Inter* Only
Mani Bruce Mitchell: Thank you, Luan, and kia ora everyone. So yes, Mani Bruce Mitchell from Aotearoa in New Zealand. But the big piece of work that's needed is safe places where we can do our healing work together. When we come together, we can do that, we actually know how to do that, but we need to be able to get together and to have this supportive work.
Eliana Rubashkyn: I don't know if ... It's a family. And it is an immediate connection when we meet, when we talk. It is a powerful connection to know that there are other persons out there that feel the same or they share the experiences that you share. Because we understand each other's pain, and you always look after each other.
Crystal Hendricks: We are, as intersex people, we are powerful beyond measure and we've already done so much changes in the world, and I know they're so much more changes that needs to be done for intersex people to be free from harm.
Obioma Chukwuike: My name is Obioma Chukwuike, my pronouns are they/them, I am from Nigeria and I live in Nigeria. I am the founder and the executive director of Intersex Nigeria which was founded in 2019. I'm happy to have this community that accepts me, and a community I can run to at any given time. I know that their arms are open. I'm so happy for that, and I'm also happy that, just like Mani said earlier, the movement is growing.
Eliana Rubashkyn: There is a common ground that we share. And I say that we are indivisible because if we want to understand that all oppression in the world is connected – because all oppression in the world is connected - the only way that we can fight that oppression is if we are together. If we can actually fight against that oppression together.
Crystal Hendricks: You know to basically come up with new ways, you know, in our activism, to come up with new ways of working towards this inter*utopia, to come up with new strategies of working together as a community.
Luan Pertl: Thank you for listening. How great that we are meeting in this space! We are in a listening space where we hear the same audio together simultaneously. This only applies to this track, which has been created for us intersex people only. Only this track is on a loop, and only here will all listeners hear the same sentence at the same time. You have decided on this audio track because you are intersex.
Luan Pertl: It was in 1990/93, I think, when in the USA at that time, for the first time intersex people met, coming from the USA, from New Zealand, from Australia, who just met and spent time together for the very first time, and they also filmed this little doco, and I think this doco is just so infinitely beautiful, emotionally, sad, but also liberating how these people are sitting there in that green space, and talk about their being for the first time.
Hiker Chiu: So I'm very impressed by the documentary, the film of the first gathering. That documentary just gives me the feeling of community. I still feel very touched every time I watch it, and I still keep watching it.
Mani Bruce Mitchell: That's where I learned about hope. And then, like Obioma, it's been other intersex people, and I think we role model off each other and it's very much about the collective. I think that's what has made this community quite powerful.
Eliana Rubashkyn: My name is Eliana Rubashkyn. I do have, obviously, role models. Every intersex person that made history and is known – not just be for being intersex but because they change the world – I admire them. People in our community have been doing this work for a role long time, like Mani Mitchell. I also admire Herculine Barbin. And I admire her for the pain she went through, because sometimes I feel that her pain is so similar to the pain that I needed to go through.
Obioma Chukwuike: Semenya, Caster, from South Africa, the athlete, is my hero and role model. I like ... I love seeing people that can challenge the whole system and not minding what's to come out. Standing up and speaking up against discrimination and injustice against intersex people and people of black colour is a big, big way for me.
Hiker Chiu: Hida Viloria is my role model at the time. There is a public hearing in San Francisco in 2004, there is a video online and Hida is the only one who shared her story with a smile. I was super inspired by her attitude.
Crystal Hendricks: Also the founder of Intersex South Africa that is laid, Sally Gross.
Mani Bruce Mitchell: One person I want to talk about is a person called Sally Gross. Sally and I were the same age, and Sally was an extraordinary activist in South Africa. I just wish that she had lived long enough to see what's going on now because she would be so proud and so excited.
Hiker Chiu: Actually I met Sally before in the first Intersex... International Intersex Forum. She is the one, yea.
Luan Pertl: Mani Mitchell or Betsy Driver or Dan Christian Ghattas, who just showed so much strength and power, over and over again. Or also Mauro.
Mauro Cabral Grinspan: Probably my role model is a Brazilian feminist called Sonia Corrêa.
Obioma Chukwuike: And finally someone I've always looked up to when I was small is Nelson Mandela.
Luan Pertl: For me that's surely Audre Lorde.
