Dateline: Aug 21

On Dateline this week, “From Pariah to Messiah” Kenya’s openly intersex preacher fighting for a hidden community.

“She, he, I’m just comfortable with it all!”

We meet 42-year-old Apostle Darlan Rukih Moses, the openly intersex Kenyan preacher & gospel star with hundreds of devoted followers who came out in 2012 as both man and woman. He’s on a mission to protect Kenya’s intersex community by fighting against the stigma and speaking candidly about his experience.

His mother saved him as an infant – a time when other intersex babies are often starved to death. While growing up, he was still an outcast for many years.

Now, If you look Apostle up on YouTube, you’ll find hundreds of videos of him singing and dancing in hyper-coloured robes as performs flamboyant hymns to the masses. His music videos get hundreds of thousands of views, he’s performed concerts for tens of thousands, he has a radio show and is a regular guest on Kenyan TV.

But in a conservative, Christian country, Apostle is a church figure with a difference. He says he was born with both male and female reproductive organs; part of a hidden community of Kenyans who identify as a the “third sex.”

Tuesday at 9:30pm on SBS.