I Was Born Intersex, Raised a Girl and Grew Up a Man – 27 Year Old Kenyan Man Narrates

27 year old James Karanja was born in the early 1990’s as intersex and named Mary Waithera by his mother who wanted a girl. Over the course of his life, he faced stigma and humiliation which drove him to attempt suicide three times. He shared with the Daily Nation in an interview the moving story of his life and his experiences as an intersex trying to find his true identity among a less modern Kenyan society.

“I was born at home but I had an ambiguous genitalia and so my mother was confused. She immediately called my grandmother who suggested that we see a medicine man. She had never seen anything like it. Being Christians, they then thought to see a priest, who advised that I should be taken to a hospital. I was admitted to Naivasha General Hospital for three weeks without being named or assigned a gender. My father said I should not be named from his side of the family. The marriage eventually broke and I had to be raised by my mother and grandmother. “

James Karanja shared that despite having a pretty normal childhood as a girl, his mannerisms stood out as not very girly. In particular, he found himself using his shoulders as opposed to his head to carry water from the river. He was also the only girl in his village who could ride a bicycle or play football. His grandmother was concerned because people has began talking. After completing his KCPE, he who was then a she, was admitted to Kambala Girls High School in Molo. During his time there, his fellow schoolmates made fun of him for being admitted to a girls’ school. The ridicule got worse when they saw him naked at the public showers.

He was finally taken to hospital and informed he was a male pseudohermaphroditism – a condition that can be corrected by surgery. John threw away his skirt on the last day of high school and finally changed my name to James Karanja in 2010. He has been living as a man since then. After his sex change, shocked villagers stripped him naked in public to see his genitalia. Immediately, he was seen as a bad omen and could not even get a job in the area.

The stigma and pressure eventually got to him and in 2014, he tried committing suicide three times. He has since made progress and is living free and happy as a man. This story comes in the wake of Kenya National Bureau of Statistics added a third gender in the upcoming national census. To John Karanja, this is only a small victory for intersex Kenyans in the country.