{"id":2115,"date":"2009-12-10T13:29:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-10T13:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/transintersexhistory.africa\/?p=2115"},"modified":"2026-05-20T13:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T11:39:10","slug":"arrest-of-auntie-tiwonge-and-steven-monjeza-malawi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/transintersexhistory.africa\/arrest-of-auntie-tiwonge-and-steven-monjeza-malawi\/","title":{"rendered":"December 2009 \u2014 Arrest of Auntie Tiwonge and Steven Monjeza, Malawi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Auntie Tiwonge and Steven Monjeza celebrated their relationship at Auntie\u2019s place of work in December 2009. Various mainstream media in Malawi published announcements of the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/mg.co.za\/article\/2009-12-28-men-wed-in-malawis-first-gay-ceremony\/\">first gay marriage<\/a>\u201d in Malawi, which was wrongly reported, as Auntie Tiwonge was a trans feminine woman*, and the couple saw themselves as a cisgender heterosexual couple. This media attention alerted the authorities and Auntie and Steven were arrested on charges of gross indecency. <em>Gender DynamiX (GDX)<\/em> developed a media drive that highlighted to various local and international media that this was not a \u201cgay wedding\u201d, as Auntie <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/news\/2014\/nov\/27\/-sp-transgender-relationship-jail-exile-tiwonge-chimbalanga\">identified as a woman<\/a>*. <em>The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC)<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/outrightinternational.org\/OutRight\"><\/a>now known as <a href=\"https:\/\/outrightinternational.org\/OutRight\"><em>OutRight International<\/em><\/a>, the <em><a href=\"https:\/\/osisa.org\/\">Open Society Initiative for\u00a0 Southern Africa (OSISA)<\/a><\/em>,\u00a0 <em>Amnesty International<\/em>, and many other organisations, both in Africa and internationally, advocated on the couple\u2019s behalf and wrote letters to the Malawian government to drop the charges*. The charges were not dropped, however, and Auntie and Steven were arrested and eventually <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/10121618\">sentenced to 14 years of hard labour<\/a> in 2010. <a href=\"https:\/\/transintersexhistory.africa\/auntie-tiwonge-and-steven-monjeza-sentenced-then-pardoned-malawi\/\">They were pardoned<\/a> in that same year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">* This article acknowledges Auntie as a [trans feminine] woman, even though at the time the language did not exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The video below shows a demonstration in Cape Town, in front of the Department of Home Affairs, appealing to the South African Government to accept them as refugees, for their own safety.\u00a0Video credit: Robert Hamblin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Protest - Cape Town. Conviction of Malawi &quot;gay&quot; couple\" width=\"1290\" height=\"968\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Y9d2kXHYnJk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Auntie Tiwonge and Steven Monjeza celebrated their relationship at Auntie\u2019s place of work in December 2009. Various mainstream media in Malawi published announcements of the \u201cfirst gay marriage\u201d in Malawi, which was wrongly reported, as Auntie Tiwonge was a trans feminine woman*, and the couple saw themselves as a cisgender heterosexual couple. This media attention [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7137,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[335,39,41,32],"tags":[169,85,170],"class_list":["post-2115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all","category-community","category-legislation","category-trans","tag-auntie-tiwonge","tag-malawi","tag-steven-monjeza"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/transintersexhistory.africa\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/transintersexhistory.africa\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/transintersexhistory.africa\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transintersexhistory.africa\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transintersexhistory.africa\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2115"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/transintersexhistory.africa\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7136,"href":"https:\/\/transintersexhistory.africa\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2115\/revisions\/7136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transintersexhistory.africa\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/transintersexhistory.africa\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transintersexhistory.africa\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transintersexhistory.africa\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}