By: Kefuoe Phate
Maseru, May. 27— A Senate proposal requiring medical doctors to validate LGBTQIA+ identities has ignited a reckoning in courtrooms, living rooms, and history books over who has the right to define who we are.
Madondo “Donddy” Jane walks through the streets of Maseru with the ease of someone who has long made peace with being looked at.
At 39 now, Madondo was born male but moves through the world in a way that surprises those who expect otherwise. The stares come daily, at the market, on the taxi rank, outside the shops. Some are merely curious. Others are not, Madondo has learned to read the difference.
“Biologically I am male, but today everyone gets surprised because they see a woman,” Madondo says, smiling. “People question, and there is always attention.”
Rather than shrink from it, Madondo treats every stare as an opening, an opportunity, they say, to make people aware. “You cannot come to me and tell me to change, you cannot come to us and try to correct us, we are going to make everybody aware that we exist, and that we also need support, we are here, we are not going anywhere.”
But beneath the smile lies years of pain that most passersby cannot see, a father who abused them through childhood, years of silence between them, a body that society could not accept, and now, a new threat from the highest chambers of government.
Lesotho’s Senate has been debating whether medical doctors should be required to validate the gender identities of LGBTQIA+ people before society recognises
them. For Madondo, the proposal is not abstract, it lands precisely where they live.
“Motho ea reng boleng ba rona bo netefatsoe ke lingaka, eena o tsebella bo straight ba hae kae?” Madondo asks, switching to Sesotho, frustration breaking through the calm. Someone says our worth must be validated by doctors, where did they validate their own straightness?
It is a simple question and in it lies the heart of a debate that has consumed this small mountain kingdom, exposing rifts between tradition and modernity, law and lived experience, and a government at war with itself over who gets to decide who we are.
Principal Chief Sempe Masupha said the growing number of people changing their gender identity is causing confusion in society. He said doctors should confirm such changes because they have the medical knowledge to guide these decisions.
He also said that while some people are born with conditions that do not match typical male or female characteristics, such cases are uncommon and should be handled by medical professionals.
PC Peete Lesaoana Peete echoed the concern. LGBTQIA+ identities are complex, he said, and community leaders are struggling to navigate uncharted territory. Within Lesotho’s predominantly Christian context, where scripture draws clear lines between male and female, the discussion becomes even more fraught.
Yet not all voices in the chamber called for medical gatekeeping. PC Lerotholi Seeiso and Bereng Api urged restraint and deeper understanding. These matters are challenging, they acknowledged, but deserve thoughtful consideration rather than rushed solutions. Societal norms are shifting, and leaders must adapt with care.
When Senators call LGBTQIA+ identity “unnatural” and alien to Basotho tradition, history tells a very different story, one that has been deliberately suppressed.
Long before colonial missionaries arrived, the Basotho had a tradition of young men known as ‘’boukonchana or inkotshane’’, individuals who dressed as women, performed chores associated with women, and formed recognised relationships with older partners called numa.
By 1941, boukonchana relationships, public cross-dressing, and same-sex marriage ceremonies were commonplace in Lesotho. In 1914, colonial officials tried to stop these practices, but to no avail.
Women too had their own tradition. ‘’Motsoalle’’ was a committed long-term bond between two women, with various levels of physical intimacy, a deeply Basotho institution that predates any foreign influence (‘’boukonchana or inkotshane’’ – Search).
In recent years, officials have tried to suppress and censor discussions of these traditions. Nowadays, there is widespread denial that these practices ever occurred. The irony is devastating, the identities being debated as “unnatural” in the Senate chamber are, in fact, part of Lesotho’s own heritage. The denial, not the identity, is the colonial import.
Mr. Malefetsane Liau, founder of Lekhotla la Mekhoa le Meetlo, sees the debate through the lens of culture and, while one would think that the one man who embraces culture will resist this, he instead finds himself advocating for acceptance rather than resistance. His response is not to double down on exclusion, but to extend the same grace Basotho have always shown to those born in unusual circumstances.
“We have many children born with disabilities, often due to improper observance of cultural practices, sicknesses, abortions and many other circumstances. Yet we still accept them as part of our communities. In the same way, let us accept these individuals too, they are part of us,” he said.
The historical record of boukonchana and motsoalle traditions strengthens his case. Acceptance is not new to Basotho culture. It was here long before anyone asked the Senate to vote on it.
While the Senate debates medical validation of gender identity, Lesotho’s own Constitution already provides fundamental protections that cut against the proposal.
Section 4 of the 1993 Constitution guarantees that every person in Lesotho is entitled to fundamental human rights and freedoms, including freedom from discrimination and the right to equality before the law.