Obioma Chukwuike: So these are the four people that are my role models in life for now. I wish to get more as I am going. Because I look up to them, I want to be like them.
Mauro Cabral Grinspan: In terms of role models, I would really love for that intergenerational learning for movements to be able just… I don't know to be kinder inside, and not to have arguments about words or things that ... try to avoid destroying people because we can be like a very hostile community and movement inside.
Luan Pertl: What I also wish for is that the communities will also be more mindful towards each other. And just recognise that, when we are working together, that we then just are a stronger voice. Because basically we have, in fact, many, or most of us have, I think, the same goal. And that is to fight white, patriarchal structures.
Mauro Cabral Grinspan: My name is Mauro Cabral Grinspan, I am Argentinian and I am an intersex person and a trans person myself. I believe that the medical management of intersex or our experience produces certain trauma in the experience of time or the experience of time becomes traumatic. And than it's difficult to get out of certain places. At some point we are still there. And when you listen to people narrating some traumatic experiences many of us are still there. Some of us feel that a part of us died back then. Then it's really difficult to think ›What is the past?‹, when you're dead, or ›What is the present?‹, or ›What is the future?‹, ›How the future look like?‹. I'd say like ›Well, you know, I'm dead inside, or part of me is dead. So that part doesn't have a future. I take it with me, but, you know, it's already dead.‹ So yeah, I'm sorry for being so…
Luan Pertl: No, no, no!
Mauro Cabral Grinspan: Sounds like ... tragic. But for me, as an activist, my job is to try to move us forward. But I believe that this is a movement that is moving forward, pushed by people that have all kind of issues with temporality and with time and with life and death and things that can't be repaired, you know, so, yeah ...
Luan Pertl: Hello and welcome to the audio collage for inter* people only. With these audio materials, these astute, optimistic and poetic thoughts from our communities, we want to create a listening space only for us. It's a listening space where the same is heard simultaneously with all others who have tuned into the inter* track. Here, our thoughts about community, utopia and temporality can unfold.
Luan Pertl: Some intersex people find it very hard because of their history to imagine ... inter-Utopia, what would be a safe place, so that's why we came up then with this question. So because some people are just, some intersex people, they can totally imagine like a safe place in the future and things like that, but some intersex people are not, because...
Mani Bruce Mitchell: As a child one of the ways I survived was in my imagination. So I could create places where I would go in my head, so I have no problem about creating this, but when you'd ask me like now, as someone that has lived on planet earth for 68 years, it's really hard because there is so much that is wrong and out of balance. So can I do this? Yes in my imagination, but to think about this...
Mauro Cabral Grinspan: When I talk with trans friends, especially with trans women, they say I imagine I am going to be dead, because someone will kill me or HIV is going to kill me or poverty will kill me. So in that sense I don't think that it's particularly intersex—our inability to think about the future.
Obioma Chukwuike: It's not easy to have that wholesome environment that accommodates and allows intersex people to live their life. But that doesn't mean it's not achievable.
Mani Bruce Mitchell: This will be very hard, is it possible? Absolutely it's possible.
Mauro Cabral Grinspan: An inter-utopia sounds for me like something really easy to achieve. You know it would be anywhere where intersex people can live as we are, without being subjected to medical violence or other forms of violence in childhood. But at the same time, like, as an utopia it's not very much like ›oh my God this is so different‹ or it would be like a complete different world. It's just that something is going to be different, but that something is everything. When I think of what makes intersex people different from other people, like, we are all different among ourselves. The main difference is, like, of course we were born with certain bodies, but everyone is born with a body or another or another. It's mostly the experience of violence. So for me, an utopia would be a place where people don't live that experiences. Which makes it difficult to imagine that, from my perspective, that utopia only will take place in the future. Because I would really love to live in a place where people didn't have, like ... To imagine an intersex utopia it will be a world where everyone is safe, all intersex people are safe, since the moment they are born. And that's the reality for them, and they remember what happened before, but actually none of us is alive. No one, no living human being, have had the experience of violence. It's like we are really in the past. So it's not that we remember or... no. Like people remember because we remember the past, but not because we are still giving testimony. I would really love to live in a world that is so different that no one ever living in that world had the experience of violence. Or that particular kind of violence.
