From Report to Action: Actionable Pathways for Intersex Rights Beyond the UN (CSW70 Side Event)

I'd like to welcome everyone to the first ever intersex themed side event inside the UN in New York.

We have a tight schedule, lots of great people here to talk, so we're going to just dive right in and I'm going to pass it over to Ambassador Larsen from Australia to start us off.

As it turns out, I have to press the button.

Listen, thank you so much indeed for this really wonderfully inclusive and important initiative. I think we are looking at a time when even the most basic principles that underpin our engagement across the multilateral system and in the United nations are under pressure. And it's so important, I think, for us to collectively come together both to reaffirm what we've done, including in the gender space and including in the intersex space, but also to build on it and make sure that we don't find ourselves to simply holding on to the furniture that we have, or indeed actually seeing ourselves go backwards. And so I really commend this gathering as part of that process of making sure that we keep an eye really firmly on what it is that the multilateral system and the United nations in particular, and of course specifically CSW, can do really to advance the interests of people in our communities. And that's ultimately what we're all about.

It's about how do we set the norms and principles that are going to make a difference to people. And I think it's so important that we remember that that's actually what our job here is in the multilateral space. And I really commend the work done by, of course, the Commission on the Status of Women for many decades, CSW 70, and commend the fact that you have undertaken this engagement. Australia, of course, was enormously proud to work with Chile, Finland and South Africa to bring forward the first UN Human Rights Council resolution on combating discrimination, violence and harmful practices against intersex persons. And of course, that was adopted in Geneva.

And there is no question that that resolution was a landmark decision. And I want to acknowledge the hard work by representatives of Member States, senior civil society organizations, of course, and many of you are represented here today, activists and intersex individuals, and elevating this important issue and actually making the United nations grapple with it and the multilateral system come to some resolutions. Of course, the resolution was then followed up by the 2025 release of the report presented by the Office of of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in response. And that, of course, I think, shed further light on discriminatory laws and practices, acts of violence and harmful practices against intersex persons. And really fundamentally, the report reaffirmed a critical and essential truth that intersex persons are entitled to all of the protections, respect, respect and fulfilment of their human rights as everybody else.

And importantly, of course, in reaffirming, I think, the fact that we do fail collectively as a global community and in many of our individual societies we do fail to provide those protections, we have a lot more work to do. I particularly want to welcome the Australian participants in this gathering. I think Australia has reflected very carefully on these issues and we we are continuing the journey of trying to make sure that Australia is the best, safest and most inclusive place for persons of intersex to enjoy their lives and be full and engaged and welcomed members of our community. With that, let me close, but I want to say I think this is important. I'm glad that we're having this conversation and it's actually exciting to see the enthusiasm and the interest around the room.

Much appreciated.

And now we're going to hear from UN women.

Thank you so much. Good morning to everyone and thank you so much to the Member States, to partners, to colleagues and friends for convening this historic and long overdue conversation. Let me be clear from the outset, this is not a niche issue. This is not a side conversation. This is central to the unfinished project of gender equality because the harms experienced by intersex people, particularly intersex women, girls and non binary people, are not accidental.

They are produced by gender stereotypes, by patriarchal norms, and by deeply unequal power relations that continue to shape our institutions. For decades, our laws, policies and health systems have been built on a rigid binary understanding of sex and gender. And that rigidity has caused harm systemic, normalized and worse, invisible. It has meant that intersex people experience some of the most severe and layered forms of marginalization across legal systems, institutions and within families and communities themselves. When societies dictate what bodies should look like, how they should function and how people should live, the outcome is predictable.

Violence, exclusion and violations of bodily autonomy. We see this most starkly in the continued use of harmful and medically unnecessary interventions on intersex infants and children, including girls. Let us name this clearly. These are violations of bodily integrity. They are violations of human rights and they are driven not by medical necessity but by social discomfort with bodies that do not conform across the life course.

Intersex people face systemic discrimination in accessing appropriate health care. They face barriers to identity documentation that restrict access to services, to participation and to basic rights. And they face Something even more insidious, invisibility. Too often, intersex people are erased even within spaces that claim to advance equality. Within LGBTIQ movements, intersex issues are sometimes sidelined.

Outside them, intersex realities are misrepresented or conflated in ways that can be unhelpful or harmful. This is how exclusion sustains itself. We often speak of leaving no one behind. But it is precisely what where invisibility is compounded, that discrimination becomes most entrenched and most dangerous. And within this intersex, women and girls face an additional layer of discrimination across education, employment, housing, sports and public life.

These barriers are intensified by gender inequality and compounded by racism, poverty and stigma. At its most extreme, we must confront an awful truth. Intersex newborns still face risks of abandonment and even infanticide. This is not abstract, this is urgent. And this is why the CSW 70 priority theme on access to justice matters so deeply in this context.

Because access to justice must mean something real for intersex people. It must mean the ability to challenge harmful medical practices, legal recognition and protection from discrimination and violence based on sex characteristics. It must mean reparations and remedies for violations. And it must mean unhindered access to intersex affirming rights based health care. These are not aspirational asks.

They are obligations for UN women. This is core to gender equality, not peripheral to it. We now have important normative advances. The Human Rights Council resolution, the OHCHR report. But normative progress is not enough.

The real test is implementation, moving from commitments in Geneva and New York to change in courts, in clinics and in communities. That requires political will, it requires resources, and it requires accountability. It also requires us to confront something deeper, the norms that enforce binary thinking about bodies, identities and life paths. Because without challenging those norms, we will continue to reproduce the same harms under different names. This is why this moment matters.

