29 Jul 2025

As the morning light filtered weakly through the dusty windowpane, it illuminated the young Mr Kagiso Bannye, as he carefully donned a girl’s tunic.

To some, it could appear as being brave and somewhat defiant, but to him, it was just another day’s journey to Tshegetsang Junior Secondary School in Molepolole.

As he trotted along the familiar path alongside fellow students, he brushed off the ordeal that is his life, the constant nagging question of whether he is a boy or a girl.

It was not a first for him, he had worn a dress to school before. In fact, he first wore the same dress during the school orientation as a newly enrolled Form One student, just as he did throughout his entire primary school life.

As he approached the school gates, a combination of dread and hope tightened in his chest, wondering if teachers and students would warmly embrace or make a mockery of him, more so that his body was finally showing his masculine features that were clearly there to see.

Had the candle not been so cruel to burn to ashes his beloved school tracksuits to ashes the previous night, he would not be in this predicament.

“I was beaten, warned never to wear a dress to school again, and ordered to return home,” he said, adding that he had only worn tracksuits to school since then.

As he walked home on that fateful day, he considered the encounter a saving grace.

“I was happy to have been sent home,” he said with profound relief in his tone, equating it to as if a weight has been lifted off his shoulders.

It also confirmed what he knew all along but unbeknown to his parents, who had insisted that he was a girl.

After years of battling with mistaken identity, his parents have ultimately lost the battle, he is a boy and the school authorities confirmed when they sent him home to dress like one.

However, the fleeting moment of victory was soon overshadowed by the reality of being born with an ambiguous genitalia, thus making his sex identity a tricky matter.

Nonetheless, when he was born on September 1984, the doctors overlooked the complexity of his case, and performed a genital operation that crippled him.

“Ka maswabi mo go nna, ba dirile operation ke le monnye ba tsaya mo go berekang, jaanong kana operation ga e na poelo morago,” Bannye said standing up to avoid eye contact, explaining that he was operated on while still very young, and the organ that should not have been tempered with was removed.

Growing up as a child in the dusty streets of Molepolole, Bannye was urged by his parents to dress up like a girl, play with girls and was often rebuked for his boyish behaviour.

Deep down, he felt lost in girlish games and envied boys’ games, and would sometimes even play football with them.

“Even at school, I would train with the boys, but during games, I was told to go to the girls’ soccer,” he recalled.

However, this did not subdue his deep inner feeling that he was not meant to be a woman, hence would secretly wear trousers beneath a dress before leaving home to play street soccer with the boys.

Doing so always attracted some punishment, for disobedience, he said.

Growing up intersex was difficult, but what made it even harder was the silence because no one, including my parents, were open to discuss it, Mr Bannye stated.

This, he said  resulted in rejection at school, coupled with a feeling of isolation and low self-esteem.

“When going to the toilet, students would follow me because they wanted to see how I relieved myself,” he said, adding that others taunted him.

As a result, he failed to make the grades required to proceed to senior secondary school.

Even outside school, he said life was difficult although it was clear he was male.

For instance, changing his national identity card, which listed him as female was  not easy and that prevented him from obtaining a driver’s license.

However, after some years, the office of then Molepolole long serving legislator, Mr Daniel Kwelagobe, intervened and the case was resolved within three weeks, and he finally obtained a driver’s licence. Societal rejection continued to haunt him, leading him to contemplate running away to the cattle post permanently.

When this plan failed, Mr Bannye attempted suicide twice. Fortunately, both attempts were unsuccessful and he turned to alcohol to cope with his inner pain.

“Dilo tsa go nwa, le fa motho a go raya a re terasi, ga go tshwane le fa o sa nwa,” he said, explaining that he resorted to alcohol to numb the pain he endured from hurtful utterances.

Determined to find answers, Mr Bannye shared that he confronted his mother, who told him that doctors coerced her into consenting to the surgery, warning that refusing would put his life at greater risk.

Unsatisfied with her response, he summoned the courage to search for the doctor who performed the surgery.

“He told me plainly that there was nothing they could do,” Bannye said, adding that the now elderly doctor showed no remorse at all.

“I live with complications, brought by the surgery into my life,” he said.

As a man, he longs to have own children, though he knows it will not be easy.

Bannye, who has four endosex siblings, lives with his girlfriend, whom he hopes to marry and start a family with someday. ENDS