Crystal Hendricks: So my name is Crystal Hendricks. I'm from South Africa. I'm from an organization called Intersex South Africa. I'm also on the Intersex human rights fund. I would say it's definitely not easy, but it's also important to have that thoughts of the inter-Utopia, because that's what keeps you going. I feel in the space where we are, we are dealing with people that have their human rights completely stripped away from them. And thats a thing that as intersex people we face, the violations against our body, the isolations from our communities because we 'are so different' as they say. And also the erasure, because of them choosing an identity for an intersex person completely erases that intersex person at all. And because of that erasure, the isolation and also the mutilation that intersex people face, it could be very difficult to look to the future and see – okay hopefully this is going to end. So it's very difficult to imagine that, but I also feel like: We have to! We have to. We need to have that positive outlook. You know, there is a way for intersex people to live freely. It may not be in our lifetime but it could even be in the next lifetime, but eventually intersex people will live in that freedom.
Luan Pertl: Thanks for listening, and it's great that you are here.We want to have a listening space where we jointly listen to the same material simultaneously. This only applies to this track, which has been created for us inter* people only. Only this track is on a loop. And only here are all listeners hearing the same sentence at the same time. What you are hearing now, you are hearing together with all others who have selected the inter* only audio track.
Mani Bruce Mitchell: I think this is really really important. We need our own words, our own images and so do what we are doing tonight which is to sit and dream and laugh and imagine a world where you could be happy and you could feel comfortable yourself about this unique and wonderful body that you were given.
Luan Pertl: Yes, inter* utopia. Well, I have thought about it a lot, actually. And for me it would definitely be somewhere, no idea, on some planet that maybe isn't even known yet. Which is just free, free in its existence, and that people are just free there as well, and can also be free in their being in the world. There would be a lot of animals there, and a huge amount of plants, but other people would have to take care of them, because I am totally useless at that, but I would find it totally beautiful if there were a lot of plants, and birds, because I love birds. Birds actually signify freedom for me. I think I would just take many important people in my life with me. And I would have a pug, that would also be just great. I would no longer have to work, and I'd like that very much also, yeah, and there would just be a community, a large one, a diverse community. And I don't just mean intersex community only, but just people in all their diversity and difference, just the way they are. The weather would be, I'd say, 26 degrees always, that would be great for me, but then I'm thinking about the flora and fauna now, and that's maybe not so great for them ... but always around 26 degrees, maybe a little warmer sometimes, so that you can go swimming. There would be a lot of water – that's important. Swimming is important.
Hiker Chiu: But I still, you know, I love our Earth so much.
Obioma Chukwuike: I'd have water around. Because water will give you ... if you want to plant, if you want to do basic things, you need water. I'd have water around, just like an island, where everybody's there and it's peaceful. I love nature. Whenever I'm at the seaside or the riverside, I feel calm. I feel like all my worries have been taken away from me because I hear the birds, I feel ... even the smell of the environment is so different. So that would be my perfect example of utopia, being with my intersex family and people, just like Mani said, people that love me for who I am.
Mani Bruce Mitchell: So if we were in imagination, for me, I think the perfect would be more like a village in scale. So there would be both wild areas and then places where food is growing. The buildings would be beautiful and small-scale. They would be sustainable, healthy places to live in with low impact on the environment. It would blend everything, so it would take the best from the past and what we know now.
Mauro Cabral Grinspan: We have been struggling for decades, and nothing is changing much. Which also make you to feel that the intersex time moves really slowly. So when I'm thinking in an uptopic time, I would love to have a time that goes faster, so we could see changes in a lifetime.
Mani Bruce Mitchell: To this utopia, the idea: we can repair. So, first of all repair ourselves, and then repair the planet. That we could find a way to be in harmony with the earth. I would take people who I feel safe with, that's the most important thing for me. They would be people who both inspire me, who are creative and are willing to do things differently. We have to. Those people would be people that could hold pain and commit to hard work. Being in absolute respect with each other. And in this place, we would be light on the planet and light and gentle with each other.
Hiker Chiu: This is Hiker Chiu. I'm based in Taiwan.I am optimistic. For me now, like this moment is a utopia for me now already. I couldn't imagine that like 10 years before. So after I met intersex people, intersex activists and become an intersex activist, I really feel that I live in a utopia already because I have all of you. I never feel alone. Every time I am with you, you just give me energy and I don't fear. I believe there will be a utopia for intersex people in the future and—and we have to create it.