This is about pushing the global gender equality agenda forward, beyond binaries, beyond assumptions, and beyond the long standing invisibility of intersex people. So let me end with this. Intersex rights are human rights. Intersex rights are women's rights. And they must sit at the centre of the multilateral feminist agenda, not at its margins.

Because ultimately, the measure of our commitments is not what we say in rooms like this, but it is what we are willing to change beyond them. Thank you.

And now can we hear from the Office of the High Commissioner.

Thank you very much. It's an honor to join this historic site event at csw. And I thank the organizers and all present here today for your commitment to advancing the rights of intersex persons in including intersex women and girls. UN human rights mechanisms continue to document serious violations against intersex persons around the world ranging from infanticide and violence to discrimination, lack of access to justice and persistent barriers to legal recognition. As highlighted in OCHR's recent report to Human Rights Council.

Many of these violations stem from harmful stereotypes and stigma surrounding sex characteristics. In many countries, intersex infants and children are still subjected to medically unnecessary surgeries aimed at conforming their bodies to binary norms, procedures performed without full, free and informed consent. These interventions violate rights to bodily autonomy, integrity and freedom from torture and ill treatment and carry lifelong physical and psychological consequences. Intersex persons also face discrimination in education, health care, employment and sports eligibility. Regulations in elite sports have disproportionately affected women with variation in sex characteristics, particularly in Africa and Asia, subjecting them to intrusive examinations and at times harmful interventions that end careers and livelihoods.

Despite these challenges, progress is emerging. Several states are prohibiting non consensual interventions, establishing oversight mechanisms, adding sex characteristics as protected ground in anti discrimination laws and improving access to justice. These examples show that rights aligned reforms are both possible and achievable. Crucially, none of this progress happens without the leadership of intersex human rights defenders. Like those we have on the panel today.

Their voices and lived experience must guide all policy and legislative work. States have clear obligations to prohibit harmful practices, ensure access to justice and medical records, combat discrimination and guarantee meaningful participation of intersex persons in decision making. Today's dialogue forms part of a long overdue reckoning with practices that have harmed intersex persons for generations. The message of the human rights framework is unequivocal. Intersex persons are entitled to full protection, respect and fulfillment of their rights.

OCHR remains committed to working with States, UN entities, civil society and intersex led groups to advance the protection of the human rights organization all intersex persons. So my hope is that we will turn today's dialogue and the energy in this room into collective action for justice and equality. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much. That report was very, very, very, very exciting for our community and we've had a great partnership with the office for in getting that out. I'm just going to quickly introduce myself. I'm Kimberly Zieselman. I am an intersex woman and I am the senior advisor for Global Intersex Rights at Outright International.

I always start with the definition of intersex because there are still, so many people that misunderstand what intersex is so briefly. So we are all on the same page. Intersex is an umbrella term that refers to someone born with one or more sex characteristics. So that's physical sex characteristics that don't line up with what we typically think of as either a female or a male body. It can be apparent immediately at birth sometimes, or it can show up later during puberty, or it can show up later in adulthood.

And sometimes intersex people never know that they're intersex.

It's important to note that intersex is not a gender identity, it's not a sexual orientation, and it's not the same as transgender. However, intersex people may be any sexual orientation, have any gender identity, and also may be transgender.

Nearly 2% of the population is born with physical intersex traits. That's about as common as red hair, green eyes. It's more common than the birth of identical twins.

So I always say intersex isn't really that rare. It's just invisible. And it's been invisible largely due to shame and stigma put on us often as very young children, through adulthood by society and erasure by the medical community.

Over the last two decades and more, there's been a growing and effective intersex movement, a global intersex movement, however, very under resourced. It's amazing how much the movement has achieved in a short period of time with so little resources. And today we have an amazing group of intersex leaders, diverse leaders from different parts of the world, here to talk with us about their specific country and region. So with that, I'd like to jump right into our panel of activists.

And first, let me ask each of you to please introduce yourselves one minute or less with your name, your organization, and your country. And if you could identify just briefly, the one or two top human rights issues affecting intersex people in your country and or regional. And I'll start with you, Crystal.

Hi. Good morning. My name is Crystal Hendricks. My pronouns are she, her. I am from Cape Town, South Africa.

I work at an organization called ILGA World. ILGA World is an LGBTQI plus federation with more than 2000 members all across the globe. I'm also an intersex person and intersex human rights defender. I think if I would name top two as coming from South Africa, I would say definitely the abandonment and infanticide of intersex children. Thank you,

Everyone. Good morning. My name is Obioma Chukwike. My pronouns are they, them, I'm from Nigeria and I work with Intersex Nigeria which was founded in 2019 out of the curiosity of invisibility that that I personally suffered as an intersex child growing up, experienced exorcism from between the ages of 10 years to almost 18 years and other medicalization that gave birth to intersex Nigeria in 2019. At intersex Nigeria there are many things that we have identified.

But to add to what Crystal has said, lack of access to basic health care needs is one of the big issues intersex people face in Nigeria and invisibility. We are not mentioned in any policy that speaks to recognition of intersex persons and that means that in the eyes of intersex, in the eyes of Nigerian government, we do not exist. So those are like the two major things that we face in Nigeria. Thank you.

Good morning everyone. My name is Vida Guzu, my pronouns are she and her and I'm from Brazil. I. I'm the executive director of Intersex Brazil and I think our main priorities right now are two we are currently working, advocating within national human rights institutions to end intersection to mutilation in Brazil. And while doing so, we are also trying to open the civic space for the participation, the political participation of intersex people, people in Brazil so we can fully realize our political rights.

Good morning. What an honor to be on this panel today. My name is Meryl Ritzma. I'm representing a community group called Spread the Word Intersex Collective based in the Netherlands. And the Netherlands is often seen as a very progressive country when it comes to LGBTIQ rights.

