All those applauding people on the quay will never be the same
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 hear it, nobody will want to be around you.”
About how she will fill her ambassadorship, Marleen Hendrickx is clear: talk “a lot” about being intersex. Marleen (34) is a theatre maker, performer, dancer, speaker and is intersex herself. She made two shows about the subject and toured the Netherlands with them. She didn’t expect to be asked to be a Pride Ambassador, but when she was, she said yes without hesitation. That makes her the first intersex ambassador in Pride Amsterdam’s history.
“That is very exciting and very necessary,” she says. “The intersex community is taking big steps right now. We have only just freed ourselves from medical language: from ‘I am a patient with a disorder’ to ‘I am intersex, I was already perfect before I had an operation.’ Intersex is a liberating term, with which we take back power. We weren’t just expected to adapt, we were adapted.”
X Y I andX 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 talk about this on stage. Afterwards, people came up to Marleen saying they would have loved to take part too.
Hopeful. Marleen herself eventually found the secrecy suffocating. “I felt a strong urge for everyone simply to know how it was: I was born with XY chromosomes, so male. However, I am insensitive to male hormones and therefore developed as a woman on the outside. In medical terms that is called androgen insensitivity syndrome. I cannot have children and had to take hormones because I didn’t produce enough myself to form breasts.”
Marleen has known since childhood that she has androgen insensitivity syndrome. “I was five when my parents found out. They thought I had an inguinal hernia, but what was there were underdeveloped testicles that had descended. From the age of ten my parents explained step by step how this all works biologically. Much later I realised: I am intersex. I don’t remember exactly how old I was.” She does know that Raven van Dorst was an inspiration. In 2017 he revealed on his programmeGeslacht! to the public that he was born with both male and female sex characteristics. That made Raven the first Dutch celebrity to speak openly about it. “I was already engaged with the topic, but Raven’s openness helped me enormously.”
Marleen continues: “For me, once I knew I no longer wanted to hide it, it was clear I had to do something with it on stage. I was already doing theatre and touring as a dancer; I feel comfortable in my field. Two weeks before I went on stage with my show about this subject 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 will cancel their children’s memberships. Nothing happened. Everyone was mostly very kind. I thought: why did I keep my mouth shut all these years? Everything I’d been told my whole life is just not true.”
Abundance
That’s often where things go wrong, she observes: an early-life path is plotted for intersex children. “You are adjusted to belong somewhere: man or woman. I have always worked to be as perfectly female as possible so no one would notice anything. I was always taught: if they hear it, nobody will want contact with you. Later in life I had to find out: who am I without the label the doctor put on me?”
Talking about it is a big step, she continues. “Let alone seeing it as something that is fun about you rather than something that went wrong. 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 wealth not to have to be either-or. When I performed inBoys Won’t Be Boys, I joined a queer group 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 joined the Pride boat in Utrecht. “I want everyone to have that experience. That love. Do you know what’s beautiful about all those applauding people on the quay? They don’t disappear — they continue to support our community. Let’s remember that in harder times.”
Another important positive surprise: the amount of ignorance and negativity Marleen encountered was much less than she expected. “I have no idea why that is; I think biology is easier to understand than how someone feels? I also think it helped that in my shows I painted a very clear picture of how far the medical world goes. Visitors often thought: how can this happen in the Netherlands and we know nothing about it?” Even when the hall was full of young people there was that interest. “Teenagers can of course be restless during a show,” she laughs. “They eat crisps or throw cans. But when I told my story they listened respectfully. You could see them think: huh, so this can happen too?”
Ban on operations
Marleen wants more than openness and knowledge: she also wants a ban on non-medically necessary operations for intersex children. “You end up in hospital while you are not sick: that is ridiculous. As a child you don’t know any different than constantly having doctors looking at you, undressing you and adjusting you. Sometimes there is a medical necessity, of course people should then be helped. But I want intersex people to no longer be defined by medical terms.”
There are intersex people who are happy with how things are now. “I sometimes say: we are just people, so we sometimes disagree with one another. I’m lucky to work in the theatre world: it’s a free, tolerant sector. People in very different professions may be glad about such an operation. But the fact that a few people feel that way is not an argument when it comes to procedures done without consent. I’m not saying: you may not have surgery. I’m saying: you should be able to make that choice yourself.”
Marleen has been in a relationship for years — the Moby T-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 it off myself. I had a large scar and didn’t want someone to press on that. When I told my current boyfriend we weren’t even dating yet. To to my surprise he didn’t walk away. Half a year later we met again and the pressure of my secret was gone. We’ve now been together eleven years.”
Pride ambassador since 2025