Luan Pertl: Yeah Hiker I think you're right because when I attended my first intersex community event, yeah, I had also the feeling I'm in inter-utopia because it was the first time when I met other people and I could... when I was in a room just with intersex people and we had laughter and everything, that was …
Hiker Chiu: ... so relaxed, right?
Luan Pertl: Yeah, absolutely.
Obioma Chukwuike: I've always imagined a world where intersex people have their freedom to be whoever they want to be. Live their life, nobody asking them questions. They grow up and be what they want to be.
Eliana Rubashkyn: How I would imagine an utopia is that it's a place and where, as humans, we recognize and we celebrate everyone's existence. And everyone's existence in all the possible ways, in all the possible elements that build the diversity of a human. It's the multiple dimensions that build up that diversity. For intersex people that diversity will be our bodies, and the celebration that bodies are meant to be celebrated and loved, no matter how they are and no matter how they should be. Our bodies should be celebrated just for the fact that we are human, celebrating what actually, you know, are corpo ralities and I would say corpo realities.
Mani Bruce Mitchell: Of this extraordinary community and yeah ... I'm also thinking about the people that come to this exhibition who are still in pain and finding it difficult. I just want people to look inside and find that beauty. Every intersex person is a beautiful being that deserves to unfold and be and connect to this amazing community around the world. It's in doing what you're doing that we make things possible, so I agree ...
Hiker Chiu: That's how wonderful we are, you know? We are …
Crystal Hendricks: Definetly.
Hiker Chiu: There's no standard, there's no stereotype, don't think about that. You know, this is how wonderful we are!
Eliana Rubashkyn: Then I think we will come to a point where we will start celebrating also the narratives in the bodies of intersex people. And actually that will translate in better experiences. Because in my utopia, it would be a world in ... actually you will be lucky for being intersex. Because people will like to celebrate you, or you will be special. You will have this unique gift of nature that you are just, you know, you have a particular body, and you have a superpower in your body, and you have a beautiful manifestation that just shows how beautiful nature can be.
Luan Pertl: My name is Luan Pertl. I am part of the curating team of Mercury Rising, and I have initiated this exhibition.Hello, great that we can exchange our thoughts on an intersex utopia here. This audio space is for inter* people only. We are listening to the same things at the same time. How do you like it? Do you hear Mercury Rising?
Eliana Rubashkyn: I don't know if ... It's a family. And it is an immediate connection when we meet, when we talk. It is a powerful connection to know that there are other persons out there that feel the same or they share the experiences that you share. Because we understand each other's pain, and you always look after each other.
Crystal Hendricks: We are, as intersex people, we are powerful beyond measure and we've already done so much changes in the world, and I know they're so much more changes that needs to be done for intersex people to be free from harm.
Obioma Chukwuike: My name is Obioma Chukwuike, my pronouns are they/them, I am from Nigeria and I live in Nigeria. I am the founder and the executive director of Intersex Nigeria which was founded in 2019. I'm happy to have this community that accepts me, and a community I can run to at any given time. I know that their arms are open. I'm so happy for that, and I'm also happy that, just like Mani said earlier, the movement is growing.
Eliana Rubashkyn: There is a common ground that we share. And I say that we are indivisible because if we want to understand that all oppression in the world is connected – because all oppression in the world is connected - the only way that we can fight that oppression is if we are together. If we can actually fight against that oppression together.
Crystal Hendricks: You know to basically come up with new ways, you know, in our activism, to come up with new ways of working towards this inter*utopia, to come up with new strategies of working together as a community.
Luan Pertl: Thank you for listening. How great that we are meeting in this space! We are in a listening space where we hear the same audio together simultaneously. This only applies to this track, which has been created for us intersex people only. Only this track is on a loop, and only here will all listeners hear the same sentence at the same time. You have decided on this audio track because you are intersex.
Luan Pertl: It was in 1990/93, I think, when in the USA at that time, for the first time intersex people met, coming from the USA, from New Zealand, from Australia, who just met and spent time together for the very first time, and they also filmed this little doco, and I think this doco is just so infinitely beautiful, emotionally, sad, but also liberating how these people are sitting there in that green space, and talk about their being for the first time.
Hiker Chiu: So I'm very impressed by the documentary, the film of the first gathering. That documentary just gives me the feeling of community. I still feel very touched every time I watch it, and I still keep watching it.
