| Intersex topics |
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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. [1]
The International Intersex Forum is preceded by several other smaller gatherings, including an ISNA retreat in 1996 that brought together activists from North America and New Zealand, and also a summer school organised by OII-France in 2006. The retreat is documented in a short movie entitled Hermaphrodites Speak [2] [3] and the film Intersexion , and the summer school in a book, A qui appartiennent nos corps? Féminisme et luttes intersexes. [4] [5]
This event, described as "historic" brought together 24 people from 17 intersex organisations to create a new informal network and agree a closing statement. The statement reads: [1] [6]
Around the world intersex individuals are being subjected to inhumane and degrading altering surgical and hormonal procedures, without consent of the intersex person, at the discretion of doctors and outside legal regulation. This is done to ‘normalise’ genitals and bodies in order to fit intersex people within the sex binary of men and women. Pathologisation of intersex individuals results in gross human rights violations and abuse bodily integrity and personal dignity.
The Forum agreed on the demands aiming to end discrimination against intersex people and to ensure the right of bodily integrity and self determination:
- To put an end to mutilating and ‘normalising’ practices such as genital surgeries, psychological and other medical treatments, including infanticide and selective abortion (on the grounds of intersex) in some parts of the world.
- To insure that the personal, free, prior, and fully informed consent of the intersex individual is a compulsory requirement in all medical practices and protocols.
- Creating and facilitating supportive, safe and celebratory environments for intersex people, their families and surroundings.
Spokespeople for the first forum were Sally Gross of Intersex South Africa, Hiker Chiu of Oii-Chinese, Gina Wilson of Organisation Intersex International Australia, Del LaGrace Volcano, Mauro Cabral and Jim Ambrose, alongside ILGA and ILGA-Europe representatives Ruth Baldacchino and Silvan Agius. [6]
This forum brought together 37 activists who represented 33 intersex organisations and institutions, selected from an open call application process managed by ILGA and ILGA Europe. [7] The participants made a series of "demands aiming to end discrimination against intersex people and to ensure the right of bodily autonomy and self-determination", including ending infanticide, terminations of intersex fetuses, ending "normalising" surgeries and providing human and citizenship rights: [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] Countries represented included Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Taiwan, Tunisia, Uganda and the US. [13]
- To put an end to mutilating and ‘normalising’ practices such as genital surgeries, psychological and other medical treatments, including infanticide and selective abortion (on the grounds of intersex).
- To ensure that the personal, free, prior, and fully informed consent of the intersex individual is a compulsory requirement in all medical practices and protocols.
- Creating and facilitating supportive, safe and celebratory environments for intersex people, their families and surroundings.
- In view of ensuring the bodily integrity and health of the intersex child, psycho-social support and non-pathologising peer support be provided to parents and/or care providers and the child`s immediate family instead of surgical or other medical treatment unless such interventions are live-saving.
- The provision of all human rights and citizenship rights to intersex people.
- The provision of access to one`s own medical records and any documentation, and the affirmation of the intersex person's right to truth.
- The acknowledgement and redress of the suffering and injustice caused in the past.
The Forum also, upon suggestion of author and activist Hida Viloria [14] then global Chair of the Organisation Intersex International and founder of Intersex Campaign for Equality, called for human rights for intersex people. This took place by presenting an open letter authored by Viloria [15] and sent on behalf of signing participants at the Forum to United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay. The first European intersex NGO, OII Europe, was founded at the event. [16]
The third forum was held in Malta with 34 people representing 30 organisations "from all continents". The Malta declaration, the closing statement, affirmed the existence of intersex people, reaffirmed "the principles of the First and Second International Intersex Fora and extend the demands aiming to end discrimination against intersex people and to ensure the right of bodily integrity, physical autonomy and self-determination". For the first time, participants made a statement on birth registrations, in addition to other human rights issues: [17] [18] [19]
- To put an end to mutilating and ‘normalising’ practices such as genital surgeries, psychological and other medical treatments through legislative and other means. Intersex people must be empowered to make their own decisions affecting own bodily integrity, physical autonomy and self-determination.
- To put an end to preimplantation genetic diagnosis, pre-natal screening and treatment, and selective abortion of intersex foetuses.
- To put an end to infanticide and killings of intersex people.
- To put an end to non-consensual sterilisation of intersex people.
- To depathologise variations in sex characteristics in medical guidelines, protocols and classifications, such as the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases.
- To register intersex children as females or males, with the awareness that, like all people, they may grow up to identify with a different sex or gender.
- To ensure that sex or gender classifications are amendable through a simple administrative procedure at the request of the individuals concerned. All adults and capable minors should be able to choose between female (F), male (M), non-binary or multiple options. In the future, as with race or religion, sex or gender should not be a category on birth certificates or identification documents for anybody.
- To raise awareness around intersex issues and the rights of intersex people in society at large.
- To create and facilitate supportive, safe and celebratory environments for intersex people, their families and surroundings.
- To ensure that intersex people have the right to full information and access to their own medical records and history.
- To ensure that all professionals and healthcare providers that have a specific role to play in intersex people's wellbeing are adequately trained to provide quality services.
