1. COURT VS CULTURE: WHERE DOES MBUGUA’S
VICTORY REALLY LIE?
DAYSTAR UNIVERSITY
PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE
(COM. 612Y)
Henry Herman Neondo
(neondohenry@yahoo.com)
MS. ROSE MWANGI
LECTURER
Daystar University
November 2014

2. Mbugua’s gender switch
1. Introduction
2. Definition of terms
3. Background
4. Theory in use
5. Preposition
6. Discussion
7. conclusion

3. Introduction
Mr Andrew Mbugua has publicly declared that he is
not male but female arguing that since birth, ‘she’
has been transgender. He took on a new name to fit
in with the new gender changes. ‘Audrey’ Mbugua, is
what Andrew would rather be known and called.
For a society cultured to knowing that there are only
two genders; male or female, you can only guess its
reaction to a possibility of intra-gender mobility?
The paper also tries to see whether transgender will
suffer the same fate as lesbians, gay and bisexuals

4. Reactions
Reactions by most Kenyans in public, private and in
the social media in effect proved Jack Drescher and
Mary E. Barber right when they noted in their
research on transgender that people who live
“outside the box” of gender conformity face
rejection by their families and society. They also
face great risk of being marginalised, ostracized,
bullied, scapegoated and physically assaulted (Jack
Drescher, 2012).
Kenyans reactions to Mbugua’s assertion forms the
basis for this paper .

5. Definition of terms
Transgender
• A transgender person is one born with the mind and
soul of one gender and the body of another gender.
(Lite, 2011). Lite posits that transgender is often
described as being born in the ‘wrong body’.
Social issue
• Social issues encompass issues that a small to
representative group of people within a society
disagree with or find undesirable (Carroll, 2005).
• To be classified as a social issue a topic or issue must
both influence the society it is in, and be opposed by a
fair amount of individuals (Lite, 2011). The people
opposed to the issue need not be the majority of the
people

6. Society in denial?
Kenyans’ collective experiences, beliefs, values,
attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notion of
time, symbols (culture) have not included sex-related
identities like lesbianism, gay etc talk less of
transgender.
As expected, when Mbugua came out strongly to
demand rights to change gender change led to
cultural conflict.
Conflict in this context is defined as the process
which begins when one party (Mbugua or Kenyans)
perceives that the other has frustrated, or is about
to frustrate some concerns of his or hers
(Gudykunst, 2004).

7. The Theory in use for this project
As a theory, Culture conflict is based on the idea
that cultures (Kenyan culture for example) has
different values, beliefs and goals.
When these distinct perceptions of life and the
social structure that forms the Kenyan come face to
face with what appears as strange behavior or
norm, a clash against one another arises. Mbugua
claims his rights are being violated…while Kenyans,
especially parents do not want to envision a
situation where their own children in the house will
learn and borrow from Mbugua’s boldness. They
fear the ripple effect on condoning Mbugua’s
assertion

8. The issues at play
Mbugua was medically certified by the Medical Practitioners
and Dentist Board (MPDB) to suffer from Gender Identity
Disorders (GID).
The Psychology Today, a magazine of the Association of
American Psychologists define Gender identity disorder (GID)
or transsexualism as having a strong, persistent feelings of
identification with the opposite gender and discomfort with
one's own assigned sex.
People with GID desire to live as members of the opposite
sex and often dress and use mannerisms associated with the
other gender. For instance, a person identified as a boy may
feel and act like a girl. This is distinct from homosexuality in
that homosexuals nearly always identify with their apparent
sex or gender.

9. Keep to your biological sex
Judith Lorber calls aphorism ---“Women are
women and men are men” (Lorber, 1990), the
Kenya government refused to change her
governmental identification documents, insisting
that she is still legally male (based on biological
features) and the change can only occur if there
was a complete sex change (by miracle or surgery)

10. Conclusion
While Mbugua can now boast of two victories in
the court of law (to register an NGO for the
transgender advocacy and right to change names),
it will however be a different ball game to win over
the Kenyan society.
‘She’ has to learn and take into consideration the
values of the society she lives in and then work out
‘her’ advocacy around those values. ‘She’ has to
learn not just the issues around transgender (as she
is doing currently) but the societal values as well.
Mbugua’s real challenge is getting Kenyans on ‘her’
side.

11. Thank you