Intersex rights in the United States

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Intersex rights in the United States
USA orthographic.svg
United States
Protection of physical integrity and bodily autonomy No
Protection from discrimination In healthcare
Access to same rights as other men and women No
Changing M/F sex classifications Varies
Third gender or sex classifications Varies
MarriageYes

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.

Contents

History

Early accounts of intersex people in North America include those of English immigrant Thomas(ine) Hall, in 17th-century colonial Virginia and 19th-century Connecticut intersex man Levi Suydam, pronounced male and so eligible to vote. Early common law, like canon law, [1] held that hermaphrodites were to be treated as male or female depending on the prevailing sex. [2] [3]

In September 2017, an intersex and non-binary student, Scout Schultz was shot dead at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In November 2017, Betsy Driver became the first intersex person openly elected to public office in the United States. Driver was elected as a council person in the New Jersey city of Flemington. Driver is the second publicly intersex person elected to office, following Tony Briffa in Australia. [4]

Intersex medical interventions

Since the mid-twentieth century, U.S. physicians have considered intersex status in infants a "psychosocial emergency" and performed "normalizing" or "reconstructive" genital surgery without considering non-surgical alternatives (e.g., counseling). [5] When deciding whether to assign the intersex infant "male" or "female," the factors typically considered are potential for fertility and sexual penetration. [5] These surgeries still continue in the U.S. today despite being medically unnecessary (that is, chiefly cosmetic) and potentially injurious to the patient's sexual pleasure. [5] [6]

The intersex movement

The U.S. intersex movement developed in the 1990s and 2000s, through the establishment of the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) and the AIS Support Group USA (now called AISDSD) [7] in the 1990s, and Advocates for Informed Choice (now interACT), Bodies Like Ours, [8] Intersex Initiative, [8] and Organisation Intersex International, [8] (now the Intersex Campaign for Equality) in the following decade.

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. [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] Amongst other activities, it published the journal Hermaphrodites with Attitude .

Intersex activism between the late 1990s and mid 2000s led from demonstrating outside a national pediatric conference, to speaking inside clinical conferences, and the first human rights investigation into medical "normalization", by the Human Rights Commission of the City and County of San Francisco. [14] However, coercive intersex medical interventions persist. [15]

ISNA closed in June 2008 after supporting the creation of a new clinical term for intersex conditions, Disorders of Sex Development (DSD), albeit ambivalently as a means of opening "many more doors" and engaging with clinicians, [16] and also supporting the establishment of a new organization, the Accord Alliance, set up to promote comprehensive and integrated approaches to healthcare. [17] New organizations such as Intersex Campaign for Equality and interACT were since established with civil and human rights goals.

interACT has worked with MTV on the program Faking It , notable for providing the first intersex main character in a television show, [18] and television's first intersex character played by an intersex actor. [19] In 2017, interACT worked with model Hanne Gaby Odiele to tackle social taboos. [20] [21]

Physical integrity and bodily autonomy

.mw-parser-output .legend{page-break-inside:avoid;break-inside:avoid-column}.mw-parser-output .legend-color{display:inline-block;min-width:1.25em;height:1.25em;line-height:1.25;margin:1px 0;text-align:center;border:1px solid black;background-color:transparent;color:black}.mw-parser-output .legend-text{} Legal prohibition of non-consensual medical interventions Regulatory suspension of non-consensual medical interventions Protection of intersex children from harmful practices.svg
  Legal prohibition of non-consensual medical interventions
  Regulatory suspension of non-consensual medical interventions

Demonstration and American Academy of Pediatrics statement

In October 1996, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a press statement stating that:

  • The Academy is deeply concerned about the emotional, cognitive, and body image development of intersexuals, and believes that successful early genital surgery minimizes these issues.
  • Research on children with ambiguous genitalia has shown that a person's sexual body image is largely a function of socialization, and children whose genetic sexes are not clearly reflected in external genitalia can be raised successfully as members of either sexes if the process begins before 2 1/2 years.[ citation needed ]
  • Management and understanding of intersex conditions has significantly improved, particularly over the last several decades ... [22]

