Sharon Rose Khumalo is the newly crowned Miss Mamelodi Sundowns and wants to fly the flag high for intersex individuals.
Khumalo, who has previously spoken out about discovering that she was intersex at 21, told Sowetan that when she first found out she was “shattered.”
“I just wanted to go home and cry. Sometimes I am okay and then on some days I look at other women who have children and I know I will never have that, but I have learnt to accept that this is the situation and I can’t really change that.
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Sharon does not have ovaries or a uterus and will not be able to have children as a result.
Last year she was a top 16 finalist in Miss SA and started a blog to document what she went through. When she entered both pageants she told them that she was intersex and said she feared the outcome.
“I had fears that someone somewhere might say this and this and then it turns into something nasty, The judges supported me.
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Intersex is a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male.