However, last year my country was ranked 3 13th across Europe for our rights situation mainly driven by limited protection of intersex individuals. We still don't have a ban on non consensual unnecessary surgeries on intersex children. The second human rights violation is to do with the ongoing culture of silence and secrecy that continues even today. And this isn't theory for me. I've experienced both these violations in my life.

Thank you.

Good morning everyone. My name is Margie McComsty and I'm representing Interaction for Health and Human Rights, Australia's leading organisation for the protection and advancement of individuals with innate variations of sex characteristics, also known as intersex. Australia is a large country with six states and two territories. And with the health systems of each state and territory being separate, our fight continues to ensure all intersex children are protected from unnecessary non consensual surgeries in all but one state and one territory. At this stage, recognising the great need for psychosocial support in our community, we're also strongly advocating for greater funding to further expand the provision of our pioneering InterLink programs to support children, young people, adults, parents and families who are coming to terms with what it means to live a full and healthy life with an innate variation of sex characteristics.

Thank you. All right, let's dive in. I'm going to start with Vida. Vida. The OHCHR report calls for ending medically unnecessary interventions on intersex children.

But in Brazil, one what are the biggest barriers to implementing these strong recommendations in healthcare systems? And how do these barriers affect the bodily autonomy and the access to justice of intersex women and girls and non binary persons?

Question Just briefly sharing my experience from the time I was six months old, the differences may vary were already obvious. And by the time I was six years old, a doctor from the next town was brought in to figure out what was supposedly wrong with me. And I still remember myself as a child shivering in a crowded waiting room. And everything felt really strange. And I could sense sense the confusion in people's voices, in their expressions, in every raised eyebrow.

And around me there was a growing team of curious doctors and also a puzzled family, all subtly agreeing that something had to be fixed. And they said, oh, we will need to do some surgeries, just a few cuts to help things blossom, to help them grow the right way. We will use hormones this way or another, and if that doesn't work, it's okay, we try something else. And if you want men, referring to my mother, we can trim a little bit of skin here and there as well. And after enduring a series of unnecessary, harmful and non consensual surgeries, it took me years to understand how much had been left unsaid.

There was one world that they never gave me one word that connected my story to the stories of so many others. Only later did I learn that I was intersex and that what happened to me was not an isolated event, but part of a broader pattern of severe abuses and violations of human rights experienced by intersex people in Brazil and across the world, as my colleagues will tell you. So when preparing this speech, I asked my colleagues at Intersex Brazil about the main human rights violations that marked their lives. Their answers were very painfully consistent. Non consensual surgeries, forced or premature hormonal interventions, concealment of diagnosis and medical records, repeated medical examinations, and constant pressure to conform to binary sex norms.

My friends back home also speak of the lasting consequences of these practices. Fear of hospitals Anxiety, shame, trauma, exclusion at school, barriers in sports, and difficulty accessing truthful information about their own bodies. So the data confirms these are not isolated cases. In an European Union survey, around 60% of intersex respondents reported surgeries or hormonal treatments without their consent, alongside with high levels of discrimination. And excluding exclusion in the United In United States, 43% rated their physical health as fair or poor, and 53% said the same of their mental health.

So these numbers show that intersectional human rights violations are systemic, not exceptional. However, these figures come from countries and regions in the Global north, places that are often assumed to have stronger legal and policy protections. And in Latin America and the Caribbean, the testimonies I have collected echo across Argentina, Chile, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Mexico. Different legal systems. Yeah.

And medical institutions, but similar underlying logic. Intersex bodies are treated as problems to be fixed rather than as people whose rights must be respected. And yet, I want to make something very clear here today. Our bodies are not problems to be solved. The operating table does not have to be our destiny.

Thank you, Kimberly.

Thank you, Vida. Crystal, let's talk to you next. In the context where legal systems may already criminalize aspects of gender or sexuality, how can the intersex resolution and the report be used as a protective advocacy tool to advance our rights as intersex people and access to intersex, to justice for intersex women and girls?

Thank you so much for that question, Kimberly. And again, thank you so much for being in this room today.

I think we definitely need a bigger room. I think we are running out of space, and I think that's also very important to us as well. I think in the context where legal system criminalizes aspects of gender and sexuality, it's clear in the OHSR's report and the intersex resolution that these two tools become very powerful and protective tools because they delink intersex issues from identity politics. And I think that's very important, and that is the conversations that we've been having with different states in this entire week. The report and the resolution clearly tells us that intersex issues is firmly rooted in bodily autonomy and health and freedom from no harm.

I think intersex advocacy can move forward even in very restrictive environments. We've seen this in Kenya, we've seen it in Nigeria with intersex Nigeria working with their ministries of health. And we've also seen it in countries such as South Africa, which had the first legislation in the world that protects intersex people from discrimination. And this says that there is an opportunity for us to move on with intersex rights apart from, you know, where our lives are criminalized or where they are barriers to accessing to justice. I think it's also very clear when you look at the insights of the Intersex Legal Mapping report produced by Ilga World, that very few countries explicitly protect intersex people from harmful medical practices.

And even where there are protections, enforcements and accountability mechanisms are weak or absent. And we've heard this from intersex activists all across the globe. Like in. Even when there is a ban in a said country, there is still certain loopholes because people still want to have these normalized surgeries and to keep intersex bodies within certain binaries. We also see that in many countries intersex people are completely invisible in the law, leaving violations unaddressed.

There's no reparations, you know, there's no legal action and there's no access to justice. Because if your system does not even recognize that you are there and, and that you exist, how will you access justice? And I think it's even so important and vital having this conversation during the theme about access to justice at csw. I think it's also very important that we look at these contexts that even though sometimes it can be very restrictive, there are strategies that we can use as intersex activists all across the globe. I think firstly, I think it's very important to use international human rights standards to, to fill legal gaps.

