When I was a child of eight I had a friend called Sunanda, she adored me. Everybody in our school had a problem with her as she never seemed normal. First of all she never seemed like a girl, I mean she was tall like a reed had a very sweet smile She never developed like a girl with breasts or had a figure like a girl. She was fast like a boy and won all races in our school, she could throw the discus the farthest. she had a booming voice and boys and girls would stop in their tracks when she would stay attention during parades.
She loved being a part my friend. She had the tallest story to tell; and I loved her stories and laughed out the loudest. There were a lot of jeers and comments and snide remarks about her looks, the way she walked the way she talked the way she waved her hand. Her parents treated her like a girl. I adored her, and was very protective about her. Our classmates both boys and girls were mortally afraid to say anything against her or bully her as they were terribly afraid of my temper I was very short tempered and could hit anybody twice my size without bothering to look or be afraid of whether s/he would hit me back. All my friends/enemies/others would scatter away when I had one of my temper tantrums, as I would hit out at anyone who stood besides me, and come out with the choicest of abuses and gaalis; in fact two people who could stop my rampage were my mother and Sunanda.
Sunanda did not have her periods when all of us did and that was the talk of our small town, her mother kept assuring her that she would have it and some girls had it late. And i would console her saying that I was very happy for her. I would always tell her what is the need for periods, it is a real pain; and she would look at me sadly.
Slowly she withdrew from all her friends except for me. After high school exams she studied at home and stopped going to college. I carried on with my life but always had time for her. I left the town, but returned back every summer to her and we would sit for hours and bitch about everybody. Sunanda would wait every summer for me. She was never seen out of the house. I got married she was the happiest; when I had my first daughter she was the happiest, and gave hand crafted rugs, bedsheets and tiny smock dresses for my daughter; she was just wonderful with the baby; Sunanda would have made a wonderful mother.
I lost Sunanda to time; now I am not sure where she is. Now that I am working in this field I know more about her and wish I could help her and support her.
Sunanda is a hermaphrodite(this was something I understood after starting to work in this sector) which currently has been replaced by the term intersexual. That is humans with typical reproductive organs but typical clitoris/penis. People with Intersex conditions sometimes chose to live exclusively as one sex or the other trying to blend into the sex they identify with more closely. Some people who are intersexed outwardly appear completely female or male already without realizing they are intersexed. Other kinds of Intersex conditions are identified immediately at birth because those with the conditions have a sexual organ larger than a clitoris and smaller than a penis.
Working in the field of Sexual Reproductive Health and HIV&AIDS you hear on stigma and discrimination and you realize how deep rooted heterosexism is. We talk about respect, dignity and tolerance but somehow it is not evidence in our day to day life. Sunanda was beautiful but had a hard life, now when i read about Caster Semenya she reminds me of Sunanda. We keep debating about her gender whether she should compete or not which gender should she belong to. When Caster smiles it is pure sunshine, same as Sunanda but who cares.
