October 26 is Intersex Awareness Day. Intersex people have always existed, but it wasn’t until the mid 20th century that U.S. medical practitioners began paying a particular kind of attention to our natural sex differences. Since the 1950s, intersex people have been the targets of nonconsensual medical interventions in attempts to fit our bodies into a false sex binary. The first time intersex people took a stance and demonstrated publicly against our medicalization was on October 26, 1996 in Boston. We celebrate that act of courage annually on Intersex Awareness Day, and on every other day of the year.
Intersex and LGBTQ+ people share many commonalities, and many intersex people also identify as LGBTQ+. As an intersex and queer person, I have faith that my communities will show up in solidarity for each other in the fight for our human rights and legal protections. Here are seven things to know about intersex people, intersex history, and Intersex Awareness Day — including how you can support our movement as an ally.
1. Intersex Awareness Day is a protest.
The day was established in 2003 by U.S. intersex activists Emi Koyama and Betsy Driver to commemorate the first public intersex demonstration in 1996. That demonstration was an act of bravery.
Before the internet, most intersex people had never met an intersex peer. Of the thousands who communicated in the mid 1990s via Intersex Society of North America (ISNA), the first (now defunct) North American intersex support organization, less than a dozen intersex people were willing and able to appear in public. Despite their fears, they paved the way.
Early activists debated as to whether taking public action was the right choice, especially since so many among them found it hard to speak out after decades of shame, stigma, and erasure. Ultimately, the occasion presented itself, and the timing fit: The American Academy of Pediatrics convened for their 1996 annual meeting in Boston. Anger was rising within the intersex community in response to institutional support of the United States’ passing of its first national law against female genital mutilation that year — a law that did not explicitly address nonconsensual genital surgery on intersex children.
A group of less than 10 intersex people took to the streets of Boston to demand intersex bodily autonomy, touting signs that reclaimed a medicalized slur under the iconic slogan “Hermaphrodites with Attitude!” Their earliest allies were often trans women; friends from the trans liberation group Transexual Menace joined the demonstration in solidarity, lending their numbers to the cause.
After the action, The New York Times quoted doctors who dismissed the protestors as a “vocal minority.” But the work of early intersex activists was not done solely in pursuit of medical workers’ attention. Their action sparked a national conversation, and those first public faces became role models for today’s intersex youth activists, via organizations like The Intersex Justice Project and interACT.
2. We protest our realities being reduced to “disorders.”
Much like LGBTQ+ identities, intersex variations have long been pathologized. Today, intersex variations are still considered “disorders” by many institutions; our bodies and humanity are reduced to singular parts. Invasive procedures to “correct” sex differences and “normalize” our bodies continue, with no U.S. medical institution having issued a formal policy prohibiting the practice of nonconsensual surgery on intersex infants and children. Like gender and sexuality, sex is a natural spectrum, and we continue to fight to be seen as people first.
3. The intersex movement is young.
Every movement for justice, civil rights, and legal protections is a long game — we’re talking decades or quarter-centuries, even in progressive political climates. 27 years passed between the first public action for intersex bodily autonomy and the first legislation recognizing it, and that legislation is a 2018 resolution by one state; not regulation on the medical violence that impacts us daily. Policy moves slowly and requires a massive shift in mainstream awareness. Though our movement is young, intersex people have existed throughout human history.
4. Intersex erasure is rooted in homophobia.
19th century European authorities found the romantic and sexual relationships of intersex people to be threatening to the boundaries of heterosexuality. Before the standard use of anaesthesia, surgeries on sex organs were uncommon, but it was not unheard of for states to order intersex people to divorce their partners and transition into a new social gender role if their genitals or internal anatomy made their partnerships appear homosexual.
Dangerous social theories about gender being a product of nurture-over-nature became the guiding rationale for the practice of childhood intersex surgical intervention popularized in the 1950s. Following the logic that an intersex child could be molded into any gender so long as their body was forcibly made to "match" their assigned gender, doctors began surgically “correcting” intersex differences — such as large clitorises, small penises, different locations of the opening of the urethra, and ovaries or testes in bodies perceived as having the “opposite” phenotype — shortly after modern anesthesia made such procedures practicable.
This history survives in its present-day form: instead of internal anatomy or genitals, chromosomes have become a popular way for doctors to “predict” an intersex infant’s gender. Decisions to surgically alter a baby’s genitalia or reproductive anatomy is often centered on their future ability to engage in penetrative sex as an adult.
5. Intersex people are not rare, but it’s still rare to find local community.
Intersex people comprise up to 1.7 percent of the population. So why are there generally only a few public faces in each major city? Most cities and towns I’ve visited have no local organizations. Some of my intersex friends are the only publicly intersex person they know of in their city; sometimes even in their entire country. But it makes sense: Most of us are told by medical providers that there aren’t other people like us, and that having diverse sex traits is a rare “medical problem” that should be kept secret.
Many LGBTQ+ centers and organizations either refuse to include the “I” in their acronym, or include it with no actual intersex leadership, content, or presence. It’s still an early time for intersex representation, but the resources are publicly available.
6. Intersex people thrive.
Intersex people are organizers, activists, supermodels, scientists, filmmakers, scholars, chefs, artists, politicians, and more. We exist in every field you can imagine. We come from every background; our community is diverse. Recent years have brought forth a tidal wave of new coming out stories, and we hope to see more as our movement grows.
7. You can show your solidarity this year, and every day.
Intersex groups and our allies are organizing year-round. Here’s how you can show up for Intersex Awareness Day, according to interACT:
- Educate yourself about intersex surgeries and autonomy
- Read an intersex book or watch an intersex movie
- De-gender the language you use about body parts
- Leave informational pamphlets at your workplace
- Send funds to intersex-led organizations
- Attend a protest or demonstration in your area for Intersex Awareness Day
Allies can participate online all week by showing support for #IntersexAwarenessDay and amplifying the voices of intersex people online and on social media platforms.
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