Most of us on this panel, we've engaged with treaty bodies, we've engaged with the universal periodic review process, we've engaged with special procedures and we've used all of these to hold our states accountable where there are no laws to protect us. I think second, we've seen a shift in advocacy on intersex rights and that's very clear from the resolution at the Human Rights Council where it was completely focused on the access to health care and harmful, harmful practices in medical settings. I think it's important as intersex activists and also with us engaging with our states, to engage with our ministries of health on medical ethics, to have standard operating procedures in place on how to care for intersex children, to have this part of the curriculum for medical doctors. Coming from a country of South Africa, I have done many trainings or sessions within our universities and most of the time speaking with fourth or fifth year medical doctors, they said this is one pager covered somewhere and it speaks about two variations and we don't really get told anything about this, but we do get taught that we need to enforce binaries. We do get thought that, oh, this is not normal.

This is what normal looks like. And it's very sad, you know, that this is the world that we live in. I think it's very important for us to work with child rights institutions on consent and protections. And that is what we've been trying to do as intersex activists all across the globe and also to frame violations as harmful practices and not based on identity. As Kimberly has already explained that being intersex is not a sexual orientation and is not a gender identity.

It's an innate variation in your sex characteristics. But also in saying that intersex people can have any sexuality and they can have any gender identity because no one is one thing. I think it's important for us to think about as we want to advance protection and access to justice in ways we have to work in ways that are strategic, context sensitive and to also have that conversation, you know, the difficult conversations with states and also to ensure that yes, we do not want to separate intersex people from the other identities, but it's important to have that. As the report and as the resolution, it's found a delink delinking it from sexual orientation and gender identity and solely focusing on sex characteristics. And I think that is very important how we've seen the successes, you know, for the intersex community even where our lives are criminal, criminalized.

Sorry. But I think ultimately the report gives us a mandate and the mapping shows us that where gaps are and how urgent the need is for action. And, and I think it's very important at this pinnacle moment, at this historic event today that we say that in 2026 is really the time, you know, for action. We have the report, we have the resolution. So what's next?

Thank you.

Thank you. Crystal Obiamma. So the report highlights intersectional discrimination. How does being intersect, intersect with race and poverty, religion and colonial legacies in Nigeria, particularly shaping the lives of intersex, the lived experience of intersex women and girls and non binary persons.

Thank you very much for that question.

Before I start, I want to share that for the past eight years that I've been doing advocacy work on intersex human rights. There is no single room that I've walked into that I have not seen someone who shares with me after the workshop or training to say that I think I've met an intersex person before. I think I've experienced someone being an intersex in my neighborhood, in my family or somewhere around me. And it shows that intersex people has always been there and we are invisible and we are visible. And it means that intersection is part of our life.

So to answer your question around how this intersects in every day of our life, it means that we have to look at it from birth. Once an intersex child is born and you are discovered to be an intersex person, especially if you have ambiguous genitalia or something that is very visible at birth. Because sometimes you can discover that you are intersex, maybe in puberty or later on in life. Or sometimes you might not even know that you are intersex till you die. Let's assume that a baby is discovered to be intersex.

From my experience and from the cases that we have handled at Intersex Nigeria, we have seen cases where intersex child is being born and there are intersex genital mutilation, unnecessary ones because we understand that there are cases where the child might require inter immediate medical attention. But in situations like these that we have seen in multiple places, in multiple spaces and hospitals, these cases are not does not require necessary, they don't require urgent cases. There is a story I'm going to share with us here, a very short story. It's long, but I'm going to make it short. There is a child, I will use the word M as his name.

He was born into a family that already have about five girls. And then when he was born, the parents were confused about what sex he could be. And they said since they don't have a boy in their family, they were going to find a way to make him a boy. And he was subjected to intersex genital mutilation. And when M grew up, he could not go to school because that surgery had complications and he had to wear pampers for even up to the age of nine years.

And now M is in school. And recently I spoke with the father and the father was sharing with me that M was sent to the back of the class because of his health complications and people were discriminating against him. We are still on that case because we want to take it up with the school to ask them questions around why a child should sit at the back of a class simply because they perceive him to be different. For intersex girls and women, it is more complicated. In places like Nigeria, where patriarchy is at its peak, it means that an intersex girl child will be subjected to all manner of patriarchal system.

That could mean that their body become a family property. They could be turned into community Secrecy and community shame. Because as a girl child in an African home, you are expected to uphold a certain level of standard. And, and when your body does not conform to what is expected, it means that you are subjected to the ridicule of your family, of the community. Secrecy becomes your second name.

You are not allowed to express yourself, you are not allowed to mix up with your peers. And this is the case of most intersex girls and women that I've also spoken to, including myself, because I was born as a female. But when I was growing up there was a lot of confusion about my body. I and I was subjected to all manner of medical intervention and also religious practices that I did not even understand. So it also means that it leaves an intersex woman or intersex girl to dependency because we know that to experience poverty, it starts from when you are being denied access to education, access to medical information that speaks to your body and you are confused.

There are cases in Nigeria right now that we are handling of where intersex people do not understand where they belong to in terms of identity. They are not able to use their identity card to open a simple access to bank accounts. They don't have bank accounts because what is in their gender identity on their card does not match with the physical appearance. And when they go to the bank to explain, no one is listening to them because there is no policy that speaks to their need as an intersex person. But thankfully, right now we are working with the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.