The statement was issued in response to the first public demonstration by intersex people and allies, outside the annual conference of the Academy, in Boston on October 26, 1996. Morgan Holmes has written that the demonstration happened after activists Max Beck and Holmes were excluded from the conference. She states that the pair went to deliver an address, "on long-term outcomes and to challenging 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". [23] The demonstration, by Beck and Holmes, with allies from Transexual Menace, is now marked as Intersex Awareness Day. [24] [25] [26]

San Francisco Human Rights Commission report, 2005

A 2005 human rights investigation into the medical "normalization" of intersex people, by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission is thought "likely to be the first human rights report into the treatment of intersex people, certainly in the English language." [27] [28] [29]

  1. Infant genital surgeries and sex hormone treatments that are not performed for the treatment of physical illness, such as improving urinary tract or metabolic functioning, and have not been shown to alleviate pain or illness (hereafter referred to as "normalizing" interventions) are unnecessary and are not medical or social emergencies.
  2. "Normalizing" interventions done without the patient's informed consent are inherent human rights abuses.
  3. "Normalizing" interventions deprive intersex people of the opportunity to express their own identity and to experience their own intact physiology.
  4. It is unethical to disregard a child's intrinsic human rights to privacy, dignity, autonomy, and physical integrity by altering genitals through irreversible surgeries for purely psychosocial and aesthetic rationales. It is wrong to deprive a person of the right to determine their sexual experience and identity. ...
  5. It is ethically wrong to treat people differently or unfairly because they are perceived by others to be "monsters" or "oddities."
    — Human Rights Commission of the City and County of San Francisco [28]

Clinical shift to Disorders of Sex Development

In 2005, Cheryl Chase, Alice Dreger and others called for the replacement of the word "hermaphrodite" with "Disorders of Sex Development" (DSD). [30] Later the same year, a clinical "Intersex Consensus Meeting" of US and European pediatric endocrine societies adopted "DSD" as a replacement for both intersex and hermaphrodite in medical settings. [31]

The new language of Disorders of Sex Development was always contentious as was seen as pathologizing. Scholars and activists, such as Georgiann Davis, [32] and Morgan Holmes, [33] Esther Morris Leidolf, [34] and clinical psychologists like Tiger Devore [35] regarded this shift as a retrenchment of medical authority over intersex bodies. [36] [37] In May 2016, interACT published a statement opposing pathologizing language to describe people born with intersex traits, recognizing "increasing general understanding and acceptance of the term "intersex"". [38]

Research by the Lurie Children's Hospital, Chicago, and the AISDSD Support Group published in 2017 found that 80% of affected Support Group respondents "strongly liked, liked or felt neutral about intersex" as a term, while caregivers were less supportive. [39] The hospital found that "disorders of sex development" terminology may negatively affect care, give offence, and result in lower attendance at medical clinics. [40] The research results for "disorders of sex development" mirrored earlier results from a survey of a congenital adrenal hyperplasia support group, the CARES Foundation. [39]

International advocacy

In 2013, Pidgeon Pagonis testified for interACT before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights about the medical interventions they were subjected to as an intersex child, [41] alongside Latin Americans Mauro Cabral, Natasha Jiménez and Paula Machado. [42] In 2014, Anne Tamar-Mattis was published on medical interventions as torture in healthcare settings, in a book by the Center for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law at American University Washington College of Law. [43]

In 2016, the United Nations Committee Against Torture asked the United States government to comment on reports of intersex medical interventions on infants and children, following submission of a report by interACT. [15] [44]

Surgeons General statement, 2017

In June 2017, Joycelyn Elders, David Satcher, and Richard Carmona, three former Surgeons General of the United States published a paper at the Palm Center, [45] [46] [47] citing a State Department statement [48] and developments in Germany, Switzerland, Australia, Chile, Argentina, and Malta, and calling for a rethink of early genital surgeries on children with intersex traits. The statement reflected on the history of such interventions, their rationales and outcomes, stating:

When an individual is born with atypical genitalia that pose no physical risk, treatment should focus not on surgical intervention but on psychosocial and educational support for the family and child. Cosmetic genitoplasty should be deferred until children are old enough to voice their own view about whether to undergo the surgery. Those whose oath or conscience says "do no harm" should heed the simple fact that, to date, research does not support the practice of cosmetic infant genitoplasty.

