Hida Viloria was raised as a girl but discovered early on that her body was different. Unlike most people who are born intersex in the first world - meaning they have genitals, reproductive organs, hormones, and/or chromosomal patterns that do not fit standard definitions of male or female - Hida had the freedom to explore the person s/he was born to be because her parents did not agree to have her sex characteristics surgically altered at birth. It wasn't until s/he was 26 and encountered the term "intersex" in a San Francisco newspaper that s/he finally had a name for he/r difference. That's when s/he began to explore what it means to live in the space between genders - to be both and neither.
|
