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“I stand firm as a man” – Fat Murphy |
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Fadwaan “Fat” Murphy, an intersexed person recently appearing on charges of possession of stolen property and corruption after offering a policeman money not to search him, admitted in court that he was born with both male and female sex organs.
According to an article in the Sunday Times by Shanaaz Eggington on January 10, 2010, police claimed they discovered Fat Murphy’s “true” identity when a strap-on penis fell off while he was being searched at his home in Kuils River, Cape Town. Murphy was forced to discuss his gender during a bail application in the Blue Downs Magistrate’s Court in Cape Town.
Eggington writes that Murphy announcerd he had a vagina that could not be penetrated as well as male organs including testes. He also never developed breasts. “I always knew I was really a man and that was what I wanted to be,” Murphy told the court.
“I am what I am through the creation of God. I stand firm as a man, as a husband and as a father,” he said in an interview with the Sunday Times. He also admitted to having his female organs removed. Murphy added that his two children, a girl of four and a one-year-old boy were biologically his.
Murphy was legally married to his first wife, which would not have been possible without an identity document. However, the prosecutor told the court that Murphy had two identity documents and that a charge of fraud was being investigated. The documents identify him as Hilary Murphy and Fadwaan Murphy. The male identity document was obtained in 2001 and police are investigating how he obtained it.
Murphy’s mother told the Sunday Times that she had tried to raise him as a girl, but that he refused to wear female clothes and only wanted to wear boy’s clothes. She said he wrote her a letter at age 13 in which he told her there was something wrong “down there”.
When contacted by Gender DynamiX, Murphy declined to comment, saying only that he intends suing the SA Police Service for “Crimen Injuria”.
According to the Intersex Society of South Africa (ISSA) as many as 1 in 50 persons are born with sex organs that doctors think “are not typical”. It is belived that in South Africa 1 in 500 people are born intersexed. Although this can be caused by a variety of medical syndromes, more commonly than not, doctors do not know why people are born with this condition.
Many intersexed persons are born with ambiguous genitalia or sex organs that are not clearly male or female. Intersexed is a general term which is now used as the non-discriminatory alternative to hermaphrodite.
For more information and answers to frequently asked questions, go to www.intersex.org.za
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