Mani Bruce Mitchell: That's where I learned about hope. And then, like Obioma, it's been other intersex people, and I think we role model off each other and it's very much about the collective. I think that's what has made this community quite powerful.
Eliana Rubashkyn: My name is Eliana Rubashkyn. I do have, obviously, role models. Every intersex person that made history and is known – not just be for being intersex but because they change the world – I admire them. People in our community have been doing this work for a role long time, like Mani Mitchell. I also admire Herculine Barbin. And I admire her for the pain she went through, because sometimes I feel that her pain is so similar to the pain that I needed to go through.
Obioma Chukwuike: Semenya, Caster, from South Africa, the athlete, is my hero and role model. I like ... I love seeing people that can challenge the whole system and not minding what's to come out. Standing up and speaking up against discrimination and injustice against intersex people and people of black colour is a big, big way for me.
Hiker Chiu: Hida Viloria is my role model at the time. There is a public hearing in San Francisco in 2004, there is a video online and Hida is the only one who shared her story with a smile. I was super inspired by her attitude.
Crystal Hendricks: Also the founder of Intersex South Africa that is laid, Sally Gross.
Mani Bruce Mitchell: One person I want to talk about is a person called Sally Gross. Sally and I were the same age, and Sally was an extraordinary activist in South Africa. I just wish that she had lived long enough to see what's going on now because she would be so proud and so excited.
Hiker Chiu: Actually I met Sally before in the first Intersex... International Intersex Forum. She is the one, yea.
Luan Pertl: Mani Mitchell or Betsy Driver or Dan Christian Ghattas, who just showed so much strength and power, over and over again. Or also Mauro.
Mauro Cabral Grinspan: Probably my role model is a Brazilian feminist called Sonia Corrêa.
Obioma Chukwuike: And finally someone I've always looked up to when I was small is Nelson Mandela.
Luan Pertl: For me that's surely Audre Lorde.
Obioma Chukwuike: So these are the four people that are my role models in life for now. I wish to get more as I am going. Because I look up to them, I want to be like them.
Mauro Cabral Grinspan: In terms of role models, I would really love for that intergenerational learning for movements to be able just… I don't know to be kinder inside, and not to have arguments about words or things that ... try to avoid destroying people because we can be like a very hostile community and movement inside.
Luan Pertl: What I also wish for is that the communities will also be more mindful towards each other. And just recognise that, when we are working together, that we then just are a stronger voice. Because basically we have, in fact, many, or most of us have, I think, the same goal. And that is to fight white, patriarchal structures.
Mauro Cabral Grinspan: My name is Mauro Cabral Grinspan, I am Argentinian and I am an intersex person and a trans person myself. I believe that the medical management of intersex or our experience produces certain trauma in the experience of time or the experience of time becomes traumatic. And than it's difficult to get out of certain places. At some point we are still there. And when you listen to people narrating some traumatic experiences many of us are still there. Some of us feel that a part of us died back then. Then it's really difficult to think ›What is the past?‹, when you're dead, or ›What is the present?‹, or ›What is the future?‹, ›How the future look like?‹. I'd say like ›Well, you know, I'm dead inside, or part of me is dead. So that part doesn't have a future. I take it with me, but, you know, it's already dead.‹ So yeah, I'm sorry for being so…
Luan Pertl: No, no, no!
Mauro Cabral Grinspan: Sounds like ... tragic. But for me, as an activist, my job is to try to move us forward. But I believe that this is a movement that is moving forward, pushed by people that have all kind of issues with temporality and with time and with life and death and things that can't be repaired, you know, so, yeah ...
Luan Pertl: Hello and welcome to the audio collage for inter* people only. With these audio materials, these astute, optimistic and poetic thoughts from our communities, we want to create a listening space only for us. It's a listening space where the same is heard simultaneously with all others who have tuned into the inter* track. Here, our thoughts about community, utopia and temporality can unfold.
Luan Pertl: Some intersex people find it very hard because of their history to imagine ... inter-Utopia, what would be a safe place, so that's why we came up then with this question. So because some people are just, some intersex people, they can totally imagine like a safe place in the future and things like that, but some intersex people are not, because...
