by So forget about gays, lesbesians, bi-sexuals, transgender (hi caitlyn lol), and queers for just a moments and let’s talk about the intersexies, to simply put, people born with both a penis and a vagina but much more complex.
The problem with Intersex people is that they are not really or rather the fine line differentiating a boy from a girl is blurred. Mind you it’s not the same as gender.
So according to BuzzFeed News, this week the United Nations convened its first meeting to address the issue of human rights violations against people with ambiguous genitalia, also known as intersex.
The UN Human Rights Council meeting, held in Geneva, builds off a 2013 report by the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture calling on the world’s nations to outlaw “genital normalizing” surgeries on intersex individuals.
This week’s meeting also discussed human rights violations such as infanticide and widespread discrimination that occur against intersex people around the world. But the issue of how to end the practice of intersex surgeries was front and center.
“Too many people assume, without really thinking about it, that everyone can be fitted into two distinct and mutually exclusive categories: male or female,” said Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, in his opening remarks.
“Such violations are rarely discussed and even more rarely investigated or prosecuted,” Hussein said. “The result is impunity for the perpetrators, lack of remedy for victims, and a perpetuating cycle of ignorance and abuse.”
The meeting brought together nearly three dozen intersex activists, heads of NGOs, and heads of UN offices on health and children’s rights.
“It’s clear that there’s a pretty big investment in this issue now — it’s really historic,” Kimberly Zieselman, the executive director of the intersex advocacy group Advocates for Informed Choice, who was part of the meeting, told BuzzFeed News. “That’s a big milestone for the intersex movement.”
Pidgeon Pagonis. M. Spencer Green / AP
Intersex people are born with sex traits — either external or internal — that don’t fall neatly into the biological categories of “male” and “female.”
An estimated 1 in every 2,000 babies are born with traits that doctors would classify as intersex, though some experts say the real number is even higher.