Intersex and LGBT

Intersex activists such as Morgan Carpenter have sometimes talked of intersex bodies as "queer bodies."[11] Activists and scholars such as Carpenter,[12] Morgan Holmes[13] and Katrina Karkazis[14] have documented a heteronormativity in medical rationales for the surgical normalization of infants and children born with atypical sex development. In What Can Queer Theory Do for Intersex? Iain Morland contrasts queer "hedonic activism" with an experience of insensate post-surgical intersex bodies to claim that "queerness is characterized by the sensory interrelation of pleasure and shame."[15]

Recognition of third sex or gender classifications occurs in several countries.[20][21][22][23] Sociological research in Australia, a country with a third 'X' sex classification, shows that 19% of people born with atypical sex characteristics selected an "X" or "other" option, while 52% are women, 23% men, and 6% unsure.[8][3]

A German law requiring that infants which can be assigned to neither sex have their status left blank on their birth certificate was criticised by intersex rights groups on the basis that it could encourage parents who see a neutral option as undesirable to have their child undergo genital surgery.[24][25][26][27] In 2013, the third International Intersex Forum made statements for the first time on sex and gender registration in the Malta declaration,[28][29] "register[ing] 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" and "ensur[ing] that sex or gender classifications are amendable through a simple administrative procedure at the request of the individuals concerned." It also advocates for non-binary options and self-identification for all while calling for an end to registering sex on birth certificates.

Alex MacFarlane is believed to be the first person in Australia to obtain a birth certificate recording sex as indeterminate, and the first Australian passport with an 'X' sex marker in 2003.[30][21][31] On September 26, 2016, California resident Sara Kelly Keenan became the second person in the United States (after Jamie Shupe) to legally change their gender to 'non-binary'. Keenan cited Shupe's case as inspiration for their petition, "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."[32] Keenan later obtained a birth certificate with an intersex sex marker. In press reporting of this decision, it became apparent that Ohio had issued an 'hermaphrodite' sex marker in 2012.[33]

Intersex scholar Morgan Holmes argues that thinking of societies that incorporate a 'third sex' as superior is overly simplistic, and that "to understand whether a system is more or less oppressive than another we have to understand how it treats its various members, not only its 'thirds'."[34]

The Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions states that the legal recognition of intersex people is firstly about access to the same rights as other men and women, when assigned male or female; secondly it is about access to administrative corrections to legal documents when an original sex assignment is not appropriate; and thirdly it is not about the creation of a third sex or gender classification for intersex people as a population but it is, instead, about self-determination.[35]

  Explicit protection on grounds of sex characteristics

  Explicit protection on grounds of intersex status

  Explicit protection on grounds of intersex within attribute of sex

Emi Koyama describes how inclusion of intersex in LGBTI can fail to address intersex-specific human rights issues, including creating false impressions "that intersex people's rights are protected" by laws protecting LGBT people, and failing to acknowledge that many intersex people are not LGBT.[45]

South Africa protects intersex people from discrimination as part of a prohibition of discrimination on grounds of sex. Organisation Intersex International Australia successfully lobbied for inclusion of a legal attribute of "intersex status" in anti-discrimination law, stating that protection on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity was insufficient.[46][47][48] Following 2015 legislation in Malta,[49] an attribute of sex characteristics is now more widespread.[35]

  Legal prohibition of non-consensual medical interventions

  Regulatory suspension of non-consensual medical interventions

Multiple organizations have highlighted appeals to LGBT rights recognition that fail to address the issue of unnecessary "normalising" intersex medical interventions on intersex children, including by using the portmanteau pinkwashing. In a 2001 paper for the (now defunct) Intersex Society of North America, Emi Koyama and Lisa Weasel stating that teaching of intersex issues is "stuck":

This indeed seems to be a common problem within women's, gender and queer studies: discussions about intersex existence are "stuck" at where it is used to deconstruct sexes, gender roles, compulsory heterosexuality, and even Western science, rather than addressing medical ethics or other issues that directly impact the lives of intersex people. But perhaps this is an inaccurate way to describe the situation: the truth is not that these discussions are "stuck" prematurely, but that they are starting from a wrong place with a wrong set of priorities".[50]

In June 2016, Organisation Intersex International Australia pointed to contradictory statements by Australian governments, suggesting that the dignity and rights of LGBT and intersex people are recognized while, at the same time, harmful practices on intersex children continue.[51]

In August 2016, Zwischengeschlecht described actions to promote equality or civil status legislation without action on banning "intersex genital mutilations" as a form of pinkwashing.[52] The organization has previously highlighted evasive government statements to UN Treaty Bodies that conflate intersex, transgender and LGBT issues, instead of addressing harmful practices on infants.[53]

Kimberly Zieselman of interACT has described how the LGBT community has helped open doors, but how intersex rights are broader: "at its core this is a children’s rights issue. It is also about health and reproductive rights, because these operations can lead to infertility."[58]

Multiple authors and civil society organizations highlight intersectionalities between intersex people and disability, due to issues of medicalization, and the use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis.[59] In an analysis of the use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis to eliminate intersex traits, Behrmann and Ravitsky state: "Parental choice against intersex may ... conceal biases against same-sex attractedness and gender nonconformity."[60]

A 2006 clinical reframing of intersex conditions as disorders of sex development[61][62] made associations between intersex and disability explicit,[63][64] but the rhetorical shift remains deeply contentious.[65][66] Sociological research in Australia, published in 2016, found that 3% of respondents used the term "disorders of sex development" or "DSD" to define their sex characteristics, while 21% use the term when accessing medical services. In contrast, 60% used the term "intersex" in some form to self-describe their sex characteristics.[3]

In the United States, intersex persons are protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act.[67] In 2013, the Australian Senate published a report on the Involuntary or coerced sterilisation of intersex people in Australia as part of a broader inquiry into the involuntary or coercive sterilization of people with disabilities.[68] In Europe, OII Europe has identified multiple articles of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, including on equality and non-discrimination, and freedom from torture, and protecting the integrity of the person. Nevertheless, the organization has expressed concern that framings of intersex as disability can reinforce medicalization and lack of human rights, and do not match self-identification.[69]