Section 18 goes further, prohibiting any law that is discriminatory in itself or in its effect, defining discrimination broadly across race, sex, religion, and “other status” a phrase legal experts note could encompass sexual orientation and gender identity.
Section 19 reinforces this plainly. Section 26 mandates that the state take active measures to promote equality of opportunity for disadvantaged groups.
The country’s top judge has taken notice. Chief Justice Sakoane Sakoane publicly called for the cultivation of an LGBTIQ-sensitive culture, acknowledging that the LGBTIQ community factually exists as part of Lesotho’s society.
He noted that while there is no local jurisprudence yet on what these rights mean, the Constitution guarantees two important protections, the right to respect for private and family life, and freedom from discrimination. The Senate’s proposal sits in direct tension with these guarantees.
The tension deepens when examined closely, Advocate Napo Mafaesa, a legal expert on constitutional matters, offers a different reading of the same document. He argues that the Constitution of Lesotho recognises only two genders, male and female in a biological sense under Section 18. Recognising a third category would require not just interpretation, but new legislation.
“The question remains, is the government ready to provide for that?” he asked, raising practical concerns about identification documents, national databases, and existing gender statistics that account only for male and female. Changing that architecture, he noted, would affect every record in the system.
The law as it currently stands leaves most LGBTQIA+ Basotho without a clear or accessible path to having their identity reflected in official records. The Registration of Births and Deaths Act of 1973 contains a narrow provision Article 22 permitting alteration of a child’s recorded sex when it has changed and is medically certified, but only in limited circumstances, and only upon application by a parent or guardian. It was not designed with adult recognition of gender identity in mind.
The Ministry of Home Affairs Public Relations Officer Mrs. Marelebohile Mothibeli says broader provisions do exist that anyone may change their gender marker provided they have gone through the legal procedures and been found eligible.
But advocates say that in practice, those procedures are so cloudy and inaccessible that they might as well not exist. To date, not a single person in Lesotho has successfully changed their gender marker, a fact the Ministry’s own spokesperson confirmed.
“We are advocating for a change to this section,” said Tampose Mothopeng, activist and Executive Director at People’s Matrix. “Upon reaching adulthood, a person should be able to change their gender through bodily autonomy. It should not depend solely on parents, because sometimes parents may push their own agendas.”
This is the legal landscape in which Madondo walks those streets. Every official document they carry says one thing. Their life says another. And the law, so far, has offered no bridge between the two.
The Senate’s move toward greater restriction is made even more striking by a simultaneous development on the opposite side of government.
The Labour Code of 2024, Lesotho’s newest and most progressive employment law, explicitly bans discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation. It also prohibits violence, harassment, and sexual harassment based on gender identity. Until 2024, no such workplace protections existed anywhere in Lesotho’s statute books.
The contradiction is glaring. On one side, a new law extends dignity and protection to LGBTQIA+ workers. On the other, the Senate moves to make those same individuals prove their identity is medically valid before society will recognise them. Lesotho’s government is simultaneously extending a hand and building a wall and its LGBTQIA+ citizens are standing at the point where both meet.
The legislative contradiction plays out against an even starker backdrop, Lesotho has no laws specifically protecting LGBTQIA+ individuals from discrimination or violence.
There is no law criminalising discrimination against LGBTQIA+ people. No hate crime legislation. No specific legal protection for those targeted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
A joint stakeholder report submitted to the United Nations Universal Periodic Review in October 2024 confirmed this, finding that Lesotho fails to adequately prevent violence, harassment, and discrimination against people based on their sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.
The consequences are not theoretical. They are lived daily in schoolyards, in homes, in the gap where a police docket should be.
The mental health toll of this environment is measurable. Research shows that a significant proportion of gender non-conforming people in Lesotho show signs of depression and moderate to severe anxiety. These are not abstract statistics, they are the measurable cost of stigma, rejection, and a society that has not yet decided whether to protect its own.
The crisis intersects with Lesotho’s most urgent public health challenge. Lesotho already has among the highest HIV prevalence in the world, at an estimated 23.6% of adults. Within the LGBTQIA+ community, barriers to healthcare driven by stigma and fear push that figure even higher, making this one of the hardest populations to reach and the most urgently in need of support.
This is what the debate over medical gatekeeping really means in practice, when LGBTQIA+ identity must be “validated” before it is recognised, people hide and when people hide, they die.
Yet even here, in the shadow of that reality, there are signs of institutional movement. In April 2023, the International Commission of Jurists and People’s Matrix Association held a workshop with Lesotho’s judges and magistrates.
