She Called Me Woman

October 1, 2018
The editors of this powerful and revealing collection present the stories of 25 LGBTQ Nigerian women “to correct the invisibility, the confusion, the caricaturisation, and the writing out of history” plaguing Nigerian conversations around queerness, which “frequently dehumanize and are dehumanizing.” These “stories of resistance and resilience” and everyday life come from a group of anonymized contributors varied in their backgrounds, class, and experiences whose thoughts on religious belief and marriage, recollections of their dating histories, and advice for other queer women are often thoughtful and wise. Common threads include the prevalence and acceptance of same-sex relationships among students in some secondary schools, belief in a God of grace and understanding, and ordinary needs, desires, and ambitions. There are stories of physical violence, sexual assault, and acts of cruelty—many of the women feel they are “living a double life” because it is unsafe to come out, and they’ve seen or experienced isolation, drug abuse, and domestic violence—and of support, love, and community. Mixed in are funny and relatable moments; one respondent wishes her clingy girlfriend would stop calling, and another describes her nonmonogamous love life as multiple “situationships.” The editors of this collection succeed in bringing LGBTQ Nigerian women out of the shadows.