Human Rights Watch/interACT report on U.S. children, 2017

In July 2017, Human Rights Watch and interACT published a report on medically unnecessary surgeries on intersex children, "I Want to Be Like Nature Made Me", based on interviews with intersex persons, families and physicians. [49] [50] [51] The report states that:

Intersex people in the United States are subjected to medical practices that can inflict irreversible physical and psychological harm on them starting in infancy, harms that can last throughout their lives. Many of these procedures are done with the stated aim of making it easier for children to grow up "normal" and integrate more easily into society by helping them conform to a particular sex assignment. The results are often catastrophic, the supposed benefits are largely unproven, and there are generally no urgent health considerations at stake

The report found that intersex medical interventions persist as default advice from doctors to parents, despite some change in some regions of the U.S. and claims of improved surgical techniques, resulting in an uneven situation where care differs and a lack of standards of care, but paradigms for care are still based on socio-cultural factors including expectations of "normality" and evidence in support of surgeries remains lacking. "Nearly every parent" in the study reported pressure for their children to undergo surgery, and many reported misinformation. The report calls for a ban on "surgical procedures that seek to alter the gonads, genitals, or internal sex organs of children with atypical sex characteristics too young to participate in the decision, when those procedures both carry a meaningful risk of harm and can be safely deferred." [49] [51] [50]

The report was acknowledged as an important contribution to research by the American Academy of Pediatrics. [52]

Responses to developments

In a 2017 interview for Harper's Magazine, Laurence Baskin, chief of pediatric urology at University of California, San Francisco, told journalist Sarah Topol "that he would recommend early surgery not just for 5-alpha but for 95 percent of known D.S.D. conditions ... Baskin classifies such operations as corrective surgeries, no different from fixing a cleft palate or clubfoot. "We basically treat them because they have a congenital anomaly"." [53]

In response to the 2017 Human Rights Watch report, Associated Press reported opposition to a ban by CARES Foundation, arguing that parents should be able to agree to surgeries to "reduce the size of the clitoris" without considering "moral and philosophical agendas". [54] Kyle Knight of Human Rights Watch responded that there's no evidence of a health risk, and "There are limits to what parents can do to their kids". [54] interACT states that they are "unaware of any jurisdiction in the U.S. that enforces its own FGM laws in cases where the girl undergoing clitoral cutting has an intersex trait". [55]

In November 2016, GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBT Equality passed a new policy position on patients with differences in sex development, recommending "delay of any surgical interventions and gender-related medical interventions for DSD that are not deemed medically necessary". [56] [57]

Associated Press reported in July 2017 that the American Medical Association Board of Trustees is considering a policy statement "urging doctors to defer intersex surgery on infants and young children" "except when life-threatening circumstances require emergency intervention". [54]

On August 28, 2018, California became the first U.S. State to condemn nonconsensual surgeries on intersex children, in Resolution SCR-110. [58] [59]

Remedies and claims for compensation

M.C. v. Aaronson

The case of M.C. v. Aaronson, advanced by interACT with the Southern Poverty Law Center was brought before the courts in 2013. [60] [61] [62] [63] The child in the case was born in December 2004 with ovotestes, initially determined as male, but subsequently assigned female and placed in the care of South Carolina Department of Social Services in February 2005. [64] Physicians responsible for M.C. initially concluded that surgery was not urgent or necessary and M.C. had potential to identify as male or female, but, in April 2006, M.C. was subjected to feminizing medical interventions. [64] He was adopted in December 2006. Aged 8 at the time the case was taken, he now identifies as male. The Southern Poverty Law Center states: "In M.C.'s condition, there is no way to tell whether the child will ultimately identify as a boy or a girl. Instead, the doctors decided to assign M.C. female and change his body to fit their stereotype of how a girl should look." [61] [65] The defendant in the case, Dr Ian Aaronson, had written in 2001 that "feminizing genitoplasty on an infant who might eventually identify herself as a boy would be catastrophic". [66] [64]

The defendants sought to dismiss the case and seek a defense of qualified immunity, but these were denied by the District Court for the District of South Carolina. In January 2015, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed this decision and dismissed the complaint, stating that, "it did not "mean to diminish the severe harm that M.C. claims to have suffered" but that a reasonable official in 2006 did not have fair warning from then-existing precedent that performing sex assignment surgery on sixteen-month-old M.C. violated a clearly established constitutional right." [67] The Court did not rule on whether or not the surgery violated M.C.'s constitutional rights. [68] State suits were subsequently filed. [67]

