by Sean Saifa Wall

About Sean Saifa Wall

Sean Saifa Wall (he/him) is an intersex activist and public health researcher. He is cofounder and strategist of the Intersex Justice Project, a grassroots organization that is committed to ending intersex genital surgery in the United States. He is also a Marie Skłowdoska-Curie Early Stage researcher based at the University of Huddersfield in England, where he will be pursuing his PhD in sociology with an emphasis on intersex rights and social policy. He is the author of “Black US Sexual and Gender Minority Mental Health” in The Oxford Handbook of Sexual and Gender Minority Mental Health.

Intersex

book Keywords for Gender and Sexuality Studies

I believe that it is the responsibility and duty of artists and activists to be the documentarians of their time. Activists, when leading with integrity and social responsibility, are the linchpins of our society, constantly reminding us to strive for what is just and equitable. In her book Hunger, Roxane Gay (2018) shares the story of how her body interacts with society at large and with the medical establishment in particular. After reading her memoir, I was impressed by how she put the desire for and repulsion of fat bodies into a larger theoretical framework and also how she critiqued society’s treatment and marginalization of fat people. Although intersex activism and fat positivity are separate issues, I feel that my work as an activist is to make real the experiences of intersex people who have been harmed by the medical establishment.