The Many Voices of Pride: Jeanette’s story

The LGBT+ community is made of many different identities, all of which are as valid and important as the others, and every single one deserves to fly their flag with pride.

For Pride 2019, PinkNews has teamed with Uber to tell stories that show how important visibility is to a diverse rainbow of sexual and gender identities.

This is Jeanette’s story…

How do you identify?

I’m intersex and I think one of the hardest thing for me over the past three years was this, um, pink box/blue box of being male and female and wondering where do i fit into that? And actually, I don’t have to fit into that, I’m the person that I am and I’m proud to be intersex.

Can you tell us bit more about your journey?

About three years ago, I met Intersex UK and Holly Greenbury who told me that I was a very special person. From that, I met other intersex people and started to love and accept myself as Jeanette, as being intersex.

For the first time in my life, I felt complete. I felt that I was somebody who could love myself. And through that, I’m now in a position where I’m a senior activist for Intersex UK, where I talk to families and older people who are intersex who have never had anyone to talk to.

Now I’ve got a great support network around me.

I’ve got lots of intersex family and I just feel like anybody, whether you’re gay, transgender, whatever, you have that right to be loved and accepted as intersex.

Tell us about your first Pride experience?

Until I was asked to go last year in July, I hadn’t been to Pride before. I met for the first time, a load of intersex people and I realised that I had a family around me, people who were supportive and caring for me.

But far beyond that, I felt so proud, I think it was the best day of my life ever, to be a part of not only Intersex UK, but the whole Pride experience.

I just felt so proud and honoured and for the first time I was amongst friends who understood me and accepted me for the person that I was,

What does the intersex flag signify, what does that symbol mean to you?

I can only speak for my personal experience but I think that the yellow is like, a light, it’s a light in the darkness, a light coming out into the world.

The mauve is the circle, it represents to me a group of people coming together.

For me, that’s what the intersex flag stands for; a community coming together as one, joining together as intersex, spreading the light so that people can come out of the darkness, like myself and be proud to be intersex.

Read all the personal stories from the Many Voices of Pride campaign here.