“Of course, growing up I knew I looked and behaved differently from many of my peers, but my family, my community, and my country accepted me as I was and never made me feel like an outsider. The beauty of my childhood was that I never felt othered or unwanted—this is the source of my strength. I have never questioned who I am.

“I wondered, years later, if my mother knew what would happen, in the way that only mothers know about their children. I don’t mean that she knew what would happen, exactly. My parents, such as they were, what knowledge they had about the world, could never imagine it. How the world would consume me, how perfect strangers would treat my body like a science experiment. They had no idea that whatever was going on with me was a “medical issue” to the outside world, or that what should have been my private business would be used to continue a public conversation about gender and biological sex that the world had been having for thousands of years.

“In the moments of darkness that were to come, I remembered his words. If someone like him could survive and overcome twenty-seven years in prison and become a symbol of love and freedom to our people—why couldn’t I endure this? What I was going through seemed like a small thing compared to what he had survived. Compared to all those who had died during South Africa’s struggle for independence and democracy.

“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.

“The gender issue became a difficult one for the politicians in my country. Everyone seemed to support me and my right to run. They saw in me an innocent Black child caught in a terrible situation. For us, it became about more than gender—it became about race. It became about White people coming and telling us Africans what we were and what we were not based on our looks—the same categorizations and violations of human rights that were happening during apartheid. I became a symbol of how Black people have been violated and exploited throughout history.