Angel Maxine, who is known as Ghana’s first transgender musician, has spoken about the discrimination and exclusion she experiences in her home country of West Africa.
In an interview with the BBC, Maxine revealed that she has come to terms with and embraced her biological differences, standing firm in her self-acceptance despite societal pressures.
She revealed that she exhibited feminine characteristics from the moment of her birth, causing confusion among medical professionals about her gender, despite being born with male genitalia.
Maxine shared,
“Even right at the hospital, they couldn’t tell my gender. They will be like, is this a male or this is female? They have to unwrap me and take me all around for them to see that oh, this one has a penis oo! I always felt like I was living somebody else’s life. Kojo Besia… Obaaberima… It got to some point I owned it. So when you call me Kojo Besia, Obaa Berima, I’m like, ‘hello, hi’. I just owned it. I am popularly known as Angel Maxine, and I’m Ghana’s first openly transgender musician.”
She also emphasized that the LGBTQ movement is not a foreign concept and that her identity has been intrinsic from a young age. Maxine added,
“Angel didn’t go and pick anybody’s lifestyle or anybody’s culture. I was effeminate from birth. Even though I had backlashes from family and other people, I was like, I was really tired, and this is me. So I started doing my music openly, wearing my short pants, my Santiago boots and all that. And that was where I really saw myself like, Hey, this is me. This is the beautiful picture I’ve always been seeing, and this is what I want to show outside.”