Kenyan ‘international female athlete’ now claims to be transgender
Shieys Chepkosgei is now claiming to be transgender and is demanding to be treated in special way while in custody.
She hit the headline last week when police officers at Eldoret West police station found out she possessed men’s physical features while in custody despite claiming she was a woman.
Police claimed the suspect in an international athlete. Nairobi News is yet to verify the claim.
An athlete with a similar name was in 2017 sanctioned by the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya (Adak) for using banned performance enhancing substances.
Chepkosgei has been charged with impersonating a female nurse at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital.
The case took a new twist on Thursday when she filed a petition at the Eldoret High Court demanding to know where she is supposed to be detained as a transgender person.
INTERPRETATION OF LAW
In the petition, she wants the court to give an interpretation of the law on the kind of cells where transgender people are supposed to be detained either in police cell or prison cell.
Through her lawyer Chepkosgei say, prison warders at Eldoret women prison infringed on her rights as a transgender person by isolating her from female cells at the facility on allegations that she was a man and not a woman.
Chepkosgei who is represented by lawyer Colbert Ojiambo feels that her right to belong to a gender of her choice was violated when she was subjected to a medical test to determine her gender without her consent at MTRH.
“It is my right to associate myself with gender of my choice and nobody should force me to confess to belong to the gender that I am not comfortable with,” she said in the petition.
HOSPITAL REPORT
Following the issues that she raised in the petition Eldoret chief Magistrate Charles Obulutsa directed investigating officer Victor Odhiambo who was to present in the court a hospital report showing the gender and identity of the accused person.
“Following emerging issues on this matter I direct the investigating officer to hold hospital report on the gender identity of the accused and other reports in relations to his identity until July 4 after high court ruling on issues of custody of transgender people,” ordered the Magistrate
The high court petition will be heard on July 1.
She was joined in court by Audrey Mbugua, who is the chairperson of Transgender, Education and Advocacy, an organization that champions for the rights of transgender people in Kenya.
“Everybody has a right to choose the gender he or she want to belong to, it is wrong to force someone to belong to gender that is not of his or her choice,” said Ms Mbugua who spoke outside the court after the hearing.