bathroom by a cleaner at Golden Acre Mall.
Jackye Majawie aged 36, is an anti-gender-based violence activist from Worcester and began its transition from male to female at Groote Schuur Hospital in 2015.
Considering the incident in question, Jackey said, it occurred on March 23 last year in 2023, when she tried to enter the female public toilet and was told by one of the cleaners to use the men’s toilet instead.
Transgender Majawie said that she was misgendered and my human rights were being violated when she was denied the allowance to use the female toilet by another woman who works doe a cleaning company.
Jackye said, “I took the matter to the Equality Court because my dignity was disregarded.”
Furthermore, she claimed that the cleaner proceeded to pull her out of the toilet upon refusing her access, to enter inside. Using female bathrooms have become the norm for Jackye, as all of her identity documents states that she is a woman.
The Equality Court case is postponed until August 02, 2024 and Majawie intends to sue the cleaner in her private capacity.
Majawie founded a non-profit organisation in 2016 and called ‘Majawie Safe Space’ that aims to serve the LGBTQIA+ community. In her support, Transgender woman approached the court after Golden Acre Mall incident happened.
However, the communications officer for Gender Dynamix, considered as an NPO which focuses on the rights of the transgender community said that until they are not together and celebrating all the prides, they have no freedom and no dignity in true sense.
What is LGBTQIA+ ?
LGBTQIA+ is an acronym for classification of genders which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (or sometimes questioning), intersex, asexual and others. The “plus or +” represents other sexual identities that includes Pansexual and Two-Spirit.
The first four letters of the acronym are being used since 1990, but in recently there has been an increased awareness of the need to be inclusive of other sexual identities to offer better representation.
The acronym is used to represent a diverse range of sexualities and gender-identities, referring to anyone who is transgender and/or of similar gender attracted.
What Does Each Letter Mean?
- L (Lesbian): A lesbian is a woman/woman-aligned person who is attracted to only people of the same gender.
- G (Gay): Gay is usually a term used to refer to men/men-aligned individuals who are only attracted to people of the same gender. However, lesbians can also be referred to as gay. The use of the term gay became more popular during the 1970s.
Today, bisexual and pansexual people sometimes use gay to casually refer to themselves when they talk about their similar gender attraction. - B (Bisexual): Bisexual indicates an attraction to all genders. The recognition of bisexual individuals is important, since there have been periods when people who identify as ‘bi’ have been misunderstood as being gay. Bisexuality has included transgender, binary and nonbinary individuals since the release of the “Bisexual Manifesto” in 1990.
- T (Transgender): Transgender is a term that indicates that a person’s gender identity is different from the gender associated with the sex they were assigned at birth.
- Q (Queer or Questioning): Though queer may be used by people as a specific identity, it is often considered an umbrella term for anyone who is non-cisgender or heterosexual. But it is also a slur.
It should not be placed on all members of the community and should only be used by cisgender and heterosexual individuals when referring to a person who explicitly identifies with it. Questioning refers to people who may be unsure of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. - I (Intersex): A term to describe individuals who are born with variations of sex characteristics that do not fit with binary definitions of male or female bodies.
- A (Asexual): Sometimes shorted to “ace,” this term refers to someone who has little or no sexual attraction; they may, however, experience romantic attraction.
- + (Plus): The ‘plus’ is used to signify all of the gender identities and sexual orientations that are not specifically covered by the other five initials. An example is Two-Spirit, a pan-Indigenous American identity.