We just signed an MOU last two weeks before I came here that is going to speak on including intersex people in health care and beyond all those and beyond healthcare agencies. But that is just a start. It is a long walk of visibility, a long walk of inclusion, a long walk of authenticity. Living your life as a human being, not subjected to secrecy, not subjected to shame. Infanticide has caused a lot of harm on intersex people in Nigeria.

And it also means that when a child is born, especially with local bed attendants, we had a session with local beds attendants and one shared that in one of the cases when they delivered an intersex child, the father came and was excited that the baby has been born, but was also confused with the faces not being shiny and bright and asked what is the problem? And and they showed him the child and he said, God forbid, this cannot be my child. And they started talking about how to kill that child. Instantly that night the midwife tried to intervene and when she saw that her life was in danger, she had to flee that night from that town. These are practical examples of cases of how intersectional it can be because our life is not seen as a legal existence.

So when you're talking about race, when you're talking about religion, we're not saying that religion is the problem, but the interpretation of how the religion is used on our body is the problem. When we are being seen as coarse, as taboo, as abdominal existence, it means that our families will be forced into unnecessary medical intervention on our body. It means that we are going to be subjected to secrecy. It means that all our life is going to be hidden because our family do not want us to bring shame to us. It means that social expectations will make us not to live our authentic life.

So I always tell people that as an intersex person, once you are born and people discover either by your physical attributes or by, you know, you knowing that you are an intersex person, it automatically means that your life takes another shape. It means that you are going to be excluded in spaces just because people cannot classify who you are. It means that people are going to not want to be your friend. It means that people are not going to want not want to get married to you. It means that you're not going to be able to reproduce and you will not know how you're going to meet up with some of the expectations that you have in life.

So when you talk about intersectionality, it is all over in everything that we do.

Thank you,

Meryl. So European countries are often perceived as being progressive on our issues. As you said, some countries have introduced limited intersex protections. But what gaps remain between the policy rhetoric and the lived realities for intersex women, girls and non binary persons in the Netherlands and across Europe? And what lessons can be learned from partial reforms in ensuring accountability to access to justice for intersex women and girls?

And what and what pitfalls should other states, other countries avoid?

Thank you for bringing attention to this important topic. Because Europe is often seen as progressive in terms of gender equality before intersex people, there's still a large gap between policy and reality. The We've heard already from other speakers that in many countries there are non consensual, unnecessary medical treatments still being performed on intersex infants and children. Very often these treatments are being justified for being in the child's best interest.

But they happen, of course, before the child can give informed consent while they have lifelong physical and psychological consequences. And the main problem in Europe and elsewhere is that many of the governments support bodily autonomy in principle. But Very few have clear laws that prohibit these interventions. Instead they rely on medical guidelines or review committees. They're looking for self regulation by medical professions, something that's been shown to not be enough to stop these medical human rights abuses.

So oversight without a legal ban does not provide real protection. And even in the few countries where this ban exists, enforcement is rare. Prosecutions, even rarer families may still consent to surgeries under social pressure or medical advice. There's also a gendered dimension here. Intersexed girls are often subjected to surgeries intended to make their bodies fit a narrow expectation of femininity, while non binary intersex people are frequently overlooked in legal frameworks built around the male and female binary.

So for reforms across Europe, there's three lessons that emerge. One is we need clear legal protections and that's essential. Secondly, intersex led organizations must be involved in shaping policies. And thirdly, prevention must be paired with accountability, including access to justice and reparations for past harm. If Europe wants to uphold its human rights commitments, it must move beyond rhetoric and ensure that intersex children are protected in practice through enforceable laws, children transparency and real access to justice.

Thank you,

thank you Margie. Australia has recently seen very successful advocacy around legislation and medical regulation. What progress has been made and where is accountability still missing when it comes to protecting the bodily autonomy and human rights of intersex women, girls and non binary people?

Australia has made some excellent progress around legislation medical regulation. After many years of advocacy and education, Australia's Human Rights Commission produced a report in 2021 that was important in establishing that human rights violations were indeed occurring in Australia and needed to be addressed.

Bioethicist Associate professor and Executive Director of interaction with Dr. Morgan Carpenter stated that the only way of maximally respecting the diverse values and preferences of children with intersex variations is to minimise early interventions. Following from our advocacy and recommendations, the Act Parliament passed the Variation in Sex Characteristics Restricted Medical treatment bill in June 2023, establishing legal protections and processes to to support people with IVSC to make their own decisions about permanent medical treatments affecting their bodies. An interlinked founder and Interactions Deputy Executive Director Bonnie Hart said it was cause for celebrations for people with intersex variations of all ages and those that care for us. The bill and associated regulations create protective structures that ensure transparency across both public and private and private healthcare settings and create a model for best practice nationally. With a precedent for best practice now in place, the advocacy work continued in other states.

Equality Australia produced the Missing Voice report in 2025 which highlighted the ongoing surgical and medical interventions from recent data and spotlighted the stories of harm from members of our community. With growing awareness and understanding of the issues and harm of the human rights violations, Victoria was the next state to align and advance human rights for people with ivsc. The health safeguards for people born with variations in Sex Characteristics Bill 2025 was passed in February this year. And as co Chair of Interaction and patron of Equality Australia, Tony Brifa said, we celebrate meaningful progress. I am incredibly proud to see Victoria take this historic step for the next generation.

Our bodily differences are a natural part of human diversity. Surgical or hormonal interventions should proceed only where there is clear medical necessity and where that need outweighs the risk of causing lifelong harm. And while we have clearly made progress, accountability is still missing when it comes to protecting the bodily autonomy and human rights of intersex women, girls and non binary persons in our remaining states and territory. There is a missing sense of urgency on the part of politicians and government health officials. They consider potential backlash.

