Intersex Awareness Day 2022

Intersex Awareness Day is celebrated internationally on 26th October annually to raise awareness about the human rights violations faced by people with an intersex variation. In recent history, children with an intersex variation have been subjected to non-consensual, irreversible, cosmetic genital surgery to make their genitals appear more typical. Many of these medical interventions are known to cause long-lasting, traumatic after-effects.

Intersex is defined by the United Nations as referring to people ‘born with sex characteristics that don’t fit typical definitions of male and male’. Variations of sex characteristics may include chromosomal, gonadal, physiological or hormonal traits that vary from typically believed male or female presentation. The prevalence of intersex variations is a contested issue, but recent sources suggest that up to 1.7% of the population is born with a variation of sex characters, which makes having an intersex variation as common as having naturally occurring red hair. Terminology is a controversial issue, but some of the recognised terms used to refer to intersex variations includes Variations of Sex Characteristics (VSC) and Disorders/differences of Sex Development (DSD). 

Megan Walker

mewalker@lincoln.ac.uk