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Silent discrimination

DENISE WILLIAMS | 27 November, 2012 00:08

''For 15 months I fell off the edge of the legal world. I ceased to exist as a natural person in South African law."


http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2012/11/27/silent-discrimination


Sally Gross, director of Intersex SA, is one of about 2.1million transgendered and intersexed South Africans who battle Home Affairs for legal recognition Picture: SHELLEY CHRISTIANS


"It was suggested that I go for surgery as a condition of having an identity. I told them I would prefer a hole driven through my head'' - Sally Gross, born with ambiguous genitals but classified as a man.

SALLY Gross was living in exile in England when her 15-month battle to be legally acknowledged as a woman in South Africa began in 1993.

Born with ambiguous genitalia, Gross was classified as male and called Selwyn but was advised to live as a female in England in 1993 because of her anatomy.