By Aisha Salaudeen

(CNN) Babalwa Mtshawu never experienced puberty. When she was growing up she didn't get her period or grow breasts like the other girls around her. Born in Mthatha, a town in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, she says her family's conservative nature made it difficult for her to talk to anyone about her body.

"I was aware that something was not entirely right with my body from a young age because of all the signs. But coming from a black family where we are so traditional, we never talked about sexual or reproductive health," Mtshawu told CNN.

'Sorcery and witchcraft'

Mtshawu, now 32, says babies discovered to be intersex at birth are sometimes killed due to the traditional belief that they are bad luck. According to a 2018 report by South Africa's Mail and Guardian newspaper, some traditional healers, midwives, and birth attendants have admitted to killing babies with indefinite genitalia. These babies are considered a manifestation of sorcery and witchcraft. Many intersex children are also subjected to non-consensual medical interventions.

In the 1960s, doctors found ways to perform surgeries intended to help patients keep to more conventional characteristics of one sex, but the outcomes of some of these surgeries did not follow the patients final gender identities. These surgeries led some patients in the United States to feel a mismatch between their sex and gender, according to a 2017 Human Rights Watch report.