Nneka Mahote, 32, is excited about her evolving body. Her breasts, now a C-cup bra size, have grown fuller and her skin feels softer. Her hips, too, are beginning to take shape.
Over the past four years, she has been transitioning to a woman, undergoing hormone therapy with estrogen and anti-androgen medication to suppress masculine traits and promote more feminine characteristics.
She has also successfully changed her name and identifies as female on her official identity documents.
But now all of her progress hangs in the balance. It’s been nearly two months since the Nelson Mandela Bay clinic she was receiving treatment at, run by the Wits Reproductive Health & HIV Institute, shut down.
The Wits Trans Health Centre is one of several non-profit organisations that closed their doors in January after Donald Trump froze US foreign aid – putting an abrupt end to programmes supported by PEPFAR. Watch the video below.
