Roshaante Anderson, who was born intersex, has opened up about the one invasive question adults constantly asked him growing up.
Roshaante Anderson was born with a vagina with a female appearance after being born with a vagina.
When he was 11, everything changed though when doctors, who were investigating abdominal pain with ultrasound discovered he had undescended testicles.
For Roshaante, it helped explain differences he’d already started noticing.
“I was born with inverted testicles and I had a micro penis and also a vagina hole from birth,” he explained. “I’ve always compared myself to a Domino’s pizza, half and half. That’s basically how I felt when I had both a penis and a vagina.”
Roshaante describes himself as pansexual.
“Men and women both love me, straight, lesbian, gay, bi, anything,” he said. He’s also previously described a period where he identified as “sapiosexual,” referring to attraction based primarily on intelligence.
Roshaante recalls what puberty was like as intersex
Puberty was when Roshaante says he became more aware of how his body differed from those around him. His parents let people refer to him as “he,” though he was sometimes also referred to as a girl depending on the situation.
He generally wore “boys’ clothes”, and his parents didn’t push traditional gender roles onto him either way.
Despite his parents’ approach, however, Roshaante still faced intrusive questions from other adults growing up.
“I came across loads of different comments from my friends’ parents and stuff like that all the time,” he said. “They would constantly ask, ‘Do you sit down or do you stand up to go toilet?’ I’m just like, listen, relax, I’m a kid, stop asking me all these questions. You’re sexualizing me in a way. It’s a bit creepy.”
Looking back now, he says he recognizes just how inappropriate those moments really were. “I didn’t feel uncomfortable at the time, but when I think about it now, I’m like, you put up with way too much, man,” he said. “You should have told them get lost and mind your own business.”
He was also barred from using girls’ school facilities. Some parents of his classmates questioned whether he really was a girl and even asked him to lift his shirt to prove it.
Even so, he says he never let those comments get to him. “Because of the way I am, I didn’t see it as offensive. I just saw them as dumb,” he said. “Because if I’ve told you that I’m one thing, and you’re telling me that I’m not another thing and you’re 30, 35, that makes you look stupid.”
Roshaante never let other’s negativity shape how he sees himself
Despite everything, Roshaante says those experiences never damaged his self-image. “Never have I ever felt a way about myself at all. I’m in love with myself and I feel like I’ve got good reason to be as well,” he said. “I’m unique, I’m an individual who knows exactly what they want.”
As an adult, Roshaante decided to undergo phalloplasty. Phalloplasty is a procedure in which tissue from other parts of the body are used to construct a penis.
“Phalloplasty is basically a surgical procedure where they remove fat, muscle, arteries, veins, skin, from the arm to sculpt a penis,” he said on Channel 4’s Skin Deep and pointed to a scar on his arm from the surgery and explained the process. “Then after they’ve sculpted a penis and everything, it’s left without a penis head for about a year or two.”
He also had additional procedures involving his urethra and an erectile device, the process costing him close to 108,000 dollars.
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