Intersex activist Juleigh Mayfield dies aged 51
Juleigh Mayfield (Facebook/Juleigh A. Mayfield)
Pioneering intersex activist Juleigh Mayfield passed away at the age of 51 on Saturday, 20 June.
Mayfield shared on Facebook in April that she was in late-stage kidney failure and that she had been advised to start dialysis within a month. However, she made the choice to seek alternative medicine.
Her passing was confirmed to Watermark Out News by her best friend Manny Carames–West, who said that Mayfield had been like a sister to him.
“She always talked about it, and I think she did a good job of sort of prepping the people who were close to her for that this eventually was going to become a reality, because she was getting tired of the struggle,” Carames-West told the publication. “Not only did she have a struggle with the world accepting who she was, but her body was attacking her constantly.”
Mayfield was a passionate advocate for the intersex community. She was born with a 47XXY chromosome variation, meaning she was born with a partial uterus, one ovary, one testicle, one cracked fallopian tube, male-sized lungs, a female-sized heart, breast tissue and a diminished Adam’s apple.
She was assigned male at birth but later came to realise that she was a woman. Mayfield spoke with love about the years that she had lived as a man, as she recognised that the experiences she had helped shape her into the woman she became.
Mayfield was a vocal and passionate advocate for the intersex community, seeking to educate others and encourage a greater understanding of what intersex means and the challenges intersex people face.
In 2024, Mayfield spoke to Watermark Out News about how her job as an advocate for the intersex community would never be done. She said: “I know I’m creating ripples that long term might make a difference. That’s important to me. Nobody said advocacy was easy… but once it finds you, you feel like you need to keep doing it for the people behind you.”
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