Dan Beleiu Flashes Hanne Gaby Odiele in Passion Colors for Vogue Czech November 2019

Model Hanne Gaby Odiele poses in a fashion passion colors play, styled by Alba Melendo and Jan Kralicek in high-voltage, glam images. Photographer Dan Beleiu captures Hanne for Vogue Czechlosvakia November 2019.

AOC wouldn’t mention Odiel’s intersex status on October 11 National Coming Out Day if she wasn’t profiled in Vogue Czech on the topic Hanne Gaby Odiele on what it means to be intersexual. In a clever opening by Martin Vasa, the dialogue begins (translated by Google):

Intersexuals are about as many as people with red hair. Yet many of us wonder what intersexuality is. And that's probably a stumbling block. Being human is not equal to being a woman or a man. Despite what they have told us since childhood, this palette is far more colorful.

"Being intersexual can be pretty cool," says Hanne Gaby Odiele, which you might know from the cover of the current Vogue Czechoslovakia issue. It uses its fame to help change the attitude of society.

Hanne Gaby was born without a uterus and ovaries but with testosterone-producing inner testes. With a biological resistance to the male hormone —turning it instead into estrogen — several childhood operations worked to make the model more female.

Today Odiele speaks openly about these challenges, preferring as well not to use the pronouns “he” or “she” in conversation but “they”. Read on at Vogue Czech.