“I’m driven by my desire for the liberation and dignity of all the communities that I care about— the dignity of Black people; the dignity of queer people; the dignity of intersex people; the dignity of all marginalized people,”
“My desire for intersex liberation is totally intwined with Black liberation. They cannot be teased apart”
“I draw a very distinct parallel between how the medical community has inflicted violence on intersex people by violating their bodily integrity, and how state violence violates the bodily integrity of Black people”
After college, he came out as transgender and began testosterone therapy. He said his experience trying to navigate the gender binary around that time helped push him toward a career in activism.
“When I started taking T [testosterone], I wanted to pass — I wanted to be binary,” he said. “I came to realize the limitations of my body simply because of the intersex trait that I have, and I knew that in order to create a world in which I want to exist, it was required for me to step out as an intersex activist.”
For Wall, the institutionalized enforcement of the gender binary is just another example of the oppressive systems of power he studied as a history major at the College. “History is told from the perspective of the victors,” he said. “I saw again and again that the people who are most marginalized are overwritten.”
With that in mind, Wall said he hopes to shed light on the struggles of intersex people everywhere by sharing his own story. He said he has given a lot of thought to the importance of personal stories as tools of activism.
“At birth, a narrative for my life was prescribed for me without my consent,” he said. “Doctors tried to write a narrative on my body, and it’s a narrative that they write for a lot of intersex people. For me, it’s important to tell my truth: the truth of what happened to my body, and the truth of what happens to so many people.”
“I’m driven by my desire for the liberation and dignity of all the communities that I care about— the dignity of Black people; the dignity of queer people; the dignity of intersex people; the dignity of all marginalized people,” he said.
“I think I will do this work as long as I live,” he said. “I am committed to a vision where there will be an end to medically unnecessary intersex surgeries in the United States. It’s going to take time to get there, but I’m willing to go as far as I need to go in order to achieve that, while building the capacity of activists to continue that work.”
Activist Sean Saifa Wall is an unapologetic Black voice in the intersex community. The 38-year-old was born with androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS), one of a variety of intersex conditions in which a person is not distinctively male or female. He said his activism is fueled by anger and love.
“Anger at what was done to my body without my thorough informed consent, and love for what remains of my body and to protect a future generation from those violations,” he told NBC OUT.
The advocate speaks out against surgeries on intersex children, commonly performed to remove their reproductive organs or alter their genitalia to make them look more distinctively male or female. It’s something Wall has experienced first hand.
“I draw a very distinct parallel between how the medical community has inflicted violence on intersex people by violating their bodily integrity, and how state violence violates the bodily integrity of Black people,” he said.
“I think I’m a survivor of medicalized violence. I think I’m a survivor of state violence, because my dad went to prison,” he said.
While Wall was dealing with the trauma of his father’s death, he was also dealing with a sense of dysphoria over her gender identity. “Woman” just wasn’t an identity that felt right to him. Years later, when he was in college, he looked up “testicular feminization syndrome” online and began learning about AIS, which he didn’t even know he had. He realized the “gonads” described in his medical records were actually male testes.
“I really just started to put things together,” said Wall. “All of my visits to the doctor, what happened when I was 13, all of it started coming together to make sense. And I think that’s when I was just really overwhelmed. I felt feelings of shame. I felt like a freak, but I also felt betrayed because I was like, ‘Why didn’t anyone tell me this?’”
“My desire for intersex liberation is totally intwined with Black liberation. They cannot be teased apart,” Wall concluded.
OutFront: An Unapologetic Black Voice in the Intersex Community by Julie Compton for NBC News (2016)