Meet Chinju Aswathi, The First Intersex Candidate Contesting In The Lok Sabha Elections

When 25-year-old Chinju Aswathi filed his nomination as an independent candidate from Ernakulam Constituency on Thursday for the upcoming Lok Sabha Elections, he created history by becoming the first intersex candidate to contest the General Elections.

Chinju, a resident of Angamaly, was assigned female gender at birth and was named Aswathi Rajappan. Only after living as a woman for 22 years, Chinju came out as an intersex.

Chinju Aswathi/ Facebook

For Chinju, who is a Bsc Electronics graduate from IHRD College Thodupuzha, the reasons for him to contest the election is to bring a positive change in the society for people from his community.

While Chinju's chances against political heavyweights like Union Minister and BJP candidate Alphons Kannanthanam, Congress's Hiby Eden and CPIM's P Rajeev may be bleak, the fact that he is contesting the election in itself is a welcome step.

Chinju may be the first intersex candidate to contest in Lok Sabha election, he is not the first to fight an election from the community. Gopi Shankar, an LGBTQ activist from Tamil Nadu was the first openly intersex candidate in the history of India. He contested from Madurai the in Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly election, 2016.

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Intersex is those born with any of several variations in sexual characteristics, including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, or genitals. Unlike transgenders who are born with typical male or female anatomies but feel as though they’ve been born into the “wrong body”, intersex have anatomy that is not considered typically male or female.

Unlike transgenders, intersex doesn't have an internal experience of gender identity and in most of the cases, they are identified by doctors or parents notice something unusual about their bodies.