The Race To Be Myself

“For those who are born different and feel they don’t belong in this world, it is because you were brought here to help create a new one.

“When I can no longer run, either because of time or more regulations targeting people like me, you will still see me on the track supporting the coming generations. I am a proud South African woman born in a tiny village to people who loved me. They have survived more humiliations than I could possibly know. It is from them that I know about maintaining dignity in the face of oppression. It is my hope that by telling my truth, I inspire others to be unafraid, to love and accept themselves. May this story contribute to a more tolerant world for us all.

“They learned to respect me because I respected myself. I was fair, I minded my business, and I could play well. I’m still friends with many of those boys today, all now men with families of their own. What I started realizing even from my young days is that people treat you the way you treat yourself. I never hid or felt ashamed to look and act the way I did. If you gave me something sour to taste, I gave it right back.

“When you were with Seme, you were the only person who mattered, and he could make an entire group of athletes feel like this.

“Some of the calls were congratulations from family and friends, but many of the calls were from journalists and other media personalities. They all wanted to know if I was really born a girl. I can only imagine what my mother’s heart was feeling in those moments. This woman who had given birth to me and changed my nappies and taught me so much about kindness, and humility, and strength.