A top fashion model has revealed that she is intersex, saying that she hopes speaking out will help break a taboo, the BBC reports.

Hanne Gaby Odiele, 29, was born with undescended testicles, which were removed when she was 10 after doctors warned that they could cause cancer.

Intersex people are born with a mixture of male and female sex characteristics.

According to the United Nations, the condition affects up to 1.7% of the world's population.

Ms Odiele, originally from Belgium, was born with androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS).

"It is very important to me in my life right now to break the taboo," she told USA Today.

"I knew at one point after the surgery I could not have kids, I was not having my period. I knew something was wrong with me," she said.

She had additional surgery at 18 to reconstruct her vagina.

But she said the procedures caused her distress and she wanted to speak out in part to discourage other parents from putting their children through perhaps unnecessary surgery.

"It's not that big of a deal being intersex," she said. "If they were just honest from the beginning... It became a trauma because of what they did."