Articles by Leslie J

I Am Intersex – Shon Kloses’s Story

By on .

Shon Klose was born intersex. This is their story. There are a lot of people out there who are experiencing trauma and mental health issues because of the way they’ve been treated in a pathologised kind of way around their natural born bodies. When I was diagnosed I was wrong, my body was wrong, my…
Read more →

Dr Mika Venhola talks about Intersex

By on .

Mika Venhola is the Deputy Chief of the Oulu University Hospital, Department of Paediatrics and Adolescence. In this short piece to camera, Mika Venhola explains the current approach to treating intersex infants and adolescents, why it needs to change, and how to help parents understand an issue they have never heard of before the birth…
Read more →

Intersex in the Media

By on .

A lie can travel half way around the world before the truth can get it’s boots on. Trying to convey the realities of intersex lived experience to the media is a very tough gig. Intersex people still struggle with the legacy of decades of enforced silence about our situation. A silence that has at times…
Read more →

Intersex Visibility

By on .

The determined effort to erase intersex embodiment remains a fundamental abuse of people’s human rights, and a denial of a person’s right to live authentically. Intersex is a perfectly valid embodiment of being human. It should never be another’s right to define a person and enforce that decision through the medium of irreversible surgical and…
Read more →

Let Dutee Run!

By on .

Dutee Chand is a young Indian woman who dedicated her life to competing in elite athletics. Dutee became the national under-18 champion in the Women’s hundred metres event, in 2012, and was the first Indian to reach the finals at the World Youth Championships. Dutee went on, in 2013, to become the national champion in…
Read more →

A Nomenclatura of Life

By on .

Or, How we learn about ourselves from the names we are given by others “All my life, my heart has yearned for a thing I cannot name” ~ Andre Breton Words fascinate me. Well, that’s not quite accurate. Language fascinates me, which isn’t quite the same thing. I was born in Oxford, that city of…
Read more →