interACT urges the authors and editors of the 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices to include information on the rights of intersex people in their future reports as the need for support for the global intersex movement continues to grow.

interACT youth member Axel Keating delivered a statement to the UN Special Rapporteur for Health in New York City, in October 2015, calling for the recognition of intersex people’s sexual health as a necessary component of their well-being, peer support and community involvement for intersex youth and their families, and the end of non-consensual and medically unnecessary genital-normalizing surgeries on intersex children.

The United Nations is calling on governments and parents to protect intersex children from harm. They have launched a campaign that features interACT staff, board and youth members. interACT consulted on the development of the campaign video and webpage.

Executive Director Kimberly Zieselman took part in the side event on the human rights of intersex people, organized during the 30th session of the UN Human Rights Council. The event included representatives from interACT (at the time Advocates for Informed Choice), CIPD, Organisation Intersex International Australia Limited, Oii-Chinese and OII Europe and was supported by ILGA and COC Nederland.

interACT was involved with the development this interagency statement signed by CRPD (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities), OHCHR (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights), UN Women (United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women), UNAIDS (Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS), UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund), UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund), and WHO (World Health Organization).

International human rights bodies and professional organizations have explicitly condemned coercive population policies and programmes, noting that decisions about sterilization should not be subject to arbitrary requirements imposed by the government and that states’ obligations to protect persons from such treatment extend into the private sphere, including where such practices are committed by private individuals, such as health-care professionals. This statement aims to contribute to the elimination of forced, coercive and otherwise involuntary sterilization.

This statement aims to contribute to the elimination of forced, coercive and otherwise involuntary sterilization and explicitly mentions sterilization of intersex children.

In December 2012, Legal Director Anne Tamar-Mattis provided expert testimony to the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Torture (SRT) on behalf of the intersex community, leading the SRT to make the following statement to the 22nd Session of the United Nations General Council:
“Children who are born with atypical sex characteristics are often subject to irreversible sex assignment, involuntary sterilization, involuntary genital normalizing surgery, performed without their informed consent, or that of their parents, ‘in an attempt to fix their sex’, leaving them with permanent, irreversible infertility and causing severe mental suffering. . . . These procedures [genital-normalizing surgeries] are rarely medically necessary, can cause scarring, loss of sexual sensation, pain, incontinence, lifelong depression, and have also been criticized as being unscientific, potentially harmful and contributing to stigma.”

In March 2017 interACT Executive Director Kimberly Zieselman testified before the Inter-American Commission at the Organization of American States in Washington, DC with Natasha Jiménez Mata from Costa Rica.

In March of 2013, staff member Pidgeon Pagonis provided testimony to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

interACT Executive Director Kimberly Zieselman co-organized the International Intersex Human Rights Panel with Intersex UK at After The Recognition of Human Rights held at Surrey University in Surrey England in September 2016.

Global intersex activism and collaboration has been growing over the last several years and can be marked by International Intersex Forums generously co-sponsored by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) starting with the first in Brussels in 2011, the second in Stockholm in 2012, the third in Malta in 2013 and most recently Amsterdam in 2017.

The third forum in Malta resulted in a significant community declaration of demands referred to as “The Malta Declaration”.

interACT staff Kimberly Zieselman and Alesdair Ittelson participated in Outright Internatinal’s annual Advocacy Week at the United Nations in NYC and presented at “OutSummit”,  the culmination of an amazing week of UN advocacy by global advocates. Held annually in honor of International Human Rights Day (December 10th), OutSummit is a one-day conference that brings together international and US-based activists for a day of education, planning and action to support international issues related to queer, trans, and intersex communities.

interACT collaborated with Intersex UK to produce an interactive panel of diverse intersex advocates from across the globe during a two-day multidisciplinary, international symposium sponsored by the University of Surrey, England.

In July, Al Ittelson represented interACT at a global LGBTI human rights conference in Montevideo, Uruguay. The conference, which included government representation from across the globe, aimed to “to share information, best practices and lessons learned in the promotion and protection of equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people around the world, both bilaterally and multilaterally” and also “to ensure better coordination of financial and political support of governments and multilateral organizations directed towards the advancement of the human rights of and the promotion of inclusive development for LGBTI persons.

The Arcus foundation generously co-sponsored interACT’s idea to host an intersex human rights forum which Executive Director Kimberly Zieselman moderated during the the January, 2016 Creating Change Conference in Chicago.  Invisible No More: The Global Intersex Rights Movement included intersex activists from around the globe and explored the landscape of the growing intersex human rights movement. The discussion shed light on challenges that face current advocacy efforts as well as developments that are driving increased levels of awareness and support for intersex issues worldwide.