They listen to outspoken paediatric surgeons and urologists who are clinging to past practices and they are choosing to not centre the voices of those with lived experience. The delays and the extended consultations come at a cost. The bodily autonomy and integrity of an individual's right to choose what happens to their body. But we will keep advocating, educating and fighting for these human rights because we have a sense of urgency and it is time.

Vida, I'd like to go back to you and talk about how the feminist movement, right, how the feminist movements here at CSW can better integrate intersex bodily autonomy into broader gender equality frameworks.

So let me say that we are witnessing growing hostility toward our movements. But I would not describe this as a temporary crisis because for intersex people those violations are not episodic. They are very structured. But investigating the hepatoisian frameworks of intersex movements in Brazil, a key focus of my research was on the political crisis, especially during the rise of anti rights movements, authoritarian actors and I asked movement leaders whether they felt you were living through a political crisis. And one prominent leader activist replied, vida, we've been living through difficult times since 1500s.

And that response captured something fundamental for intersex people. Crisis has been such a constant reality since colonization. And that's why. And now I begin to actually answer your question, Kimberly. We as intersex people, especially those of us from the global south, we continue to insist on something that it's at all very just, profoundly just, but also striking.

Simple being recognized fully as human beings. And the change we need is very clear access to justice for intersex people, people and survivors of those violences, knowing that also without truth there can be no justice. Full recognition of bodily autonomy, including an end to end to non concession and medically unnecessary interventions, truth, accountability, reparations. Well, for feminist movements this means continuing to treat intersex issues as a key feminist issue for the liberation of women and girls. Attacks on intersex people are part of a broader strategy to weaken feminist and human rights movements as a whole and to erode what could be a vibrant civic space and also to undermine this true spirit of solidarity and democracy.

So that's why I invite all feminist movements to advocate against medically unnecessary, non consensual and irreversible interventions on intersex persons. For Member States, this means investing sustained, sustained efforts to advance frameworks that protect and promote the human rights of intersex people in global and regional multilateral spaces as well as national human rights policies and institutions. And at this point, timely to note that it also means saying no to any resolution that seeks to define gender in exclusionary terms and also continuing to resist the the removal of previously agreed upon language that protects and promotes human rights and gender justice for all.

Crystal so the report provides recommendations, Right. But implementation really requires political will as we know. So what alliances, feminists, disability rights, children's rights, anti racism are essential to ensure sure that we can ensure the access to justice for intersex people and the human rights.

Thank you for that question, Kimberly. I think the biggest risk right now is that intersex rights remain siloed.

And if that happens, implementation of the OSHR report will remain slow and fragmented. I think that's why it's important that cross movement alliances are not optional, but they are essential. I think as the intersection movement, we definitely need feminist movements to anchor intersex issues within bodily autonomy and reproductive justice. And I think that is the work that I've been doing, especially at Ilgo World and we've seen in different feminist spaces like Award and the upcoming Woman Deliver, that we've ensured that intersex right is very important and pivotal to the conversation around bodily autonomy. We need child rights movements because most of these violations occur in in early life and without consent and also very important.

We also need to work with disability justice movement and this is to challenge medicalization and normalization practices. It's also very important for us as a movement to work with anti racism and decolonial movements to address our global medical system impose narrow norms of bodies. We have even seen in spaces, especially in sports, where it's a M.O. mostly women from the global south that gets impacted on sex testing and that gets impacted on not being able to partake in the sport of their choice within the gender that they affirm themselves in because of these racist practices. So it's important that we target all of these because it's not also impacting intersex people in our social and economic.

It's impacting us in our work, in education settings, in employment settings. And these violations or discriminations that we face, it literally has a greater impact on intersex people. I think all of these alliances are very important, and they do two critical things to expand the political power and they prevent intersex issues from being treated as marginal or niche. And definitely at these spaces, like the Commission on the Status of Women, I think it's important that these actions need to translate into integrated advocacy agendas, shared funding strategies, and also joint accountability frameworks. You know, like we say, we don't want to leave anyone behind, and it's important not to leave intersex people behind in this conversation, I think, because what we need to understand, you know, I, coming from South Africa, we grow up with the.

With the statement that the one hand washes the other hand. And that's something that we are taught from small that, you know, people need people, we need each other, we need to support each other, and sometimes we need to hold each other's hands. So I think it's important that because no single movement can address systematic nature of these violations alone. The intersex community has tried for years. We've had the support of the LGBT community for years.

And now it's time that everybody comes on board to understand that these human rights violations are happening to children. Children are having their bodily autonomy strike stripped away from them. They have no self determination. They are unable to make any decisions about their own lives. And that should impact you greatly for you to come to the front and stand with intersex people.

I think based on the theme of this conversation, from report to action, I want to add finally, that if we want to move from report to action, we must ensure that intersex rights are not just included, but it's embedded in all across all the gender justice work that we are doing. Thank you very much.

Obiamma. What risks do intersex activists face when moving from report to action? And how should international actors respond responsibly to ensure the safety of advocates and the protection of intersex Human Rights Defenders.

Yeah, moving from report to action. It means that of course there will be more visibility. We have been doing the work, but now that there is more pressure, more accountability mechanisms that have been out there, the reports, the resolution, even from the African Commission on Human People's Rights and all the campaign that we have been doing, including this one where we are sitting at currently, it means that we are becoming more visible with the issue. We want more people to join. So it means that backlash is one of the things that we are going to be expecting as a risk.

You know, intersex human Rights defenders can experience backlash both online, where it is severely easy and even offline where we are working at environment, especially for people that work at environment that are very conservative. It means that sometimes there can also be family, family backlash when your family does not want you to be public out there. Because remember, as intersex persons living your life, not even being a defender, you expected to keep a secret most times. So when you are out there, it it they can say, oh, you're bringing shame to the family. We don't want you to be out there speaking about this issues or campaign about these issues that can happen.

