PUNCH
Heartbroken after two failed relationships with men, 30-year-old Queen Obukoko, born with male and female sex organs, tells Godfrey George how she impregnated two women with her dominant male organ, the stigma associated with being intersex, and the dream to one day get married to a man she loves after undergoing a gender reassignment surgery
Growing up, Queen Obukoko knew she was different. Although physically, she looked like other girls, her voice was deep and huskier than that of boys her age.
Also, she noticed a penis-like growth around her groin. Confused, her parents thought it was a benign growth and tried everything to ‘treat’ it.
In an interview on Facebook with media personality, Lucky Udu, Obukoko said she became conscious of her condition when she turned 15.
Sunday PUNCH had also earlier interviewed Queen, where she explained her condition in detail.
Then, she was still with her first female partner.
“When I was young, I wasn’t conscious of my body until I clocked 15 years. One day, I was playing around with my friends in school and became pressed, so I went to ease myself with other girls.
“Anytime I want to ease myself, I usually feel the urge to do so through a particular genital. It could come from the female or the male side. But on that day, the urge came from the male genital,” Obukoko recalled.
The 30-year-old said as she was relieving herself, she received the biggest embarrassment of her life.
“All my friends who went to ease themselves with me called other people to look at me. They wondered how I would be standing to urinate as a woman.
“They said it was not right and something must be wrong with me. Then, a few of them came in front of me to find out how I could stand up to ease myself. They saw that I had a penis and some of them ran away, while others looked at me in wonder,” she said.
Since that day, according to Obukoko, life has not remained the same.
Whenever she feels the urge to relieve herself and there is no restroom nearby, the 30-year-old said she gets entrapped by the wandering eyes of passers-by, who stare in awe at how a woman could stand to urinate.
She said, “The last time it happened to me, someone even made a video and posted it on social media, asking people if they had ever seen a woman standing to pee.
“He had first questioned me on why I was standing to pee. I explained everything to him, and he still posted the video on social media. That’s why I decided to tell people that I’m a hermaphrodite, which according to the Longman Dictionary means a living thing that has both male and female sexual organs.”
Speaking of how her life changed since the incident, Obukoko said she became more conscious of her body and started urinating at hidden places to avoid being embarrassed.
She said, “I changed the pattern of my dressing and started to wear big outfits. If I am pressed and have to ease myself, I look for a hidden place and stand to pee so I don’t get embarrassed. If I don’t find a hidden place, I’ll hold back the urine till I get home.”
Blackmailed, failed relationship with men
Obukoko said she also struggled to maintain romantic relationships with men as most of them, upon finding out about her condition, abandoned or began to extort money from her.
She said, “People outside my family didn’t know I am intersex, except those I tell on my own. As for men, I get checked out but the romance doesn’t always last.”
If a relationship is fostered, Obukoko said along the line, it breaks down once the men find out she is intersex.
She said, “If I tell them who I am, some will stay back, while others will not even reply to my messages again. Some will pretend to be cool with it but once I show them how it looks, they will run away.
“Some even pretend to still love me despite the condition but they would take a picture of it and use it to blackmail and extort me. I remember a man threatened to post my nudes on social media if I didn’t pay him to be hush.”
Obukoko said she kept paying the man for months to hide her secrets until she got tired.
“I remembered that he was the one who insisted on having a video chat and told me to show him my genitals. I didn’t know he made a screen recording and started using the picture to blackmail me.
“He even promised to send me $20, but ended up blackmailing me. I shared this with my friends who told me to call his bluff and let him do his worst.”
Saddened by the blackmail, especially coming from someone she trusted and exposed her nudity to, and the failed romantic relationships she experienced with other men, Obukoko stopped dating men and decided to be with women instead.
After all, according to her, she has a functioning manhood.
Impregnating women
Her decision, she revealed to Sunday PUNCH, led to the birth of two lovely children.
Speaking about the first lady she dated, the 30-year-old said they were together for a short while and even had a son together.
“We parted ways because she told her people that she couldn’t bring me out as the father of the baby,” she said with a grin.
“She’s ashamed to show the world that an intersex person is the father of her child. She took the child from me and ran away. But we both know that I’m the father of the boy.”
Asked if she still sees the child, she replied, “I see the child every three months.”
Even though the relationship did not work out as expected, Obukoko was undeterred and went into another romantic relationship that lasted three years with another girl.
“The 24-year-old lady gave birth to a baby girl about a month ago,” she revealed.
Like mother, like daughter
But Obukoko said the newborn might have taken after her intersex nature as she discovered some traits similar to hers.
Expressing concerns, Obukoko said, “I’m scared to say it, this baby girl that is just a month old is intersex. I don’t want my child to pass through what I’m experiencing right now. We want to do surgery for her, but I’m scared.