Mani Bruce Mitchell: As a child one of the ways I survived was in my imagination. So I could create places where I would go in my head, so I have no problem about creating this, but when you'd ask me like now, as someone that has lived on planet earth for 68 years, it's really hard because there is so much that is wrong and out of balance. So can I do this? Yes in my imagination, but to think about this...
Mauro Cabral Grinspan: When I talk with trans friends, especially with trans women, they say I imagine I am going to be dead, because someone will kill me or HIV is going to kill me or poverty will kill me. So in that sense I don't think that it's particularly intersex—our inability to think about the future.
Obioma Chukwuike: It's not easy to have that wholesome environment that accommodates and allows intersex people to live their life. But that doesn't mean it's not achievable.
Mani Bruce Mitchell: This will be very hard, is it possible? Absolutely it's possible.
Mauro Cabral Grinspan: An inter-utopia sounds for me like something really easy to achieve. You know it would be anywhere where intersex people can live as we are, without being subjected to medical violence or other forms of violence in childhood. But at the same time, like, as an utopia it's not very much like ›oh my God this is so different‹ or it would be like a complete different world. It's just that something is going to be different, but that something is everything. When I think of what makes intersex people different from other people, like, we are all different among ourselves. The main difference is, like, of course we were born with certain bodies, but everyone is born with a body or another or another. It's mostly the experience of violence. So for me, an utopia would be a place where people don't live that experiences. Which makes it difficult to imagine that, from my perspective, that utopia only will take place in the future. Because I would really love to live in a place where people didn't have, like ... To imagine an intersex utopia it will be a world where everyone is safe, all intersex people are safe, since the moment they are born. And that's the reality for them, and they remember what happened before, but actually none of us is alive. No one, no living human being, have had the experience of violence. It's like we are really in the past. So it's not that we remember or... no. Like people remember because we remember the past, but not because we are still giving testimony. I would really love to live in a world that is so different that no one ever living in that world had the experience of violence. Or that particular kind of violence.
Crystal Hendricks: So my name is Crystal Hendricks. I'm from South Africa. I'm from an organization called Intersex South Africa. I'm also on the Intersex human rights fund. I would say it's definitely not easy, but it's also important to have that thoughts of the inter-Utopia, because that's what keeps you going. I feel in the space where we are, we are dealing with people that have their human rights completely stripped away from them. And thats a thing that as intersex people we face, the violations against our body, the isolations from our communities because we 'are so different' as they say. And also the erasure, because of them choosing an identity for an intersex person completely erases that intersex person at all. And because of that erasure, the isolation and also the mutilation that intersex people face, it could be very difficult to look to the future and see – okay hopefully this is going to end. So it's very difficult to imagine that, but I also feel like: We have to! We have to. We need to have that positive outlook. You know, there is a way for intersex people to live freely. It may not be in our lifetime but it could even be in the next lifetime, but eventually intersex people will live in that freedom.
Luan Pertl: Thanks for listening, and it's great that you are here.We want to have a listening space where we jointly listen to the same material simultaneously. This only applies to this track, which has been created for us inter* people only. Only this track is on a loop. And only here are all listeners hearing the same sentence at the same time. What you are hearing now, you are hearing together with all others who have selected the inter* only audio track.
Mani Bruce Mitchell: I think this is really really important. We need our own words, our own images and so do what we are doing tonight which is to sit and dream and laugh and imagine a world where you could be happy and you could feel comfortable yourself about this unique and wonderful body that you were given.
Luan Pertl: Yes, inter* utopia. Well, I have thought about it a lot, actually. And for me it would definitely be somewhere, no idea, on some planet that maybe isn't even known yet. Which is just free, free in its existence, and that people are just free there as well, and can also be free in their being in the world. There would be a lot of animals there, and a huge amount of plants, but other people would have to take care of them, because I am totally useless at that, but I would find it totally beautiful if there were a lot of plants, and birds, because I love birds. Birds actually signify freedom for me. I think I would just take many important people in my life with me. And I would have a pug, that would also be just great. I would no longer have to work, and I'd like that very much also, yeah, and there would just be a community, a large one, a diverse community. And I don't just mean intersex community only, but just people in all their diversity and difference, just the way they are. The weather would be, I'd say, 26 degrees always, that would be great for me, but then I'm thinking about the flora and fauna now, and that's maybe not so great for them ... but always around 26 degrees, maybe a little warmer sometimes, so that you can go swimming. There would be a lot of water – that's important. Swimming is important.
