Intersex beauty queen’s journey .
Beauty queen Sharon Rose Khumalo reveals how she came to terms with knowing she was born intersex
IT’S easy to see why she’s had success in beauty pageants: she’s slim and smooth-skinned with a dazzling smile, her delicate shoulders make all clothes look good on her and she has legs that go on forever. She’s also confident and knows exactly what she wants out of life – a winning combination as far as any contest judge is concerned. Sharon Rose Khumalo (26) reached the top five in the Miss South Africa pageant last year and was recently crowned Miss Mamelodi Sundowns, walking off with a brand-new car and R200 000 in cash.
She’ll also be the soccer club’s ambassador for the year of her reign, representing the team at various sporting and charity initiatives.
Yet there’s something that sets this 1,79-m tall beauty apart from the other gorgeous young women she competed against: Sharon is intersex – and she’s using the public platform of beauty pageants to raise awareness of a condition that’s relatively unknown and often mocked.
We meet Sharon, who has a BSc degree in biotechnology from the University of Pretoria and works as a pharmaceutical sales rep, at a café on Church Square in the heart of Pretoria’s CBD. With her long braids and effortless style she turns heads as she enters the restaurant and finds a seat.
“It’s my height,” she says, dismissing the attention she’s attracting. “It actually intimidates a lot of people – it’s the first thing they remark on when they meet me.”
Pinning the lofty beauty down hasn’t been easy: her schedule has been packed since she won the Miss Mamelodi title and she has a publicist handling her diary now.
“Honestly I’ve lost count of how many people want to meet with me,” she says. But she’s more than happy to share her story.
“The whole purpose of coming out was because of what I went through after learning about my condition. The diagnosis process was a very lonely time and I didn’t want someone else in a similar position to go through what I went through.
“Because people aren’t used to intersex, my going public is all about dispelling myths and normalising it – because it is normal.”
SHARON was 21 when she was diagnosed with androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS) in 2012. This means she’s genetically male yet has the physical traits of a woman. “On the outside I look like the traditional female but internally I beg to differ,” she writes in her blog, Rose Of Mamelodi.
“I was born without ovaries, fallopian tubes and a uterus. I was instead born with internal gonads that, if I were male, were supposed to develop into testes.”
The term “normal” is an odd concept, she adds. “We justify our actions according to a normalcy that’s been set by I don’t know who, and when we experience ‘different’ we become somewhat unsettled. And when that affects you personally you begin to unravel.”
Unravelling is the word she uses in her blog about coming out and owning her intersexuality. Her world changed completely.
Sharon, born in Mamelodi in Tshwane,
had a happy middle-class childhood, raised by her mom, Ella, a nurse, and dad, Mabutho, an engineering technician. She also has a 10-year-old brother she prefers not to name.
Growing up she had no idea she was different to other girls. But, unlike her friends, she didn’t date much when she became a teenager – although this might have had more to do with the fact her parents wouldn’t allow it.
“They were strict so they’d have none of that,” she explains.
Meanwhile she had to deal with her undeveloped body. “I’ve always been skinny and the neighbourhood guys would take the mickey out of me. Random guys who just shrieked ‘Slender by nature’ when they saw me. It’s as if all the boys went to the same class for pickup lines! Compliment me on my mind then we can talk.”
Even as a child she wanted to be a model and took part in the occasional beauty pageant at church and at school.
“I did it for fun. It was a happy township childhood and I didn’t feel any different growing up. I looked like a girl, felt like a girl and was raised like a girl.”
But there was one thing about her that was not like a girl – all her friends started to have their periods but hers didn’t come. When she still hadn’t started to menstruate by the time she turned 21 she decided it was time to find out what was going on.
A trip to a gynaecologist revealed the rather shocking truth: she doesn’t have female internal organs.
“I was baffled and confused,” she says. “I never thought it would be something like that. It felt as if the world had been pulled from right under me.”
But her family took the news well and rallied around her, offering support and comfort.
“They’re my rock,” she says. “They’ve walked every step with me, right from the first doctor’s visit. They’ve always impressed on me that the condition doesn’t change who I am to them. Dad says that I’ll always be his baby girl.
“Friends and relatives have been supportive as well. They say they have my back and they’re here for me.”
WHEN Sharon made it to the top five in the Miss South Africa pageant she was brave enough to tell the judges about her condition. “At the time it wasn’t public knowledge and the other contestants didn’t know,” she says. “Only the judges knew and they were so supportive. They were accepting and commended me for being honest.”
She’s also had pleasant experiences in the dating field. “I’m amazed at how open people can be. In all honesty all the people I’ve dated have said they were there for me. Sometimes I imagine it’s going to be this big thing but people have been like, ‘Whatever.’
“Right now I’m not dating though – I just don’t know how I could manage it. What with my commitments at Sundowns and my job as a sales rep, it’s a bit of a balancing act. But when that special person decides to woo me I’m open to it.” Sharon says she finds the fact she’ll never be able to have children difficult. “It wasn’t until the diagnosis that kids became a big thing. I might consider other ways of having children but that’s all in the future. Right now I’m establishing myself as a professional.
“The prospect of kids running around at home is appealing but I have to live in the moment. When you plan every detail of your life, it doesn’t happen. In the future we’ll have to see.”
Mamelodi Sundowns is what’s important now, she says. “They’re very supportive. Even the fans are behind me. I get tweets from fans saying how proud they are of me.”
But although she’s talking publicly about her condition, that doesn’t mean the process of dealing with it is over.
The storm might have settled, she says in her blog, but “even now some galeforce winds and torrential rain make the occasional appearance. So now I’m in the phase of my life where I’m learning to stop trying to make sense of everything and just exist.”
She just wants to be who she is and be happy. “So I’m unravelling,” her blog concludes. “And so far it feels damn good.”
‘My family are my rock. They’ve walked every step with me’