All those people cheering on the quay will never disappear
Text: Tim van Erp
Photo: Jon Haywood
Video: Andre Kloer
Theatre maker Marleen Hendrickx had had enough of secrecy: everyone should know she is intersex. Now she is Pride Amsterdam’s first intersex ambassador. “I was always taught: if they find out, nobody will want to be around you.”
When asked how she will fulfil her ambassadorship, Marleen Hendrickx is clear: talk ‘a whole lot’ about being intersex. Marleen (34) is a theatre maker, performer, dancer, speaker and intersex herself. She made two shows about the topic and toured them across the Netherlands. She didn’t expect to be asked to be a Pride Ambassador, but when it happened she said yes without hesitation. That makes her the first intersex ambassador in Pride Amsterdam’s history.
“That’s both very exciting and very necessary,” she says. “The intersex community is making great strides right now. We’ve only just pulled away from medical language: from ‘I’m a patient with a disorder’ to ‘I’m intersex, I was already perfect before I had surgery’. Intersex is an emancipatory term that reclaims power. We weren’t just asked to adapt, we were modified.”
X Y I and X Y WE, those are the shows Marleen made about the subject. In the latter she shared the stage with five other intersex people. It took some effort to find them — five people willing to speak on stage about this. After performances, others would come up to Marleen saying they would have liked to have taken part.
Encouraging. At one point Marleen found the secrecy suffocating. “I developed a strong desire for everyone to simply know: I was born with XY chromosomes — so, male at birth. However, I am insensitive to male hormones and therefore developed externally as female. In medical terms that’s called androgen insensitivity syndrome. I can’t have children and had to take hormones because my body didn’t produce enough to form breasts.”
Marleen has known since childhood that she has androgen insensitivity syndrome. “I was five when my parents discovered it. They thought I had an inguinal hernia, but what was found turned out to be underdeveloped testes that had descended. From the age of ten my parents gradually explained the biology to me. Much later I realised: I am intersex. I don’t remember exactly how old I was.” She does remember that Raven van Dorst was an inspiration. In 2017 he revealed on his programme Geslacht! that he was born with both male and female sex characteristics. Raven was the first Dutch celebrity to go public with this. “I was already working on the subject, but Raven’s openness helped me enormously.”
Marleen continues: “Once I decided I no longer wanted to hide it, it was clear to me that I had to address it on stage. I was already doing theatre and touring as a dancer; I feel comfortable in my profession. Two weeks before my show opened I realised: my uncles and aunts still don’t know and I’m about to share this with strangers. That’s why I posted it on social media. It was terrifying, but liberating.”
She thought she would lose friends, Marleen says. “I ran a dance school at the time and thought parents would cancel their children’s subscriptions. Nothing happened. Everyone was overwhelmingly kind. I thought: so why did I keep my mouth shut all my life? Everything I’d been told was wrong.”
Wealth
That’s often where things go wrong, she observes: intersex children are steered down a path early in life. “You are adjusted to fit in: man or woman. I have always tried to be as perfect a woman as possible so no one would notice anything. I was always taught: if they find out, nobody will want to be around you. Later I had to discover: who am I without the label the doctor put on me?”
Talking about it is a huge step, she continues. “Let alone seeing it as something fun about you instead of something that’s failed. To celebrate it. Some intersex people don’t identify with the LGBTQ+ community. I have experienced how valuable such a community can be. It’s an enormous richness not to have to be one thing or the other. When I performed in Boys Won’t Be Boys I joined a queer circle of friends. I saw how much we had in common: the challenges we faced, but also the fun.”
Marleen felt that same richness when she took part in Utrecht Pride. “I wish everyone could have that experience. That love. Do you know what’s beautiful about all those people applauding on the quayside? They don’t disappear — they continue to support our community. Let’s remember that in harder times.”
Another reassuring thing: the amount of ignorance and negativity Marleen encountered was much less than she expected. “I have no idea why that is; I think biology can be easier to understand than how someone feels? What probably also helps is that in my shows I painted a very clear picture of how far the medical world goes. Audiences often asked: how can this happen in the Netherlands and we not know about it?” Even when the audience was full of young people, interest was there. “Teenagers can be rowdy during a show,” she laughs. “They might eat crisps or throw cans. But when I told my story they listened respectfully. You could see them thinking: huh, so this can happen too?”
Ban on surgeries
Marleen wants more than openness and knowledge: she also wants a ban on non-medically necessary surgeries on intersex children. “You end up in hospital while you’re not ill: that’s absurd. As a child you don’t know anything but constant medical scrutiny, being undressed and altered. Sometimes there is a medical necessity, of course people should be helped then. But I want intersex people not to be defined by medical terms.”
There are also intersex people who are happy with how things are now. “I sometimes say: we are humans, so we don’t always agree with each other. I’m lucky to work in the theatre world: it’s a free, tolerant sector. People in other professions may be glad about such surgeries. But a few people’s satisfaction is not an argument when it comes to procedures carried out without consent. I’m not saying: you mustn’t be operated on. I’m saying: you should be able to choose for yourself.”
Marleen has been in a relationship for years now — the Moby shirt she wears as a hidden love message in her ambassador portrait is her partner’s shirt, which she likes to sleep in — but for a long time being intersex got in the way of dating. “I kept cutting things off. I had a large scar and didn’t want anyone to press on it. When I told my current boyfriend we weren’t dating yet. To to my surprise he didn’t run away. Six months later we met again and the pressure of my secret was gone. We have now been together eleven years.”
Pride Ambassador since 2025