It also means that, you know, states can also monitor or survey what we say, how we are saying it, what we are doing. It also means that we are going to be, you know, being out there doing what we do and weighing the risk option and the security option about it. I also see a situation whereby we are also going to be experiencing lack of funding doing the work because at the beginning part and now we are at the barrel of anything that is happening in terms of funding. Right? So now that we have to do more work, it means that we need more resources to do that work.

So it also means that we have a lot of pressure and our well being is also at risk. It means that intersex human Rights defenders are going to be doing this work with little or no resources. And it means that we're going to put in a lot of pressure, more than we have been doing because now we're talking about action. We want to see more policies that are inclusive, want to see healthcare assets, we want to see intersex people being proud and visible. But it means that it's not going to be at no cost.

It means that you need to weigh every option that you are taking. So talking about how to, how international actors can support this. It means that we need to start stand by side by side with each other. It means that intersex work has to be Critically funded with intentionality. When I mean intentionality, I mean it has to be flexible.

It has to allow the intersex leaders and intersex organizations and community to decide what the priorities are for them. It means that we are going to be taking the front seat to say, or being part of the table of discussion to say that these are the issues that face us at this moment and these are the things that we want to address at this moment. Moment. It also means that, you know, diplomats for instance, should also know when to be silenced in their diplomacy and also when to be loud about it because you can be helping and sometimes can putting us at risk. So it means that at every each step that is being taken, it has to be intentionally calculated.

But working side by side with intersex human rights defenders, we are just a few here, but we have multitude, multitude of us out there. It also means that we have to also recognize that at every given time intersectionality should be lens that we should be used in approaching anything that we are doing for intersex human rights issues globally. So I would say concluding that we need people to stand with us, but we need people to stand with us more intentionally, more open hearted to understand what the issues are and how they can support us as we are also keeping ourselves safe as we're doing that. Thank you.

So picking up on that, Meryl, briefly, the intersex movement is notoriously underfunded, receiving less than 2% of even the LGBT broader movement. You serve on the supervisory board of a feminist funding organization. How do you think the broader feminist and broader cross movement funders that we've talked about could better support the intersex movement?

Thank you for bringing this up. I mean, funding of course is vital and it's too often left out of the conversation when we talk about intersex topics.

As you said, less than 2% of LGBTIQ funding goes to intersex led organizations. 2%. 2% is a tiny slice of already a small pie that is LGBTIQ funding. And yet intersex activists were able to achieve the extraordinary with almost no funding. Imagine what is possible if we get real financial support right now.

This underfunding is holding us back. So it's time for funders to step up. And of course, our issues, you've heard them today, they're closely connected to women's and children rights because they focus on bodily autonomy, consent, protection from harm, this narrow definition of femininity linking our experiences very clearly to gender equality. We need fair health care access, legal recognition, access to justice and all These match the goals of women's and children rights work. When funders support our groups, they help protect children and they make sure that no harmful gender norms are imposed.

So for this reason I'm calling on women's and children's funders to back our movement financially and meaningfully. As we heard from our speaker of UN Women earlier, intersex rights are not a side issue. They are at the heart of gender justice and human rights.

And finally, Margie, what does what does trauma informed advocacy look like when engaging with policymakers on harmful medical practices? So many of us have suffered at the hands of medical providers, mostly folks who really think that they're doing what's in our best interest. But despite years of speaking out and talking about how it has not been in our best interest, this continues. How can training institutions, including medical schools, operationalize the report recommendations and to ensure our best interests? Trauma informed advocacy is important when engaging policymakers because any legislative change must be accompanied with psychosocial social support provisions for both the young people coming through and making choices about their bodies and finding their place in the world as an intersex person, but also to address the historical medical trauma that many have experienced over the years.

With human rights violations having been the norm, the act legislation established a dedicated government funded psychosocial support system designed to help intersex children and their families navigate medical, emotional and social challenges. Additionally, in Australia, our groundbreaking InterLink program provides mental health and wellbeing services to people with IVSC and their family members, safely connecting them with knowledgeable counsellors with other people with similar experiences with peer support and affirmative services. Supporting individuals and families in understanding options and making choices in that are best for them reduces the risks of being subjected to unnecessary surgeries. The OHCHR has urged states to prohibit medically unnecessary surgeries and procedures on intersex infants and children unless they are life saving or urgently required for physical health. If training institutions and medical schools consider this, they can educate future doctors and ensure that interventions are delayed until an individual can provide free prior and informed consent.

Universities and educational institutions have an opportunity to operationalise the OHCHR recommendations by ensuring healthcare providers are educated on intersex variations and human rights. Future lawyers are trained on intersex rights and anti discrimination laws, social workers, psychologists and allied health teams teams trained to understand the shame and stigma that many experience and teachers and early childhood professionals must be well informed, safe and welcoming of difference. Changing our world to protect babies and children with innate variations of sex characteristics Changing our world to accept that people exist outside of a rigid gender binary. Changing our world to respect bodily integrity and autonomy happens in many ways by legislating against non consensual surgeries, by educating and building awareness widely by establishing intersex informed education policies and practices. But it starts with people understanding the importance of bodily autonomy, recognising the harms we have endured and continue to face and for individuals to allow their hearts to to be touched by our stories.

We need people to care, be compassionate and stand with us for change.

So I think in the interest of time I'd like to move now to one of our gracious co sponsors of this event, South Africa. And we'd love to hear from you.

