| Intersex Awareness Day | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Observed by | Intersex community, LGBT communities & allies |
| Type | International |
| Date | October 26 [1] |
| Frequency | annual |
| First time | 2003 |
| Related to | Intersex Day of Remembrance - November 8 |
| Intersex topics |
|---|
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Intersex Awareness Day is an internationally observed awareness day each October 26, [1] designed to highlight human rights issues faced by intersex people. [2]
The event marks the first public demonstration by intersex people in North America, on October 26, 1996, outside the venue in Boston where the American Academy of Pediatrics was holding its annual conference. [3] [4] Intersex activists Morgan Holmes and Max Beck participated for the (now-defunct) Intersex Society of North America, [5] [1] alongside allies from Transsexual Menace including Riki Wilchins. [5] Holmes has written that the event was intended not as a demonstration but as participation in the conference. She states that Beck and Holmes had intended to deliver an address, "on long-term outcomes and to challenge their still-prevailing opinion that cosmetic surgery to "fix" intersexed genitals was the best course of action", but were "met, officially, with hostility and were escorted out of the conference by security guards". [6] [5] The group only later demonstrated, carrying a sign saying "Hermaphrodites With Attitude". [7]
The commemoration day itself began in 2003 [1] [8] with the establishment of a central awareness raising site by Betsy Driver and Emi Koyama. [1] A central awareness raising site was later re-established in 2015 by Morgan Carpenter with Laura Inter of Brújula Intersexual, and support from Open Society Foundations. [9]
Intersex Awareness Day is an international day of grass-roots action to end shame, secrecy and unwanted genital cosmetic surgeries on intersex children. [3] [10] The day also provides an opportunity for reflection [11] [12] and political action. [13] Between October 26 and November 8, intersex organizations bring attention to the challenges intersex individuals face, culminating in the Intersex Day of Remembrance [4] on November 8, the birthday of Herculine Barbin, also sometimes known as Intersex Solidarity Day. [14] [15] [16]
On Friday 25 October 2013, the day before Intersex Awareness Day that year, the Australian Senate published a report on an inquiry titled the Involuntary or coerced sterilisation of intersex people in Australia. [17] On 11 November 2014, the New South Wales Legislative Council in Australia passed a motion marking Intersex Awareness Day and calling on the State government to "work with the Australian Government to implement the recommendations" of the 2013 Senate committee report. [13] [18]
For Intersex Awareness Day 2014, the Senate of the German Land of Berlin issued a statement calling for self-determination for intersex people. [19] Also in 2014, the Human Rights Commission of Mexico City, Distrito Federal, held a visibility event on intersex issues. [20]
In 2015, institutional events included the launch of an Intersex Human Rights Fund by Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, [21] and a motion submitted to New South Wales Legislative Assembly in Australia by Greens MP Jenny Leong. [22] A lawsuit was filed by Dana Zzyym of the Intersex Campaign for Equality, with Lambda Legal, suing the United States Department of State for legal gender recognition on their passport as nonbinary and intersex. [23] [24] BuzzFeed reported that over 4.2 million people saw personal stories posted on social media in an action coordinated by activist Pidgeon Pagonis. [25]
In 2016, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights launched an awareness website, [26] while UN experts, including the Committee against Torture, the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, along with the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and United Nations Special Rapporteurs called for an urgent end to human rights violations against intersex persons, including in medical settings. [27] [28]
Multiple governmental bodies made statements, alongside many civil society organizations. [29] [30] [31] Official recognition included statements by the United States Department of State [32] and Australian Human Rights Commission [33] [34] also made statements, The South African government acknowledged a need for action to prevent human rights violations, [35] [36] and there was a first event in Kenya. [37]
In June 2017, the State Department statement was cited in a policy paper by Joycelyn Elders, David Satcher, and Richard Carmona, three former Surgeons General of the United States, calling for a rethink of early genital surgeries on children with intersex traits. [38] [39] [40]
Australians held an intersex awareness day event in their national parliament. [41] The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement for Intersex Awareness Day, 21 years after a demonstration outside its conference that is now marked by the Day. [42] The State Department issued a statement recognizing violence of forced medical practices. [43] [44]
In 2018, OII Europe, ILGA-Europe and the European Parents' Association published a multilingual guide to parenting intersex children. [45] US advocates wrote about proposals to define gender strictly in accordance with genitalia observed at birth. [46] This was accompanied by news reports on children who have not undergone intersex medical interventions. [47] Australian intersex organizations held parliamentary meetings, and awarded the 'Darling Award' to the National LGBTI Health Alliance to recognize work beyond affirmation of the Darlington Statement, a regional community declaration. [48] [49]
The Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) was a non-profit advocacy group founded in 1993 by Cheryl Chase to end shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries. Other notable members included Morgan Holmes, Max Beck, Howard (Tiger) Devore, Esther Morris Leidolf and Alice Dreger. The organization closed in June 2008, and has been succeeded by a number of health, civil and human rights organizations including interACT.
