#zimbabwean

Fringe and headpiece of the week: #6

I was born intersex. It is a condition in which a child is born with reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn't seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male. I came to America seeking asylum because the condition made me a target in my country, where being associated with the LGBTQ community is illegal and could get you killed. There, people are bullied into remaining in the closet. They can never reveal their true identity, leading many to commit suicide or endure the endless pain and feeling of constant rejection.

After college, I moved South Africa, where I knew I could probably find a doctor who would understand. I did. He confirmed that I was intersex. That led me back to Zimbabwe, where I started running an organization for intersex and transgender people called True Identity. I wanted to join the fight for equality for people like me. At first, I started secret support groups because such advocacy was still illegal. I began receiving funding and tried to create a dialogue between the community and transgender and intersex people. I wanted to foster understanding and awareness. I wanted more people to see it as normal—because people like me are normal. That didn’t stop me from being physically and emotionally abused for doing that kind of work. Sometimes, the police would raid our offices. Sometimes, people would say: “You are an abomination to the culture. You are the reason we don’t get rain. You are a taboo.”

America didn’t welcome me; it didn’t even understand me. Americans don’t know what intersex means. That includes many within the LGBTQ community, the community where I was supposed to find empathy and love. And it includes the black community. Most of the intersex people I’ve met in America are white. Intersex people are not celebrated in communities of color. We are not represented on their platforms, in the media or anywhere else. It hurt even more after I found out about intersex infants here who are forced to undergo unwanted surgeries that violate their bodies. When those children grow up, they will have felt robbed, as though their body, their voice, was stolen from them before they could even speak.

As a black woman who is an intersex, immigrant asylum seeker, it feels as though America was built to silence me. Though I’m allowed to work now, the asylum process takes years and I can’t visit my parents until that is resolved. And I miss them dearly. But I have work to do here. Ignorance and hate and stigmatization will not stop me. I represent too many voiceless human beings who live with unbearable pain. I will persevere. I will use that pain to build beauty, to show others the struggle is worth it. I will keep speaking to remind other immigrants that they are not alone. I will keep speaking so that any woman, or any man, who society tells to be ashamed will know that nothing can ruin their spirit, that they can conquer the world.

Kudzanai-Violet Hwami

Dance of Many Hands, 2017

Oil and acrylic on canvas

220 x 170 cm