Participants discussed how to ensure equal access to justice for LGBTQIA+ people including how to interpret existing laws in line with international human rights obligations. The Senate may be debating gatekeeping. The courts are quietly being prepared for something different.
After a long and heated debate, the Senate reached a conclusion that surprised many observers: rather than immediately imposing medical validation requirements, the senators agreed they should first meet the LGBTQIA+ community directly.
Instead of doctors serving as gatekeepers, the Senate chose dialogue. The stated purpose is to get to know LGBTQIA+ people, understand them better, know how they feel, and learn how they wish to be addressed.
For activists like Mothopeng and community members like Bokang Edward Kurata, the decision is both a relief and a test. Medical gatekeeping has been postponed, at least for now. But the LGBTQIA+ community must now engage directly with the very lawmakers who questioned their legitimacy.
The outcome raises new questions, Will these meetings lead to genuine understanding or merely delay inevitable conflict? Will senators approach the conversations with open minds or predetermined conclusions? Will LGBTQIA+ voices be truly heard, or will this become another performative exercise in consultation without action?
What is clear is that the debate has not ended. It has simply entered a new phase.
For Mothopeng, the Senate proposal is not just flawed, it is discriminatory. “Gender identity is not subject to medical approval,”they said. “It is not about how people see me, but about how I feel and how I portray myself.”
The irony, they noted, is that Lesotho has no clear framework for handling LGBTQIA+ identities. Calling for doctors to approve someone’s identity in the absence of any guidelines is contradictory at best, harmful at worst.
Still, there are glimmers of progress. The Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Labour have begun adjusting policies to be more inclusive. In schools, LGBTQIA+ students are finding warmer receptions from teachers and peers alike.
“We now feel more at ease,” Mothopeng said, “knowing that education and awareness are making a difference.”
Bokang Edward Kurata, who openly identifies as a gay man, describes the validation proposal as a direct violation of the constitutional rights to dignity, privacy, and bodily autonomy. He condemned it as outdated, unscientific, and deeply discriminatory.
“Gender identity and sexual orientation are lived human experiences,” Kurata said, “not laboratory outcomes that can be proven under a microscope or through physical examination.”
His mother, Mrs. Agostina Mantoa Kurata, knows this now, but it took a moment of crisis to get there. When she first learned her only son was gay, she wondered whether there was anything the family could do to change it. Then Bokang’s colleagues told her he had been contemplating suicide, because he felt unable to live freely as who he was.
“It saddens me that some LGBTQI people have taken their own lives because they were not accepted,” she said. Her son nearly reached that point. “Once I accepted him, everything became much easier.”
She urged other parents to try to understand. “This is nature,” she said. “There is nothing to blame them for.”
Mr. Tšepe Montsí sees potential value in professional involvement but only if it comes wrapped in care, not coercion. As a parent navigating questions he never expected to face, he says some counselling or guidance could help families make informed decisions. “But it must not feel like the government is forcing us to take our children for examination as if they are sick.”
Mrs. Masingoaneng Mapetla worries about the rush itself. Children are still discovering themselves, she says. Some go through phases, some grow steadily into an identity they have always carried. Forcing labels or medical processes too early risks confusing them further or worse, pushing them into hiding and shame. “Our job is to keep them safe,” she said, “not to rush them.”
Mr. Tumelo Molete, whose 10-year-old child was born male but naturally expresses femininity, has arrived at the same place through a different road.
“I will not lie, it was difficult for me to accept,” he said. “I grew up in a different time where things like this were never spoken about. But these are changing times, and how can I wake up and abandon my own blood?”
His child has come home from school in tears. Relatives have tried to “correct” the behaviour. But Mr. Molete’s priority is clear. “My duty is to protect my child’s spirit, not to break it.”
From the pulpit, Rev. Dr. Joseph Morenammele’s message is cautious but compassionate. Genesis Chapter 2 speaks of man and woman, he acknowledges, but saying this does not give the church license to dismiss how individuals feel. “Every person is God’s creation, made in His likeness, and carries an inherent desire to be loved and respected by the church.”
However, he mentioned that even though the church does not have the power to classify its congregation, it is clear of one thing, it cannot bless LGBTQI marriages.
At the market, Mrs. Makabelo Makhaba is more blunt, ”Who are we to tell another person they must be examined like they are sick? If someone feels they are a man or a woman, that is their business. We should respect that.” She calls the medical validation proposal “total discrimination and humiliation.”
