Despite the topic of my final paper ultimately focusing on intersex movements in South Africa, I felt it was important to provide myself with background on intersex rights and intersex struggles across Africa, a continent that I had not done any meaningful research into before this paper.
Swarr (2023) starts the chapter with a quote:
We exist to amplify the voices of African Intersex people at the regional level. We
African Intersex Movement, statement on
offer ourselves as the African Intersex reference of intelligence for stakeholders and
allies who are interested in strengthening the ongoing liberation work for intersex
peoples’ rights and autonomy. We affirm that intersex people are real, and we exist
in all countries of Africa. As intersex people in Africa, we live in a society that per-
petuates violence and killings of intersex people by cultural, religious, traditional
and medical beliefs and practices.
July 3, 2019
This quote provides the foundation for the rest of the chapter, laying the groundwork for the explanations to come.
The African Intersex Movement finds its roots in the work of a few in the 1990s and the brave voices who spoke up in a time where it was dangerous to do so. This movement spread across Africa and addresses head-on the difficulties faced by African Intersex people, no matter the country. This is a truly continent-wide movement, operating through transnational and international means, an organized force for a continent.
This movement finally gained attention on the world stage when Caster Semenya was barred from competing in the Olympics because of the levels of testosterone she was found to have due to her own physiology. The test also brought to the world stage the way in which sex testing such as this has been dehumanizing African women and discrediting their identities and womanhood, regardless of if they are intersex or not. Let me be very clear, intersex women are women, just as they can be any other gender. Being intersex does not determine a person’s gender.
Sally Gross was an early intersex organizer and founded the organization Intersex South Africa, one of two organizations that have been making waves in normalizing and spreading awareness for intersex alongside Iranti. She was a pioneer in South African intersex rights, helping make the way for the 2005 amendment that defined intersex in the South African constitution and included that definition in the category of legally protected sex.
Reference:
Swarr, Amanda Lock. 2023. “Toward an ‘African Intersex Reference of Intelligence’: Directions in Intersex Organizing.” Pp. 132-155. Envisioning African Intersex: Challenging Colonial and Racist Legacies in South African Medicine