In July 2017, it was reported that the case had been settled out of court by the Medical University of South Carolina for $440,000. The University denied negligence, but agreed to a "compromise" settlement to avoid "costs of litigation." [69]

Protection from discrimination

Explicit protection from discrimination on grounds of sex characteristics Explicit protection on grounds of intersex status Explicit protection on grounds of intersex within attribute of sex Inclusion of sex characteristics in anti-discrimination law.svg
  Explicit protection from discrimination on grounds of sex characteristics
  Explicit protection on grounds of intersex status
  Explicit protection on grounds of intersex within attribute of sex

In May 2016, the United States Department of Health and Human Services issued a statement explaining Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act stating that the Act prohibits "discrimination on the basis of intersex traits or atypical sex characteristics" in publicly funded healthcare, as part of a prohibition of discrimination "on the basis of sex". [70] [71]

Intersex persons are also protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act. [72]

In 2017, interACT submitted an amicus curiae in the matter of Gavin Grimm ( G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board ) regarding protections in education for issues of gender identity under Title IX. The submission stated that the Gloucester County School Board held a "simplistic view of "physiological" sex [that] is demonstrably inaccurate as a matter of human biology. Moreover, it demeans many thousands of intersex youth by erasing their bodies and lives and placing them outside the recognition of the law". [73]

Identification documents

Third sex classifications

On Intersex Awareness Day (October 26) 2015, Lambda Legal filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against the United States Department of State for denying non-binary intersex navy veteran, Dana Zzyym, Associate Director of Intersex Campaign for Equality, a passport. [74] On November 22, 2016, the District Court for the District of Colorado ruled in favor of Zzyym, stating that the State Department violated federal law. [75] The ruling stated that the court found "no evidence that the Department followed a rational decision-making process in deciding to implement its binary-only gender passport policy," and ordered the U.S. Passport Agency to reconsider its earlier decision. [76]

On September 26, 2016, California resident Sara Kelly Keenan became described as the second person in the United States to legally change her gender to non-binary. Keenan, who uses she/her pronouns, identifies as intersex "both as my medical reality and as my gender identification ... It never occurred to me that this was an option, because I thought the gender change laws were strictly for transgender people. I decided to try and use the same framework to have a third gender." [77] In December 2016, Keenan received a birth certificate with an 'Intersex' sex marker from New York City, the first birth certificate issued using this term in the United States. Keenan had applied for a "non-binary" birth certificate but the City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene required a biological term. [78]

Press coverage in December 2016 also disclosed that Ohio issued a birth certificate with a sex marker of 'hermaphrodite' in 2012. Ohio issues birth certificates based on "an historical record of the facts as they existed at the time of birth" and the individual was able to demonstrate a diagnosis of true hermaphrodite. [79] [80] Birth certificates are also known to have no sex specified.

Right to life

Robert Sparrow has stated that the genetic elimination of intersex traits might be permissible, despite "uncomfortable" implications for "other nonpathological human variations" that do not affect physical health. [81] In response, Georgiann Davis argues that such discrimination fails to recognize that many people with intersex traits led full and happy lives, and that the "intersex community is only "invisible" to those who choose to ignore it", while "the medical profession, not the intersex trait itself, is a major source of the social and psychological harm that perpetuates intersex stigmatization and the "hostile social environment" that individuals with intersex traits encounter". [82] Jason Behrmann and Vardit Ravitsky state that: "Parental choice against intersex may ... conceal biases against same-sex attractedness and gender nonconformity." [83]

Rights advocacy

Notable intersex rights organizations include interACT and Intersex Campaign for Equality. Former intersex rights organizations include the Intersex Society of North America.

Notable advocates include Eden Atwood, Max Beck, Cheryl Chase, Cary Gabriel Costello, Georgiann Davis, Tiger Devore, Alice Dreger, Betsy Driver, Pidgeon Pagonis, Anne Tamar-Mattis, Hida Viloria, Sean Saifa Wall, Alicia Roth Weigel, Kimberly Zieselman and Dana Zzyym.