Mrs. Mamonare Moeletsi draws a careful distinction, one that gets to the heart of why the medical validation debate is so difficult to resolve.She references the case of Caster Semenya, the South African middle-distance runner who spent her career competing as a woman and presenting as a woman, only to face years of scrutiny over whether her naturally elevated testosterone levels gave her an unfair physical advantage over other female competitors.
World Athletics ultimately ruled that Semenya must medically suppress her testosterone to compete in certain events. She refused, and stepped back from international athletics rather than alter her body to satisfy a governing body’s definition of female.
The Semenya case became one of the most contested intersections of biology, identity, and institutional power in recent sporting history and it is not lost on ordinary Basotho.
“If we were saying there is a scientific reason to do that, like in sports where one becomes more active over others, then I would understand the need to validate them,” Mrs. Moeletsi said. “To see if they are not a woman by physical appearance, but their genes and hormones say something different.”
But sport, she argues, is a special case. It has rules, competitive fairness, and measurable physical stakes. Everyday life does not.
“That is sports, with rules and fairness at stake. In everyday life, why should someone need a doctor’s permission to be who they feel they are? It makes no sense.”
The distinction matters. The Semenya case shows that medical and biological examination of gender is not always without purpose in specific, regulated contexts, questions of physiology can have real consequences for others. But it also shows the cost, a woman who lived her whole life as a woman was made to prove, repeatedly and publicly, that she was woman enough. The scrutiny did not protect anyone. It only diminished her.
Proponents of Lesotho’s medical validation proposal point to cases like Semenya’s as evidence that biology and identity are not always aligned, and that society sometimes needs clarity. Critics counter that Semenya’s ordeal is precisely the warning, not the model, a demonstration of what happens when institutions are given the power to adjudicate identity, and what that power costs the person subjected to it.
Dr. Thuto Tsóoana, a medical doctor at Queen Mamohato Memorial Hospital (QMMH), approaches the question from a clinical perspective and arrives at a decidedly human conclusion. Gender identity, he explains, is a person’s internal sense of self. It forms in early childhood and stabilises by adolescence, though it varies widely. Biology alone does not explain it. Researchers have explored prenatal hormones, genetics, and brain development, yet no single marker offers clear answers.
“Science is still developing,” he said. “What matters most is approaching the topic with respect, understanding, and ethical care.”
Dr. Calvin Motebang, a counselor, is one of the few voices in this debate willing to hold two things at once. If conducted by qualified experts who support rather than stigmatise, he argues, professional assessment could help individuals gain acceptance without persistent doubt from those around them. It could give families a language for what they are experiencing, and provide communities with a framework they currently lack.
But he is quick to add that LGBTQIA+ experiences are more complex than even well-meaning professionals often assume. Some people are born feeling aligned with a gender different from their assigned sex. Others are shaped by psychological, physiological, or spiritual factors that resist easy categorisation. “Some aspects cannot be scientifically verified,” he said.
His message to LGBTQIA+ individuals caught in the middle of a debate being conducted largely without them, do not feel discouraged. View this moment as an opportunity to step out of stigma rather than deeper into it. “Times have changed,” he said, “and society may need to adapt to these evolving realities.”
And then there is Madondo’s story, which ends for now not in a Senate chamber or a courtroom, but at a kitchen table.
“My father abused me for a very long time, from my childhood until the time when I had to be firm about my identity,” Madondo recalls. “My father and I took years not talking to each other because he wanted me to be a man, and I was never a man.”
On the Senate’s medical validation proposal, Madondo offers something unexpected: a complicated hope. “Medical validation requires doctors with high expertise coupled with high quality machines that will be able to detect chromosomes together with hormones, which I doubt Lesotho has, or will have anytime soon.” And yet “I believe that would somehow help us to eliminate this discrimination. Maybe people would start realizing that how we portray ourselves is not by choice, but a natural feeling.”
The hope that medical proof might end discrimination comes directly from that lived experience of rejection. If only science could have explained to a father what his child could not. “If only he could have learned and listened to me when I told him. “He did not, not then, but he does now.
It is only in recent years that Madondo’s father has accepted them. Their relationship is slowly being rebuilt not through any doctor’s certificate, not through any Senate resolution, but through time, persistence, and Madondo’s refusal to disappear.
“I wish people could take their time to understand us, before judging us,” Madondo says quietly.
It is a simple request and in a country where LGBTQIA+ people can be killed and their killers walk free, where constitutional protections exist on paper but not always in practice, where depression and anxiety run quietly through a community that cannot yet safely ask for help, it is also a radical one.
Can Lesotho protect its LGBTQIA+ citizens? Madondo walks out into the street, and people turn to look. The smile is still there.
They are not going anywhere.
Ends.
