OK, It’s Time to Talk Difference: The Stigma of Intersex with Sean Saifa Wall

Sean Saifa Wall (he/him/his) is a Black queer intersex activist and rising scholar. Born and raised in the Bronx, Saifa attended Williams College and has since lived and worked in New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Atlanta, Georgia. Currently, he is a Marie Skolowdska-Curie fellow at the University of Huddersfield in England examining the erasure of intersex people from social policy in Ireland and England. As an activist, Saifa is committed to racial equity and a radical vision of bodily autonomy for people with intersex variations. He is co-founder of the Intersex Justice Project whose #EndIntersexSurgery campaign pressured Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago to become the first children’s hospital in the United States to denounce and further investigate genital surgeries on Intersex infants. Above all else, Saifa is determined to end harmful and invasive genital surgery on intersex children and advocate for affirming healthcare for all people with intersex variations.

About this episode:

Sean Saifa Wall was diagnosed with partial androgen insensitivity syndrome, subjected to a gonadectomy at age 13, and necessitating lifelong hormone replacement therapy. As a teenager, Sean Saifa Wall was told that he was to live as a “girl”, however, conformity wasn’t something Saifa or his mother would allow. Now a thirty-year old man, Saifa explains the devastating surgeries performed on babies and young people to medically assign and “correct” people born with an intersex variation. With global recognition as an Intersex activist, Saifa explains why different bodies are beautiful bodies, how we can safely hold the conversations that matter, and why stigma needs to end with “assuming gender”.

In this episode, Ally and Saifa discuss:

• Understanding intersex physically, emotionally, mentally and societally?
• Breaking down body parts and the differences we know
• Is it OK to ask about a person’s genitalia?
• What is social etiquette when your body doesn’t have a drop-down menu?
• Tackling the taboo about bodies: fixed, broken, or perfect?
• Talking pronouns and how they’ve evolved

You can find Saifa on Instagram @saifaemerges @intersexjusticproject

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