The Organisation Intersex International (OII) is a global advocacy and support group for people with intersex traits. According to Milton Diamond, it is the world's largest organization of intersex persons. A decentralised network, OII was founded in 2003 by Curtis Hinkle. Upon Hinkle's retirement, American intersex activist Hida Viloria served as Chairperson/President elect from April 2011 through November 2017, when they resigned in order to focus on OII's American affiliate, OII-USA's transition into the independent American non-profit, the Intersex Campaign for Equality.
Intersex people are individuals born with any of several sex characteristics including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies".
Intersex Human Rights Australia (IHRA) is a voluntary organisation for intersex people that promotes the human rights and bodily autonomy of intersex people in Australia, and provides education and information services. Established in 2009 and incorporated as a charitable company in 2010, it was formerly known as Organisation Intersex International Australia, or OII Australia. It is recognised as a Public Benevolent Institution.
Intersex civil society organizations have existed since at least the mid-1980s. They include peer support groups and advocacy organizations active on health and medical issues, human rights, legal recognition, and peer and family support. Some groups, including the earliest, were open to people with specific intersex traits, while others are open to people with many different kinds of intersex traits.
The International Intersex Forum is an annual event organised, then later supported, by the ILGA and ILGA-Europe that and organisations from multiple regions of the world, and it is believed to be the first and only such intersex event.
Intersex Day of Remembrance, also known as Intersex Solidarity Day, is an internationally observed civil awareness day designed to highlight issues faced by intersex people. It marks the birthday of Herculine Barbin, a French intersex person whose memoirs were later published by Michel Foucault in Herculine Barbin: Being the Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth-century French Hermaphrodite.
Intersex people are born with sex characteristics, such as chromosomes, gonads, or genitals, that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies."
Intersex people are born with sex characteristics, such as chromosomes, gonads, or genitals that, according to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies".
Intersex people are born with sex characteristics, such as chromosomes, gonads, or genitals that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies". "Because their bodies are seen as different, intersex children and adults are often stigmatized and subjected to multiple human rights violations".
Intersex people are born with sex characteristics that "do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies". They are substantially more likely to identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) than the non-intersex population, with an estimated 52% identifying as non-heterosexual and 8.5% to 20% experiencing gender dysphoria. Although many intersex people are heterosexual and cisgender, this overlap and "shared experiences of harm arising from dominant societal sex and gender norms" has led to intersex people often being included under the LGBT umbrella, with the acronym sometimes expanded to LGBTI. Some intersex activists and organisations have criticised this inclusion as distracting from intersex-specific issues such as involuntary medical interventions.
The following is a timeline of intersex history.
Intersex rights in Australia are protections and rights afforded to intersex people through statutes, regulations, and international human rights treaties, including through the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) which makes it unlawful to discriminate against a person based upon that person's intersex status in contexts such as work, education, provision of services, and accommodation.
Intersex people in the United States have some of the same rights as other people, but with significant gaps, particularly in protection from non-consensual cosmetic medical interventions and violence, and protection from discrimination. Actions by intersex civil society organizations aim to eliminate harmful practices, promote social acceptance, and equality. In recent years, intersex activists have also secured some forms of legal recognition. Since April 11, 2022 US Passports give the sex/gender options of male, female and X by self determination.
The Malta declaration is the statement of the Third International Intersex Forum, which took place in Valletta, Malta, in 2013. The event was supported by the ILGA and ILGA-Europe and brought together 34 people representing 30 organisations from multiple regions of the world.
Intersex people in Germany have legal recognition of their rights to physical integrity and bodily autonomy, with exceptions, but no specific protections from discrimination on the basis of sex characteristics. In response to an inquiry by the German Ethics Council in 2012, the government passed legislation in 2013 designed to classify some intersex infants to a de facto third category. The legislation has been criticized by civil society and human rights organizations as misguided.
Intersex people in the United Kingdom face significant gaps in legal protections, particularly in protection from non-consensual medical interventions, and protection from discrimination. Actions by intersex civil society organisations aim to eliminate unnecessary medical interventions and harmful practices, promote social acceptance, and equality in line with Council of Europe and United Nations demands. Intersex civil society organisations campaign for greater social acceptance, understanding of issues of bodily autonomy, and recognition of the human rights of intersex people.
Intersex rights in China including the People's Republic of China, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, etc., are protections and rights afforded to intersex people through legislation and regulation. Obligations also arise in United Nations member states that sign international human rights treaties, such as the People's Republic of China. Intersex people in China suffer discrimination. Issues include both lack of access to health care and coercive genital surgeries.
Intersex people are born with sex characteristics, such as chromosomes, gonads, hormones, or genitals that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies". Such variations may involve genital ambiguity, and combinations of chromosomal genotype and sexual phenotype other than XY-male and XX-female.
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