Before this encounter, I have always known they exist but as hermaphrodites. I also read a mythology wherein it was alleged that God created the first living being with both gender and after a party organized by one of the gods, during alcohol induced rage of jealousy, the entity was split into two, male and female.
According this legend, it is only at intercourse that both male and female fuss into one as was the original at creation and this fusion results in creation of new life.
It further explains why both gender are in perpetual war of who is dominant.
With this legend at the back of my mind, I kept finding it difficult to understand or rationalize homosexuality. But with the assaults via well funded advocacy by Gay-Rainbow coalitions, I like most people, are beginning to lower guards.
Unlike homosexual, hermaphrodite is an organism, any entity that has the capacity to self reproduce with intercourse with any other being.
But I also erroneously thought that hermaphrodite are those organisms, humans, that have both male and female organs in their private part region.
My orientation changed on 17th February, when I was invited by Comrade Marjorie, Cordinator Imo Peoples Action For Democracy (IPAD), to a workshop at a hotel in Abuja organized by Intersex Nigeria.
It was a close circuit meeting to create awareness.
I was obliged an interview by Obioma Chukwuike, Executive Director, Centre For Healthcare Development and Youth Empowerment.
The brief interview opened my eyes to the real nomenclature ie Intersex and not hermaphrodite. According to the ED, there are over 40 variations of intersex.
Intersex people according to Wikipedia, are individuals born with any of several sex characteristics including chromosomepatterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, “do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies”.
The ED taking me a tour of their website, highlighted the demands they want to achieve through advocacy, public enlightenment and engaging legislators both at Federal and State levels.
Some of these demands are;
To build intersex anti-discrimination legislation in addition to other grounds, and to ensure protection against intersectional discrimination.
To put an end to mutilating and ”normalizing” practices such as genital surgeries, psychological and other medical treatments through legislative and other means.
Intersex people must be empowered to make their own decisions affecting own bodily integrity, physical autonomy and self-determination.
To ensure that intersex people have the right to full information and access to their own medical records and history.
To depathologise variations in sex characteristics in medical guidelines, protocols and classifications, such as the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases.
To put an end to infanticide and killings of intersex people.
To put an end to non-consensual sterilization of intersex people.
