I currently live with my mom but both my parents are religious. We were in fact raised christians. My mom work as a nurse and my father used to be a technician. He's now retired.
How did your family influence who you are?
To be honest, they did not. Funnily enough, they did not influence me much. At a certain point, the age at which you start being conscious of the environment around you, I started to be self aware and, even though I had internalized much of the things I was taught, I also started to unlearn and "bring myself up". But that was also entirely possible because my parents did not have the resources to educate us on how to navigate the world either, so they were kinda lost themselves as we grew into teenagers then young adults so I practically raised myself up while coming to understand myself and the world around me.
Please describe yourself, how you see yourself.
Self made. Not just for having raised myself up at some point but also because I'm transgender. I also think I'm a warrior because being independent at a young age is not easy.
What were the challenges you encountered by expressing yourself?
Being rejected or dismissed. Being met with no response from supposed support communities or group, especially when it comes to mental health.
How did you stand up for yourself?
I didn't use to actually. I started being vocal against disrespect since the past years or so, since COVID, practically. So, even though I understand most of the disrespect come from a place of willful ignorance, I choose not to entertain it or to simply match their energy; if they're insulting me or the community, they get the same energy with a dash of intelligence.
What support did you receive and what were the challenges faced?
In the general world, I mostly get no support for anything whatsoever but when surrounded with the queer community (and now with my principled leftist community), I get the back up of other queer siblings. Up until recently, the main challenge had been not knowing how to start on my medical transition journey.
How did you overcome the challenges?
Meeting up with the community and getting in contact with other transgender siblings. Even though I haven't started my medical transition yet, I now know how and where to start; I have a support system as well, outside my family.
How do you currently see the Mauritian society?
the current Mauritian society honestly lack the knowledge on queerness and queer issues and the issue in that is, they are opiniated, treat opinions for material reality (/facts) when they couldn't be further from the truth. What they don't understand is that those opinions are harmful to queer people and mostly youth. But to them, especially those who have an inherent hatred towards queer people, this harm is the norm.
How do you envision the Mauritian society?
One that understands the importance of community, that rejects chauvinist, colonial, imperialist and capitalistic values and norms. A decolonial one, where our norms are based on our ancestors, wherever they are from, open to queerness and closed to oppression and exploitation.
How can you contribute to your vision of the Mauritian society?
Political education & social awareness in general. Encouraging political education to the general public, mostly targeting the youth.
What are the support you need for achieving the vision of society?
A principled & pragmatic decolonial community that will be ready for engagement, where political education and social awareness is the at the centre of our learning and growth. But for that to come into a community, I will need a group of people to start somewhere with, most preferably queer people. Truth be told, I have had this plan to bring a group together to discuss decolonial and communist theory through study groups. But unsure how to go about that.
