âSome 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 motherâs 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.
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âOf 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 unwantedâthis is the source of my strength. I have never questioned who I am.
âWhen 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.
âI wondered, years later, if my mother knew what would happen, in the way that only mothers know about their children. I donât 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 âmedical issueâ 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.
âI traveled the next morning to my see my maternal grandmother. This is the grandmother I am named after. It is our custom that when we are to embark on a long journey, we must seek the blessing of our living elders as well as our ancestors. My grandmother and I prayed together. I could feel the joy, anticipation, anxiety, and hopes of my family. I was carrying the dreams of our people.
âThe 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 genderâit became about race. It became about White people coming and telling us Africans what we were and what we were not based on our looksâthe 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.