Queer ‘Failed’ Childhood Innocence and Recollections of Child Sexual Agency in Tanzania

To examine first sexual experiences, this paper uses 103 interviews with male-born geis (transgender women and ‘in between’ gender persons) in Dar es Salaam, conducted in the years 2020–2022. Although some geis recalled being coerced or raped by male relatives or neighbors, some geis recalled instead that they had initiated first sexual encounters as children. This paper answers the questions: how did these geis recall these experiences and what does this mean for current theory? Rather than seeing themselves as sexually exploited minors, they recalled themselves as fully consenting agents, and recounted stories of seducing male adults when they were as young as nine. Their responses challenge the hegemonic concept of ‘childhood innocence’ as universal and broadens knowledge of ‘childhood’ as a social construction (Hopkins 2013:67; Alvares 2024 (EASA); Smith & Woodiwiss 2016). Geis described themselves as child sexual subjects in three senses: feelings of desire and pleasure that ran contrary to social expectations; self-choosing the man they wanted to be intimate with; and acting on their feelings of intimate desire (Achmat 1995). First sexual experiences were recalled as ‘not good’ if they had been forced, but geis were not of the opinion that it was wrong for adults persons to want to engage in sex with children, rather it was ‘not good’ if children had not reached the point as agents where they were ready, desired or had tacitly consented to have sex with that person and in that situation. This paper examines what these narratives of ‘failed’ child innocence say about the contingent or illusory nature of social structures within which children are expected to position themselves (Egan & Hawkes 2009; Robinson and Davies 2014). The paper also examines who were the adult partners in interviewee’s recollections of underage sexual encounters.