Intersex Movement

Abstract

The intersex movement refers to work undertaken by various organizations and individuals in the Global North from 1993 to the present to publicize the existence of intersex conditions (and intersex bodies) and to critique both their pathologization and their traditional medical management in infants and children. Activists attacked the generally secretive and unexplained submission of infants and children with intersex conditions to physiologically unnecessary, experimental medical interventions such as genital normalizing surgeries and gonadectomies without their consent that left individuals sterile, and, often, with impaired sexual function and a deep sense of shame. This movement was dominated for many years by the US‐based Intersex Society of North America (ISNA), founded by intersex activist Cheryl Chase/Bo Laurent. However, following the group's controversial endorsement of the 2006 reclassification of intersex conditions as “disorders of sex development” (DSDs) and its practical and political transformation from an activist organization engaged in a queer identity politics to an apolitical medical lobby group, the Accord Alliance, in 2008, the movement has continued through the efforts of an array of international online‐based organizations of varying politics and approaches, such as Intersex Initiative Portland, Bodies Like Ours, Organisation Intersex International, and Advocates for Informed Choice.