Kitty Anderson (activist)

Last updated

Kitty Anderson
NationalityIcelandic
OccupationCommunity activist
Known forIntersex activist, co-chair of OII Europe

Kitty Anderson is an Icelandic intersex activist. She is a co-chair of European intersex organization OII Europe, a co-founder of Intersex Iceland, and chairman of the board of the Icelandic Human Rights Centre. [1] She has been described as a "leading voice of the intersex movement in Europe." [2]

Contents

Background

Kitty Anderson was born with androgen insensitivity. She found out when she was 13, but only found out she was born with internal testes when she was aged 22. [3] [4] Anderson has reported that her "mother was told to lie" to her until she was aged 13. [5] [6]

Activism

Anderson co-founded Intersex Iceland in 2014, [7] and currently serves as its chairperson. [3] She is co-chair and spokesperson [8] of OII Europe and chairperson of the board of the Icelandic Human Rights Centre. [1] She has also served on the board of Samtökin '78, Iceland's national queer organization, and the national Ministry of Welfare Queer Committee from 2014 to 2016. [3] Anderson has spoken against secrecy and shame associated with intersex:

When I found out I was 13 and I completely freaked out. There can be a lot of secrecy and stigma related to being intersex and it was something that had been kept from me. But when my cousin – who is also intersex – was born a couple of years later, my family didn’t keep it a secret and it was a healing process for all of us [4]

She also campaigns against intersex medical interventions. [9] [10] In an interview with NIKK, Anderson has stated that "surgeries will continue until we get a law that prohibits them". [11]

Anderson has presented to the Council of Europe Committee on Bioethics, [12] and speaks at a range of conferences, [2] [13] media, [14] [15] [16] and human rights institutions across Scandinavia and Europe. [17]

In 2015, Anderson campaigned to change terminology in the biology curriculum in Icelandic schools, and dictionaries, after finding out that the word intersex was being translated into Icelandic as "freak". [18] [19] The publisher of the school text later apologized. [20]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LGBT rights in Iceland</span>

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights in Iceland rank among the highest in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Organisation Intersex International</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intersex Awareness Day</span> Awareness day observed annually on October 26

Intersex Awareness Day is an internationally observed awareness day each October 26, designed to highlight human rights issues faced by intersex people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intersex Human Rights Australia</span> Intersex organization in Australia

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.

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

Hida Viloria is a Latine American writer, author, producer, and human rights activist. Viloria is intersex, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming, 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intersex civil society organizations</span> Intersex Human Rights Organizations: Worldwide

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morgan Carpenter</span> Intersex activist

Morgan Carpenter is a bioethicist, intersex activist and researcher. In 2013, he created the intersex flag, and became president of Intersex Human Rights Australia. He is now a co-executive director. In 2015, he cofounded a project to mark Intersex Awareness Day.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dan Christian Ghattas</span> Intersex activist

Dan Christian Ghattas is an intersex activist, university lecturer and author who co-founded OII Europe in 2012 and is now executive director. In 2013, he authored Human Rights between the Sexes, a first comparative international analysis of the human rights situation of intersex people.

<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">Miriam van der Have</span> Dutch intersex activist

Miriam van der Have is an intersex human rights activist and woman with androgen insensitivity syndrome. She is a co-founder and co-chair of OII Europe e.V in 2015, co-founder and managing director of NNID Foundation in the Netherlands and member of the ILGA board where she is Intersex Secretariat until spring 2019. Van der Have is also a documentary film maker and journalist.

<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 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.

<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 to 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 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.

Ugla Stefanía Kristjönudóttir Jónsdóttir, also known as Owl Fisher, is an Icelandic journalist, filmmaker, author and non-binary trans activist.

Irene Kuzemko, also transcribed from Ukrainian and Russian as Irina Kuzemko, is a prominent Russian-Ukrainian intersex woman and intersex human rights activist. She co-founded Intersex Russia in 2017, is a youth member of interACT, and an executive board member of OII Europe.

Trans Ísland is an Icelandic advocacy organisation that supports transgender people in Iceland. As of 2018, the chairperson of the group was Alda Villiljós.

References

  1. 1 2 "Board and Partners". Icelandic Human Rights Centre . Retrieved November 23, 2018.
  2. 1 2 "Speakers – Nicosia 2016". ILGA-Europe . Archived from the original on November 24, 2018. Retrieved November 23, 2018.
  3. 1 2 3 "Kitty Anderson – Reykjavík, Iceland". Interface Project . October 2017. Retrieved November 22, 2018.
  4. 1 2 Amnesty International (October 25, 2016). "Understanding the 'i' in LGBTI" . Retrieved November 22, 2018.
  5. ↑ Demurtas, Alice (February 19, 2018). "Iceland Violates Human Rights By Performing Surgery On Intersex Children". The Reykjavik Grapevine. Retrieved November 23, 2018.
  6. ↑ Björg Guðbrandsdóttir, Kristjana (May 23, 2015). "Við vorum einar í heiminum". Visir. Retrieved November 23, 2018.
  7. ↑ "AIC Guest Blog Kitty Anderson, Intersex Iceland". Interact Advocates for Intersex Youth . October 27, 2014. Retrieved November 23, 2018.
  8. ↑ "IDAHO 2015: Montenegro's government contributes significantly to holding of 14th Roundtable of European Governmental LGBT Focal Points Network". Government of Montenegro. May 12, 2015. Archived from the original on July 3, 2015. Retrieved July 2, 2015.
  9. ↑ "[VIDEO] Frontline Dispatches: Intersex Children And Medical Sex Assignment – Whose Right To Choose?". OII Europe . June 10, 2016. Retrieved November 23, 2018.
  10. ↑ "Puppets controlled by the system". Reykjavik Pride. July 16, 2015. Retrieved November 23, 2018.
  11. ↑ "Some bodies are obviously undesirable". NIKK. October 4, 2016. Archived from the original on November 24, 2018. Retrieved November 23, 2018.
  12. ↑ "Bioethics committee discussed the human rights of intersex and transgender children and young people". Council of Europe . June 1, 2016. Retrieved November 23, 2018.
  13. ↑ "Intersex Conference Vienna 2017". Archived from the original on March 14, 2019. Retrieved November 23, 2018.
  14. ↑ "Þarf að tryggja mannréttindi intersex fólks". mbl.is. February 16, 2018. Retrieved November 23, 2018.
  15. ↑ O'Donnell, Chris (June 2018), "Intersex Education", GCN , pp. 100–103
  16. ↑ "A different biology". Cyprus Mail . November 11, 2016. Retrieved November 23, 2018.
  17. ↑ Guilbert, Kieran (April 14, 2018). "Portugal approves law to boost transgender rights, protect intersex infants". Reuters. Retrieved November 23, 2018.
  18. ↑ Þórlaug Óskarsdóttir, Halla (August 10, 2015). "We Should Not Be Teaching Prejudice in Our Schools". Gay Iceland. Retrieved November 23, 2018.
  19. ↑ J, Leslie (October 8, 2015). "We Should Not Be Teaching Prejudice". OII-UK . Retrieved November 23, 2018.
  20. ↑ Eyvindsson, Roald (August 10, 2015). "Publisher Apologizes for Poor Translation". Gay Iceland.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.