Ekaette was thrown out of the Falconets camp in 2008 when coaches discovered she wasn't completely female.
The idea of a multi-sexual person or hermaphrodite is something that most Nigerians would have trouble coming to terms with, outside of biology class.
Ekaette Boniface, an Akwa-Ibom born football player knows this all too well. She has sexual and reproductive organs associated with both male and female genders.
As a football player, a sport where genders are so clearly set apart, it is a reality she has to face regularly.
Her biggest jolt was in the year 2008 when she was thrown out of the Falconets camp. The Falconets is the name given to the Under-20 team of the Nigerian football team.
The Falconets had been preparing for the Chile 2008 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup when the coaches discovered she was not completely female.
Getting Expelled
“I was featured in the starting line-up, so we finished playing the first half, there was no goal”, she tells Pulse.
“In the second half, the coach had to feature me again to play and bring out one other player.
“The players were complaining that the strength I have, they don’t understand if truly I’m a girl or a boy that I’m playing extraordinary from other girls because when I got on the pitch again, I played better than when I was on during the first half.
“I was the person who even scored for the team."
It is clear to see why such would happen. When you watch her play, you will observe that Ekaette has the boundless, sprightly energy of a 21-year old male.
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Either by nature or arduous training, her physicality is a big part of her game, something that is not exactly a major characteristic of the female game.
She is clearly energetic, so much that she is a bit of a challenge for even the men that she sometimes plays football with.
What is an intersex person?
Being a hermaphrodite or being inter-sex, as the condition may also be referred to, is not a wonder of the modern world.
Intersex persons are as old as biology and higher animals themselves; they are born with any of several variations in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones or genitals.
According to the now-defunct Intersex Society of America, between 1 to 1500–2000 births produce a baby that has some sort of atypical sexual genitalia.
Doctors have identified Ekaette as an intersex person with 85% female and 15% male characteristics.
Ekaette chooses to identify as a woman.
“Already I’ve found myself growing up as a girl, mingling with girls. Some tests that I’ve dome confirm that I’m a girl, it’s just the physical appearance that I have. They just need to do some other things to bring out the girl in me” she says.
Moving forward, as a woman
These “other things” are reconstructive surgery.
Where an intersex person tilts towards a particular gender much more than the other, at the person’s choice and with the approval of their doctors, surgery can be done to remove certain body parts.
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This form of surgery accentuates the organs associated with the gender of choice.
Ekaette needs the freedoms that this surgery will give her now more than ever.
At the moment, she makes a living by selling tickets at the stadium. It is a far cry from her dream of playing professional football as a woman in the Nigerian National Team.
“I put myself in for the selling of tickets just to earn a living at that moment because after the match if they are not playing again, you still go back to square one”, Ekaette says.
While the physical differences cannot be ignored, it is clear that Ekaette struggles with social acceptance in a society that is notoriously conservative.
Things may not be going her way, but woman or intersex person, she owes it to herself, at the very least, to hold on to her dreams of playing in that famous green jersey.
Ekaette Boniface: Being a hermaphrodite is killing this ex-Falconets player's dreams
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