Belgian model and street style star Hanne Gaby Odiele has just revealed she is intersex, making history as the first high profile figure to do so on a public platform.
In an interview with USA Today, the model, who has worked with the likes of Alexander Wang, Marc Jacobs and Dior, explained that she was born with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, which means that she had XY chromosomes (typically found in men) and was born with undescended testes. After her parents were warned by doctors that this could cause cancer and wouldn’t let Hanne develop as ‘a normal female girl,’ she underwent surgery aged just 10, without being told why. She later had vaginal reconstructive surgery aged 18.
‘It is very important to me in my life right now to break the taboo. At this point, in this day and age, it should be perfectly all right to talk about this,’ she told USA Today. ‘I am proud to be intersex, but very angry that these surgeries are still happening.’
Activists argue that there is little data to confirm that undescended testes can cause cancer later in life, and surgeries can have permanent side effects, including infertility. Sue Stred, paediatrics professor at SUNY Upstate Medical University, says that the threat of cancer has been ‘vastly overwrought.’
The model hopes that by speaking up about her medical history, fewer children will have to undergo potentially unnecessary surgeries before they are able to fully consent to the process.
It’s thought that around 1.7 percent of the world’s population are born intersex – that’s about as many as those born with red hair.
Hanne Gaby will be teaming up with interACT Advocates for Intersex Youth to campaign against childhood surgeries and raise awareness, explaining, ‘It’s not that big of a deal being intersex. If they were just honest form the beginning […] It became a trauma because of what they did.’
‘You can be whoever you want,’ she adds. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
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