Gender Transition And Igbo Spirituality

However, to be ogbanje is to be categorized other and to bring alterity home in a way that transcends the more ordinary bifurcated ‘otherness’ of gender. We could even speculate that ogbanje children fall under a third category of gender, of human-looking spirit. This gender is marked from birth—as male and female statuses are marked—by special behaviors towards and physical adornment of the child. The sexual appearance of the ogbanje may, indeed, be seen as a sham—yet another promise that the ogbanje is likely to break in its refusal to act according to human norms.

Thus begins this article by a Nigerian transgender man who tries to understand his "unbelonging" in a body that is his. Five years into his transgender journey, he tries to understand his state through Nigerian spirituality—in particular that from the Igbo community. He digs into his heritage and finds solace in the Ogbanje. Ogbanje are described as spirits born into human bodies, but ones that deviate from reincarnation—unlike other beings they are not from the ancestors, but are somewhat malevolent spirits that are born into human bodies. An Ogbanje should never reproduce. That is what the writer reminds himself as he follows the strong urge to rid himself of his uterus. 

While my gender had asserted itself in different ways since my childhood, one of its strongest features was always a violent aversion toward reproduction, toward having a body that was marked by its reproductive potential—a uterus to carry children, full breasts to feed them with. 

As the writer struggles to find his way in a world that wants to define him as either female or male (with the appropriate organs to match that), he digs into his Nigerian heritage to confirm that his is not a longing brought on by Westernization, but actually something that has been understood by people throughout history. 

There is a vivid history of mutilation with ogbanje: a dead one can be cut, scarred to prevent it from returning undetected.