Israel’s Ministry of Health has just issued a new statement of official procedure addressing treatment of intersex people that represents a real step forward. While the policy falls short of calls from international human rights organizations to stop all medically unnecessary surgeries on intersex infants, it does provide for psychosocial support, recognizes that intersex conditions that do not pose a danger to life or health do not necessarily require surgical treatment, and contains many procedural mechanisms to protect families from being pressed into hasty or uninformed decisions. Congratulations to the activists and allies who worked so hard to get these changes through!
An article explaining the new policy, drafted by Harvard Law scholar and former interACT intern Maayan Sudai was published in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology. Maayan was a member of the global DSD Update Consortium and of groups responsible for crafting the Israeli circular. The policy itself (in Hebrew) is available here.
