https://www.instagram.com/p/BPnoo-PDkCW/
Model Hanne Gaby Odiele revealed that she’s intersex in an interview with USA Today published on Monday, January 23.
“It is very important to me in my life right now to break the taboo,” the 28-year-old model from Kortrijk, Belgium, explained to the paper about her decision to come out. “At this point, in this day and age, it should be perfectly all right to talk about this.”
According to the Intersex Society of North America, intersex individuals are born with sex characteristics such as genitals or chromosomes that do not fit the typical definitions of male or female. According to the United Nations, up to 1.7% of the population is born with intersex traits and a majority of intersex kids undergo surgery without their consent.
The blonde, who also shared her story on Instagram on Monday, January 23, has teamed up with the non-profit organization, InterACT Advocates for Intersex Youth, with the hope that she can help raise awareness about being intersex.
“Today might be one of the most important days in my life, I’ve decide to announce with you all I’m #intersex, read my story in USA Today,” Odiele wrote in an Instagram caption. “I want to bring awareness and put to light the irreversible Unnecessary non consent surgeries we often go trough as kids.”
Odiele told USA Today that she’s “proud to be intersex,” but that she’s “very angry that these surgeries are still happening.”
The model shared that she was born with an intersex trait known as AIS (Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome) and with internal, undescended testes. According to Odiele, her parents were told that if she didn’t have surgery to remove them, she “might develop cancer and I would not develop as a normal, female girl.” She then underwent surgery at the age of 10 to have them removed. “I knew at one point after the surgery I could not have kids, I was not having my period. I knew something was wrong with me,” she shared with USA Today, revealing that she also had vaginal reconstructive surgery at the age of 18.
“It’s not that big of a deal being intersex,” she told the paper, wishing she knew then what she knows now. “If they were just honest from the beginning… It became a trauma because of what they did.”
Odiele is married to model John Swiatek, who tells USA Today that he’s proud of his wife for going public with her story. “I am very impressed with her decision to advocate for intersex children in order to give them an opportunity to make up their own minds about their bodies, unlike the lack of options and information Hanne and her family (and many others) were given,” Swiatek said.
“You can be whoever you want,” Odiele concluded to the paper. “It doesn’t matter.”
