When Wen Long van Knippenberg wanted to tell fellow pupils about life as an intersex child in the Netherlands, the presentation was banned by her teacher as inappropriate for children. Now the nine-year-old hopes to spread the message far beyond the classroom, as the star of a short film – Girlsboysmix – that shows her finding a place in the world in the face of widespread ignorance about intersex conditions. “The whole world needs to know what intersex is,” van Knippenberg, who uses ‘she’ and ‘her’ pronouns, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a video call from her Dutch home. “Most do not, so I have to tell them how it works and what it is. “I want everyone to know what intersex is, so I don’t need to explain it any more.”