By Francis Ewherido
Sunday, June 21, 2015, is Father’s Day, a very important day in the lives of Americans. It is a day set aside to honour fathers and celebrate fatherhood. But the children of Bruce Jenner will have no father to celebrate on that day, as many of you already know. Not that the children really care because they have been quite “supportive” since Jenner morphed into a “woman” now referred to as Caitlyn Jenner. Never mind that Caitlyn is still carrying Bruce’s male organs because, according to “her” Wikipedia page, “she has not undergone gender confirmation surgery (Changed his sex organs to a female’s via surgery).”

For the benefit of the few who might have missed the story, Bruce Jenner was the celebrated stepfather of the Kardashians, America celebrity family. In an April this year, Jenner came out as a transsexual woman saying “she had dealt with gender dysphoria (that phrase again) since her youth. She said that her life as a woman is primarily a matter of mental state and lifestyle… She said she has never been attracted to men and had exclusively been attracted to women before her transition, but currently identifies as asexual,” meaning that currently she is neither attracted to men nor women. Hmmm.

Caitlyn Jenner

This is American wonder only they probably understand. For 65 years, which is a better part of his life, he has been a male. Why metamorphose to a woman in the twilight of his life? I guess it is better late than never. Bruce Jenner was no ordinary man (Please pardon me for mixing up the tenses or pronouns; it is confusion-induced), he won an Olympic Gold Medal in decathlon, one of the most strenuous events in the Olympics, where you need to be strong and good in many sporting events. Among his fellow men, he was made of sterner stuff, yet mentally he “felt like a woman.” Bruce went through three wives (and probably many girlfriends) siring six children in the process, two from each wife. He probably loved sex as a man, yet mentally he “felt like a woman.” Bruce began physically transitioning in the 1980s with hormone replacement therapy, but quit after meeting and falling in love with Kris Kardashian (the mother of Kourtney, Kim, Kloe and Rob Kardashian; Kendall and Kylie, Jenner’s children) in the early 1990s. So he loved beautiful women enough to abandon his childhood dream of becoming a woman for over 20 years, yet he “has always felt mentally like a woman.” Hmmm!

Jenner has been getting support from all over America and Europe since the transition. He does not need and will scarcely get support from Africa, not that it matters. I respect his decisions. It is his body after all. It is the cultural imperialism and neocolonialism of the west that are getting to me. They decide how they want to live their lives, legalise same sex marriage, allow sex change, redefine marriage, family, man, woman and do many things to suit the “exigencies” of their society and it is okay. We make laws to suit our circumstances and they threaten us with sanctions and withdrawal of aid. Our local proverb says: “you do not look at life with another person’s eyes; you use your eyes,” meaning your perspective of life must be guided by your environment and circumstances. Let Europe and America live and they should let us live.

Expectedly not every American is sucked in by these new ways. Snoop Dogg called Jenner a “science project.” Dr. Paul McHugh a former psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, is convinced “that people like Jenner suffer from a mental disorder. What they need, he says, is treatment. He maintains that ‘the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken — it does not correspond with physical reality.”

Also Dr. William Donohue, president and chief executive officer of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, wrote: “Are transsexuals mentally ill? Until two years ago, the answer was yes. In the 3rd edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published in 1980, those who underwent sexual surgery were seen as suffering from a psychological disorder, often schizophrenia. When DSM-4 was published in 1994, they were also considered mentally ill. But when DSM-5 was published in 2013, they were no longer listed. Instead, it was determined that such persons suffer from ‘gender dysphoria,’ not ‘gender identity disorder’; the new term refers to an emotionally distressful condition. What changed, however, were mores, not science”. I can feel Donohue; we were taught in secondary school that pure science is immutable, only social science changes.

Bruce, sorry, Caitlyn Jenner’s stock has soared since her metamorphosis. She will receive this year’s Arthur Ashe Courage Award at ESPY Awards next month. The award, according to ESPN, is given to individuals “possessing strength in the face of adversity, courage in the face of peril and the willingness to stand up for their beliefs no matter what the cost.” There are television appearances and speaking engagements lined up, publishers are falling over themselves for the right to her memoir; there is a television series on the transition in the offing. Every corner she turns and everything she does or touches is now gold. It is all money, money and money, more fame and more visibility. Hmmm, curious, but I no go talk pass so. I have already said more than enough to get me in trouble with the law if I were in Canada where this article might be considered hateful, offensive and discriminatory. Don’t ask me what happened to freedom of speech and expression there.

Anyway, happy Father’s Day in advance to all fathers. To all whose fathers are still alive, please show love; take good care of them within your means. Do not allow them to die of poverty or curable ailments and then you buy a “three million naira” casket to bury them and invite the whole of humanity to the burial.