- To provide adequate acknowledgement of the suffering and injustice caused to intersex people in the past, and provide adequate redress, reparation, access to justice and the right to truth.
- To build intersex anti-discrimination legislation in addition to other grounds, and to ensure protection against intersectional discrimination.
- To ensure the provision of all human rights and citizenship rights to intersex people, including the right to marry and form a family.
- To ensure that intersex people are able to participate in competitive sport, at all levels, in accordance with their legal sex. Intersex athletes who have been humiliated or stripped of their titles should receive reparation and reinstatement.
- Recognition that medicalization and stigmatisation of intersex people result in significant trauma and mental health concerns.
- In view of ensuring the bodily integrity and well-being of intersex people, autonomous non-pathologising psycho-social and peer support be available to intersex people throughout their life (as self-required), as well as to parents and/or care providers.
The forum called on:
- International, regional and national human rights institutions to take on board, and provide visibility to intersex issues in their work.
- National governments to address the concerns raised by the Intersex Forum and draw adequate solutions in direct collaboration with intersex representatives and organisations.
- Media agencies and sources to ensure intersex people's right to privacy, dignity, accurate and ethical representation.
- Funders to engage with intersex organisations and support them in the struggle for visibility, increase their capacity, the building of knowledge and the affirmation of their human rights.
- Human rights organisations to contribute to build bridges with intersex organisations and build a basis for mutual support. This should be done in a spirit of collaboration and no-one should instrumentalise intersex issues as a means for other ends.
The Forum was organized by ILGA Europe's Silvan Agius and Ruth Baldacchino, and three intersex activists selected from an open call application process managed by ILGA Europe: Mauro Cabral, of Argentina, Mani Bruce Mitchell, of New Zealand, and Hida Viloria of OII-USA (now Intersex Campaign for Equality). [20] Attending participants included Sean Saifa Wall and Pidgeon Pagonis for AIC (now interACT), [21] Morgan Carpenter and Tony Briffa from Organisation Intersex International Australia, [22] Intersex Austria [23] Holly Greenberry from Intersex UK, [24] [25] Miriam van der Have and Inge Intven of Nederlandse Netwerk Intersekse/DSD (NNID), [26] and representatives of Zwischengeschlecht, [27] and IVIM/OII Deutschland. [28]
The Fourth Forum took place in Amsterdam in April 2017, followed by publication of a media statement. [29] Forty participants, including representatives of intersex organizations and independent advocates, came from all continents, including Africa, Asia, Europe, Post-Soviet countries, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, and Oceania. [29] The Forum affirmed the Malta declaration by the Third Forum, and called for a Fifth Forum to take place in Global South.
Between 2017 and 2018, a series of regional fora were held:
The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) is a LGBTQ+ rights organization.
ILGA-Europe is the European region of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association. It is an advocacy group promoting the interests of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex (LGBTI) people, at the European level. Its membership comprises more than 500 organisations from throughout Europe and Central Asia. The association enjoys consultative status at the United Nations Economic and Social Council and participatory status at the Council of Europe.
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 and Sarita Vincent Guillot. 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.
In law, sex characteristic refers to an attribute defined for the purposes of protecting individuals from discrimination due to their sexual features. The attribute of sex characteristics was first defined in national law in Malta in 2015. The legal term has since been adopted by United Nations, European, and Asia-Pacific institutions, and in a 2017 update to the Yogyakarta Principles on the application of international human rights law in relation to sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics.
Intersex Awareness Day is an internationally observed awareness day each October 26, designed to highlight human rights issues faced by intersex people.
The Intersex Campaign for Equality (IC4E) is a non-governmental organization that advocates for the human rights of intersex people. It was formerly the US affiliate of Organisation Intersex International.
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.
OII Europe is the umbrella organisation of European human rights-based intersex organisations. It is a non-governmental organization (NGO) which is working for the protection and full implementation of intersex people's human rights in Europe.
Intersex Trust of Aotearoa New Zealand is a nonprofit organization based in New Zealand that serves as the national advocacy and peer support organization for intersex people. Operating under the name Intersex Aotearoa, and previously known as Intersex Awareness New Zealand, it is recognized as the peak body representing intersex persons, those with variations of sex characteristics, or Ira Tangata. The organization was founded in 1996 by Mani Mitchell, a prominent intersex activist and advocate.
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 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".
The following is a timeline of intersex history.
Intersex rights in New Zealand are protections and rights afforded to intersex people. Protection from discrimination is implied by the Human Rights Act and the Bill of Rights Act, but remains untested. The New Zealand Human Rights Commission states that there has seemingly been a "lack of political will to address issues involved in current practices of genital normalisation on intersex children".
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.
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 rights in Malta since 2015 are among the most progressive in the world. Intersex children in Malta have world-first protections from non-consensual cosmetic medical interventions, following the passing into law of the Gender Identity, Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics Act in 2015. All Maltese intersex persons have protection from discrimination. Individuals who seek it can access simple administrative methods of changing sex assignment, with binary and non-binary forms of identification available.
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 as 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 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.