Thank you very much. I'll try to be as quick as possible but I think this event is landmark. It's extremely timely because not only is there, if I can say, a precarious situation, we find ourselves in terms of the human rights agenda, but also the intersex agenda and the gender agenda as well that's happening around the csw. So I think it's very important to learn from the lived realities of the various speakers because coming from member states and South Africa we would know is quite progressive but not without challenges as Crystal has mentioned and those kinds of things. So I think from our perspective we will always support international intersex rights because these are, you know, important and they are, they find expression in our national constitution in terms of human rights, dignity and equality of all intersex persons.

At the domestic level we have the Bill of Rights but we also have something, you know, with the challenges we do have something called a national task team that deals broadly with, with soggy issues. But within that is intersex and why that is interesting, it is co chaired by the Deputy Minister of Justice as well as by a leader within civil society and it provides a space, happens once every few months of us to discuss what is happening at the various levels of the provinces or the states, what cases are happening, where are the blockages, those kinds of realities. And then from our perspective as the Department of International Relations we would then speak of things like international developments or you know, the landmark resolution when we were working with Australia, Chile and Finland, those kinds of things. I think I won't go into too much but that is one positive thing on that national task team. And I think Crystal also mentioned, and I think a few speakers have mentioned on, you know, you may have heard of Caster Semenya.

So that is something that we are quite proud of in that we have taken that through Our Commission for Gender Equality, which is a Chapter 9 institution in terms of trying to provide or shine a spotlight on these issues and ensure that people like castor, who should be allowed to compete and should not be discriminated based on the fact that they are intersex. So I think broadly these kinds of interactions are so important and should continue because all of the challenges raised, we find them in other spaces as well. And I think that South Africa will always be supportive of these initiatives. Thank you.

Thank you. And last, but certainly not least, I'd like to now have us hear from Finland. The country of Finland was a very important member of the core group in Geneva around the first ever Inter 6 resolution. And we appreciate that leadership and are really happy to have you here today to close us out with your thoughts.

The microphone does work. Yep. Thank you. And I am so happy to be here with you. I am also happy that this is happening this week because last week you would have gotten my minister and I wouldn't be here talking to you.

But.

But I think that today's conversation really, really proves that gender is not binary and gender is not an ideology. And to be here on the first ever UN New York intersex discussion is such an honor that I'm almost moved. I had a whole speech planned out. But I think I'm going to be talking a little bit less about that and a little bit more about what I have heard today, because these panelists have just shared their stories and I think all of us have learned a lot today too. You cannot really have access to justice if you are not registered at birth.

So to start from that on, and of course, these unnecessary medical procedures where we all, most of us have still a lot to do in our country is something that we have to go back with and work on. That UN women mentioned social uncomfort in her speech earlier on, and I think it's disgraceful that because of this social uncomfort we are doing all these things that you have just been mentioning.

So I think that Finland therefore calls for greater awareness, visibility and understanding, and of course also support and information to the families of intersex children. As Obioma was talking about the father's actions, it's not an easy issue for the families either if there's not enough noise. So I think our task is to go back to our offices and hometowns with the report, with the recommendations to the governments to try to go and fulfill those. And we need to keep on pushing for progress in today's world. And as a government representative US Governments have to do better and I hope very good luck for the intersex organizations and the feminist autonomous organizations in doing this work.

Thank you for today's event.

We have a video, a three minute statement from a human rights defender in Asia and we were intending to play it earlier but if folks can stay for three more minutes we would love to introduce you to NADA from Intersex Thailand.

And I would like to thank the ARAI International team for this opportunity to have me deliver this statement on behalf of Intersex Thailand and Intersex Asia. As we reflect on the landmark 2024 Human Rights Custody Solutions and 2025 OSCHR report, we must confront a harsh reality. For intersex people in Asia and globally, justice remained a distant home.

We do not want token inclusions. We demand Member States and unjoin agencies to transform this resolution into concrete and forcible action, not just symbolic paper In Thailand, the past two weeks have exposed the brutal reality of our struggle with we have witnesses an explosion of hate speech and gender discrimination fueled by bioessentialism. The rigid reductionist view that XX female and XY males is being used to restrict our human dignity and fundamental rights. Why.

It should be downloaded right?

Yeah, apologies for the technical difficulties, but given the time I think

joint agencies to transform this resolution into concrete.

We do not want token inclusions. We demand Member States and unjoin agencies to transform this resolution into concrete enforceable action, not just symbolic papers. In Thailand, the past two weeks have exposed the brutal reality of our struggle. We have witnessed an explosion of hate speech and gender discrimination fueled by bio essentialism. The rigid reductionist view that XX female and XY male is being used to restrict our human dignity and fundamental rights while indistex individual face public radical and erasure.

Our state remains silent with an unclear action plan to tackle this severe phenomenon. Allow this violation against our right to self determination become normalized as documented by Intersect Asia and our national research. This is not just worse, it's a systematic violence. Intersex infants across Asia continue undergo non consensual medically necessary surgery to force the body to fit into binary categories. These irreversible interventions violates our right to bodily autonomy and physical integrity.

Furthermore, our legal system denies us recognition without pathologizing medical reports, access to justice obstructed because our law failed to recognize sex characteristics as a protected ground. Lastly, we must confront that alarming trend of redefining rise strictly through the sex best lens. This narrow definition based on binary biological distinction unjustly exclude intersex individual who exists beyond this norm. We demand the full implementation of CEDAW framework, especially General Recommendation 35, because gender based violence is a serious form of discrimination that must be eradicated for all, regardless of their sex characteristics. It is time to take action.

And I mean, it is now. Thank you so much.

And thank you for being here. Thank you to our amazing panelists, many who've journeyed from far away to be here for this historic event. And yeah, that's a wrap.