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Abbreviation | OII Europe |
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Formation | December 10, 2012 |
Type | NGO |
Purpose | Intersex human rights |
Location | |
Region served | Europe |
Co-chairs | Kitty Anderson and Miriam van der Have |
Executive Director | Dan Christian Ghattas |
Affiliations | Organisation Intersex International |
Website | oiieurope |
OII Europe (Organisation Intersex International 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.
OII Europe was founded on Human Rights Day (10 December) during the Second Intersex Forum in Stockholm in 2012 as a network of national intersex NGOs and intersex activists. [1] The network started immediately to provide trainings and information for policy-makers, NGOs and the general public and to offer expertise on intersex human rights violations to EU and UN institutions and about the living situation of intersex people and the human rights violations they face. [2] [3] [4]
Three years later, in 2015, OII Europe was registered as a non-profit NGO based in Germany. [5] The same year, the organisation, together with other intersex organisations all over the world was given its first funding through the Astraea Intersex Human Rights Fund.
In 2019 OII Europe published the organisation's first Strategic Plan for the years 2019–2022. [6]
OII Europe works on the grounds of the Malta Declaration, formulated at the 3rd International Intersex Forum 2013. The organisation advocates for intersex rights, fosters and conducts research on the issues faced by intersex people, supports national-level intersex movements and collaborates internationally. OII-Europe has more than 20 member organisations, including almost all existing intersex-led organisations across Europe. It also works with individuals and emerging initiatives in Europe, and Central Asia. [7]
Key goals of the organisation include the full implementation of human rights, bodily integrity & self-determination for intersex people, legal prohibition of non-consensual medical & psychological treatment, promotion of self-awareness, visibility and recognition of intersex people, full protection against discrimination & the adoption of "sex characteristics" as a protective ground and education of society on intersex issues from a human rights perspective. [8]
OII Europe advocates and works with EU Institutions, the Council of Europe and national governments to achieve these goals. The organisation has also published several important toolkits and documents that introduce intersex issues to allies and law and policy-makers, as well as a toolkit for parents of intersex children. Many of the publications are available in several European languages. The organisation also provides two regularly updated resource lists with links to important intersex human rights documents. [9] [10]
Another area of the organisation's work building the European intersex movement, with the OII Europe Community Event & Conference being one of the organisation's key measures to foster the growth and visibility of the European intersex movement. [8]
Since 2017 OII Europe has facilitated an annual community event & conference for intersex people and their families. The event offers capacity building, e.g. advocacy, well-being, media work and space for exchange. [11] The conference is public and aims to support awareness raising on intersex in the host country. The event and conference are organised together with a local host
OII Europe launched the first of its Good Practice Map on May 13, 2019, at the IDAHOT+ Forum in Oslo. [15] The map is a compilation of good practice examples from selected European countries, including examples for missed opportunities and rights under attack for intersex people. [16]
The organisation has two websites: oiieurope.org and intervisibility.eu. The organisation's main website, oiieurope.org, provides news, resources like the organisation's toolkits and other video and text resources. intervisibility.eu is set up as a community website where intersex people from all across the Council of Europe region can find low-threshold information on who intersex people are, the experiences they face and what OII Europe is. The website also features contribution of intersex people and activists from across Europe on the respective language sub-sites of the website.
In addition to these resources, the organisation also provides a flyer in more than 10 languages, and two extensive resource lists with links to UN country recommendations on intersex and other intersex related human rights documents. [21] [22] [23]
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.
Intersex Awareness Day is an internationally observed awareness day each October 26, designed to highlight human rights issues faced by intersex people.
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.
Morgan Carpenter is a bioethicist, intersex activist and researcher. In 2013, he created an intersex flag, and became president of Intersex Human Rights Australia. He is now executive director. Following enactment of legislative protections for people with innate variations of sex characteristics in the Australian Capital Territory, Carpenter is a member of the Variations in Sex Characteristics Restricted Medical Treatment Assessment Board.
Human Rights between the Sexes is an analysis of the human rights of intersex people in 12 countries. It was written by Dan Christian Ghattas of the Internationalen Vereinigung Intergeschlechtlicher Menschen and published in October 2013 by the Heinrich Böll Foundation. The countries studied were Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, New Zealand, Serbia, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine and Uruguay.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
The following is a timeline of intersex history.
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.
Irene Kuzemko, also transcribed from Ukrainian and Russian as Irina Kuzemko, is a 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. She have started her human rights advocacy as a member of Association of the Russian Speaking Intersex.
The Collectif intersexe activiste - OII France, until 2022 known as the Collectif intersexes et allié.e.s, abbreviated to CIA-OII France, is a not-for-profit association founded in 2016 by Loé Petit and Lysandre Nury. It aims to defend and support intersex people.