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Privacy NoticeAt birth, doctors couldn’t determine whether Anick Soni was a boy or a girl. As a result, they ran some tests to establish which gender he should be raised as – something which led him to spending his childhood undergoing treatments to make him appear what society would deem more acceptably male. It was only years later that he discovered he was intersex. Earlier this week, a sobbing Gemma Collins, 43, revealed she’d been advised to terminate her pregnancy by doctors, revealing she was told her baby “was not right”. The former The Only Way Is Essex star spoke out about the devastating ordeal, which occurred when doctors found out her baby was intersex. Anick told OK!: “When I was younger I knew I had a variety of different medical problems, including hypospadias, which doctors said was only found in males and that essentially I had XY chromosomes. My variation of hypospadias was so severe that they couldn’t tell whether I was a boy or a girl.”
Anick Soni is an intersex and human rights activist
(Image: Supplied)
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“But what was confusing was that my body just wasn’t developing. My medical records say that I had my first procedure when I was four months old.” In addition to the procedures, Anick, 29, also began having hormonal treatment when he was 10 years old. Having been through a number of surgeries and treatments from a young age, and going without a diagnosis until his teens, Anick admits that he was led to believe that something about him “needed fixing” as it took a toll on his mental health. “I’ve been suicidal since I was a kid. Some of my earliest memories are of me drinking soap and engaging in general disruptive behaviour that was linked to the idea that I couldn’t see what my life would look like in the future. I thought if anyone found out about my body they wouldn’t be able to love me,” he reveals. It was only when he reached his teens that Anick came across the term ‘intersex’ and things slowly fell into place. Despite the initial shock of discovering the word, Anick threw himself into researching what it meant.
Anick says that he underwent procedures and treatments from when he was a child
(Image: Supplie)
“When I finally heard the word intersex it was shocking because I hadn’t thought of myself in that way. I’d never felt like I wasn’t a man, just felt like other people didn’t see me as one,” he says. “When I found out I was intersex and started looking it up I was originally very confused because it was so broad. I didn’t understand whether I counted or not.” A year after discovering he was intersex, Anick finally felt ready to tell those around him and he began sharing his “secret” with his family and friends. “Having the answers also gave me the courage to speak out. One of the biggest things is that I’d kept it a secret for so long, so I thought if I told people what difference would it make?” he explains. “For anyone who’d know me, people felt like they suddenly understood me a lot more and that in itself was very freeing.” Since then, Anick has become an award-winning intersex activist and in 2018 he made a documentary with the BBC about his experience. However, despite his campaigning, he admits that opening up to people he knows about being intersex is still a hard thing to do – particularly when dating.
Anick said it was “freeing” telling people
(Image: Supplied)
“It’s always been a difficult thing to tell people and it still is hard now because when you’re in a situation where you’re dating someone you don’t necessarily know when to bring it up,” he tells us. “Dating itself is difficult. I’ve had girls when I’ve dated them say I’m not a real man because of all of this kind of stuff. I’ve had other people say they didn’t mind but they didn’t like that the whole world knew about it as they wondered what it said about them if they were with me sexually. There are so many problems that come with it.” As a result, Anick is keen to raise awareness of the umbrella term and help provide more support from people who are intersex as well as their families. “We need some kind of inquiry or inquest to try and figure out how many people have been born with variations in sex development,” he says.
Anick hopes for a future where there’s “more clarity”
(Image: Supplied)
“I hope the future is one where we have more clarity and answers, because finding the word intersex really helped me. I want parents and carers and people in the future to not have to feel so isolated and not feel like they have to terminate their pregnancy just because of this difference, unless that is genuinely something that they think is in their best interest.” For more information about what intersex means, visit interactadvocates.org or health.com If you’ve been affected by any of the issues in this story you can contact Samaritans in the UK and Ireland on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ieStory SavedYou can find this story in My Bookmarks.Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right.Follow OK! MagazineFacebookTwitterCommentMore OnReal LifeHealth
