InterACT interviews

Spotlight

InterACT’s Intersex Spotlight Series: Alice Alvarez

The youth program of US organisation InterACT is sharing spotlight interviews of members for Intersex Awareness Day. The first member interview is with Alice Alvarez:

Now, more than ever, I feel strongly attached to the term “intersex.” I feel like when I first found out I was told and encouraged to ignore it and just think of myself as a typical female. Which was a form of denial. The doctors told me to keep it secret or else some people may make fun of me. Don’t tell anyone. Only my mom knew for a while, no one else in my family knew. Now that I understand myself I realize there is no shame or anything really that unusual about me. I want people to recognize that Intersex people exist and I am a living, breathing example. Otherwise, the world will never really recognize and embrace us as people who don’t need to be fixed.

Read the full interview

The second member interview is with Ali C:

Meet Ali C. She’s a 23-year old intersex girl (she/her/hers pronouns) who loves dancing of all types, painting, reading books, running, and the color green.

Were you directed towards any peer support once you found out?

No, my medical records emphasized “normal” gender development for a “little girl.” I didn’t think I would ever meet anyone with an intersex variation because it was presented as super rare and secretive.

Read the full interview

Ali von Klan and Axel Keating

Ali von Klan and Axel Keating of InterACT, interviewed by MTV


Kristina Marusic interviews Ali von Klan and Axel Keating of InterACT in this article for MTV.

Von Klan: I think it’s important to know that not every person who has an intersex variation identifies as intersex. They could identify as male or female as well — just ask questions, and try not to put people into a box or make assumptions about someone’s sexuality or gender identity just because they reveal that their biological sex is intersex. Appreciate that there’s a wide range of human experiences and human bodies.

Here’s Ali via The Interface Project

Keating: I had never heard about this growing up — no one had ever talked about this. So that summer I went back home and talked to my mom about it. I asked her, “Have you ever heard of this thing? Have you ever heard of intersex people? Have you ever heard of this intersex variation?” And she said she had never heard of it before.

But then I started using more vague language like, ’Have you ever heard of things like “differences of sex?”’ and finally after talking about it for a little while, she remembered that when I was born, the doctors weren’t really sure of my sex. And she started connecting the dots.

Here’s Axel on YouTube

 
Read the full article on the MTV website