Personal testimonies are detailed in the San Francisco Human Rights Commission report, and also in a 2015 issue of Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics, [84] and a Lambda Literary Award winning book, Intersex (For Lack of a Better Word), by Thea Hillman. [85] In 2021, Kimberly Zieselman won the Stonewall Honor Books in Non-Fiction Award in 2021 for her memoir XOXY. [86] In 2017, Hatchette Book Group published a memoir, Born Both, by Hida Viloria. [87] [88] Movies include the short, award-winning film XXXY (2000).

US Passports

In October 2021, the very first US Passport with a gender X was issued. [89] Since April 11, 2022 US Passports give the sex/gender options of male, female and X by self determination. [90] [91]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intersex Society of North America</span> Advocacy group for intersex people in the U.S. and Canada

The Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) was a non-profit advocacy group founded in 1993 by Cheryl Chase to end shame, secrecy, and unnecessary genital surgeries on intersex people. 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intersex medical interventions</span> Performed to modify atypical or ambiguous genitalia

Intersex medical interventions (IMI), sometimes known as intersex genital mutilations (IGM), are surgical, hormonal and other medical interventions performed to modify atypical or ambiguous genitalia and other sex characteristics, primarily for the purposes of making a person's appearance more typical and to reduce the likelihood of future problems. The history of intersex surgery has been characterized by controversy due to reports that surgery can compromise sexual function and sensation, and create lifelong health issues. The medical interventions can be for a variety of reasons, due to the enormous variety of the disorders of sex development. Some disorders, such as salt-wasting disorder, can be life-threatening if left untreated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of intersex surgery</span>

The history of intersex surgery is intertwined with the development of the specialities of pediatric surgery, pediatric urology, and pediatric endocrinology, with our increasingly refined understanding of sexual differentiation, with the development of political advocacy groups united by a human qualified analysis, and in the last decade by doubts as to efficacy, and controversy over when and even whether some procedures should be performed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intersex</span> Atypical congenital variations of sex characteristics

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".

Advocates for Informed Choice, dba interACT or interACT Advocates for Intersex Youth, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization advocating for the legal and human rights of children with intersex traits. The organization was founded in 2006 and formally incorporated on April 12, 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hida Viloria</span> American activist (born 1968)

Hida Viloria is an American writer, author, producer, and human rights activist of Latin American origin. Viloria is intersex, nonbinary, and genderfluid, using they/them pronouns. They are known for their writing, their intersex and non-binary human rights activism, and as one of the first people to come out in national and international media as a nonbinary intersex person. Viloria is Founding Director of the Intersex Campaign for Equality.

Anne Tamar-Mattis is an American attorney, human rights advocate, and founder of interACT. She currently serves as interACT's Legal Director.

Georgiann Davis is an associate professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico and author of the book Contesting Intersex: The Dubious Diagnosis. Davis formerly held similar positions at University of Nevada, Las Vegas and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Born with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, she writes widely on intersex issues and the sociology of diagnosis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intersex human rights</span> Human rights for intersex people

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."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Legal recognition of intersex people</span>

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".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Discrimination against intersex people</span>

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".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intersex and LGBT</span> Relationship between different sex and gender minorities

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 endosex people. According to a study done in Australia of Australian citizens with intersex conditions, participants labeled 'heterosexual' as the most popular single label with the rest being scattered among various other labels. According to another study, an estimated 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of intersex history</span> Overview of notable events in the timeline of intersex history

The following is a timeline of intersex history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intersex rights in New Zealand</span> Overview of intersex peoples rights in New Zealand

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".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intersex rights in Australia</span> Overview of intersex peoples rights in Australia

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malta declaration (International Intersex Forum)</span> Statement of the Third International Intersex Forum, which took place in Valletta, Malta, in 2013

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intersex rights in Germany</span> Overview of intersex peoples rights in Germany

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intersex rights in Uganda</span>

Intersex people in Uganda face a dangerous environment, with significant gaps in protection from mutilation and non-consensual cosmetic medical interventions and protection from discrimination.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intersex human rights reports</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intersex rights in Switzerland</span> Overview of intersex peoples rights in Switzerland

Intersex people in Switzerland have no recognition of rights to physical integrity and bodily autonomy, and no specific protections from discrimination on the basis of sex characteristics. In 2012, the Swiss National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics published a report on the medical management of differences of sex development or intersex variations.