Hiker Chiu: But I still, you know, I love our Earth so much.
Obioma Chukwuike: I'd have water around. Because water will give you ... if you want to plant, if you want to do basic things, you need water. I'd have water around, just like an island, where everybody's there and it's peaceful. I love nature. Whenever I'm at the seaside or the riverside, I feel calm. I feel like all my worries have been taken away from me because I hear the birds, I feel ... even the smell of the environment is so different. So that would be my perfect example of utopia, being with my intersex family and people, just like Mani said, people that love me for who I am.
Mani Bruce Mitchell: So if we were in imagination, for me, I think the perfect would be more like a village in scale. So there would be both wild areas and then places where food is growing. The buildings would be beautiful and small-scale. They would be sustainable, healthy places to live in with low impact on the environment. It would blend everything, so it would take the best from the past and what we know now.
Mauro Cabral Grinspan: We have been struggling for decades, and nothing is changing much. Which also make you to feel that the intersex time moves really slowly. So when I'm thinking in an uptopic time, I would love to have a time that goes faster, so we could see changes in a lifetime.
Mani Bruce Mitchell: To this utopia, the idea: we can repair. So, first of all repair ourselves, and then repair the planet. That we could find a way to be in harmony with the earth. I would take people who I feel safe with, that's the most important thing for me. They would be people who both inspire me, who are creative and are willing to do things differently. We have to. Those people would be people that could hold pain and commit to hard work. Being in absolute respect with each other. And in this place, we would be light on the planet and light and gentle with each other.
Hiker Chiu: This is Hiker Chiu. I'm based in Taiwan.I am optimistic. For me now, like this moment is a utopia for me now already. I couldn't imagine that like 10 years before. So after I met intersex people, intersex activists and become an intersex activist, I really feel that I live in a utopia already because I have all of you. I never feel alone. Every time I am with you, you just give me energy and I don't fear. I believe there will be a utopia for intersex people in the future and—and we have to create it.
Luan Pertl: Yeah Hiker I think you're right because when I attended my first intersex community event, yeah, I had also the feeling I'm in inter-utopia because it was the first time when I met other people and I could... when I was in a room just with intersex people and we had laughter and everything, that was …
Hiker Chiu: ... so relaxed, right?
Luan Pertl: Yeah, absolutely.
Obioma Chukwuike: I've always imagined a world where intersex people have their freedom to be whoever they want to be. Live their life, nobody asking them questions. They grow up and be what they want to be.
Eliana Rubashkyn: How I would imagine an utopia is that it's a place and where, as humans, we recognize and we celebrate everyone's existence. And everyone's existence in all the possible ways, in all the possible elements that build the diversity of a human. It's the multiple dimensions that build up that diversity. For intersex people that diversity will be our bodies, and the celebration that bodies are meant to be celebrated and loved, no matter how they are and no matter how they should be. Our bodies should be celebrated just for the fact that we are human, celebrating what actually, you know, are corpo ralities and I would say corpo realities.
Mani Bruce Mitchell: Of this extraordinary community and yeah ... I'm also thinking about the people that come to this exhibition who are still in pain and finding it difficult. I just want people to look inside and find that beauty. Every intersex person is a beautiful being that deserves to unfold and be and connect to this amazing community around the world. It's in doing what you're doing that we make things possible, so I agree ...
Hiker Chiu: That's how wonderful we are, you know? We are …
Crystal Hendricks: Definetly.
Hiker Chiu: There's no standard, there's no stereotype, don't think about that. You know, this is how wonderful we are!
Eliana Rubashkyn: Then I think we will come to a point where we will start celebrating also the narratives in the bodies of intersex people. And actually that will translate in better experiences. Because in my utopia, it would be a world in ... actually you will be lucky for being intersex. Because people will like to celebrate you, or you will be special. You will have this unique gift of nature that you are just, you know, you have a particular body, and you have a superpower in your body, and you have a beautiful manifestation that just shows how beautiful nature can be.
Luan Pertl: My name is Luan Pertl. I am part of the curating team of Mercury Rising, and I have initiated this exhibition.Hello, great that we can exchange our thoughts on an intersex utopia here. This audio space is for inter* people only. We are listening to the same things at the same time. How do you like it? Do you hear Mercury Rising?