References

Citations

  1. ↑ Raming, Ida; Macy, Gary; Bernard J, Cook (2004). A History of Women and Ordination. Scarecrow Press. p. 113.
  2. ↑ Greenberg, Julie (1999). "Defining Male and Female: Intersexuality and the Collision Between Law and Biology". Arizona Law Review. 41: 277–278. SSRN   896307.
  3. ↑ E Coke, The First Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England, Institutes 8.a. (1st Am. Ed. 1812).
  4. ↑ Lang, Nico (December 7, 2017). "Betsy Driver Is Ready for America's Intersex Tipping Point". INTO. Archived from the original on 2018-09-05. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
  5. 1 2 3 Chase, Cheryl (2002). "'Cultural Practice' or 'Reconstructive Surgery'? U.S. Genital Cutting, the Intersex Movement, and Medical Double Standards". Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood. 126.
  6. ↑ ""I Want to Be Like Nature Made Me" | Medically Unnecessary Surgeries on Intersex Children in the US". Human Rights Watch. 2017-07-25. Retrieved 2018-04-24.
  7. ↑ "A Brief History". AISDSD. Archived from the original on 2015-04-27. Retrieved 2017-01-15.
  8. 1 2 3 Karkazis, Katrina (2008). Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience. Duke University Press. p. 260. ISBN   978-0-8223-4318-9.
  9. ↑ Re-membering a Queer Body Archived 2013-05-11 at the Wayback Machine , AISSG, syndicated copy of article from Undercurrents (May 1994: 11-13) by the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, Ontario.
  10. ↑ Re-membering a Queer Body Archived 2013-12-30 at the Wayback Machine , UnderCurrents (May 1994: 11-13), Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, Ontario.
  11. ↑ Matthews, Karen (Oct 22, 2000). Debate Grows Over Using Surgery on Infants with Ambiguous Genitals. Los Angeles Times
  12. ↑ Murrell, Nancy (October 28, 1998). Intersex group raises questions about genital surgery. Miami Herald
  13. ↑ Hackford-Peer, Kim (2005). Cheryl Chase Founds the Intersex Society of North America. in GLBT History, 1993-2004; 2005, p28-30, 2p
  14. ↑ Human Rights Commission of the City and County of San Francisco; de María Arana, Marcus (2005). A Human Rights Investigation Into The Medical "Normalization" Of Intersex People. San Francisco. Archived from the original on 2013-12-28.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  15. 1 2 interACT (June 2016). "Recommendations from interACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth regarding the List of Issues for the United States for the 59th Session of the Committee Against Torture" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-01-04.
  16. ↑ "Why is ISNA using "DSD"?". Intersex Society of North America . 24 May 2006. Archived from the original on 17 June 2006. Retrieved 4 June 2006.
  17. ↑ "Welcome to Accord Alliance". Archived from the original on 2010-07-21. Retrieved 2017-02-03.
  18. ↑ "Meet television's groundbreaking intersex character". Buzzfeed. 24 September 2014. Archived from the original on 2016-05-29.
  19. ↑ ""Faking It" Breaks New Ground With First Intersex Actor To Play Intersex Character On TV". New Now Next. Archived from the original on 5 April 2016. Retrieved 5 April 2016.
  20. ↑ Miller, Susan (January 23, 2017). "Model Hanne Gaby Odiele reveals she is intersex". USA Today . Archived from the original on January 23, 2017.
  21. ↑ "International Fashion Model Hanne Gaby Odiele Reveals She is Intersex; Announces Partnership with interACT Advocates for Intersex Youth to Raise Awareness About the Importance of Human Rights Protections for Intersex People Worldwide" (PDF). interACT . January 23, 2017. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 29, 2017.
  22. ↑ American Academy of Pediatrics (October 1996). "American Academy of Pediatrics Position on Intersexuality". Intersex Day . Archived from the original on 2016-01-19. Retrieved 2017-07-03.
  23. ↑ Holmes, Morgan (2006). "Deciding fate or protecting a developing autonomy? Intersex children and the Colombian Constitutional Court". Transgender Rights. Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. pp. 32–50.
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Bibliography

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