Intersex Day of Awareness Facts

October 26th is Intersex Awareness Day. Intersex people like myself often get left out of discussions about bodily autonomy and sexism, but we should not. There is a great deal of misunderstanding about the experiences of Intersex people, and no one person can speak for the Intersex community. But here are a few facts or things to keep in mind:

🟡 Intersex is an umbrella term for people who have hormonal, chromosomal, and secondary body characteristics that do not conform to the binary understanding of sex, i.e., male and female.

🟡 There is no one way to look Intersex nor are there “canon events” that are universal to every Intersex person.

🟡 Intersex people make up around 2% of the global population, according to recent estimates. For comparison, people with natural red hair and naturally green eyes and people who live to be 85 and older are similarly 2% of the global population.

🟡 Unfortunately, there is a great deal of stigma and discrimination against Intersex people, with many being the victims of medically unnecessary surgery or other treatments. This is global, despite the false idea that intersexism is more pronounced in the Global South.

🟡 The male/female sex binary (which has roots in European eugenics) erases Intersex people.

🟡 The circle of the Intersex flag represents wholeness, completeness, and a rejection of the idea of Intersex people being broken. It states, in a sense, that we are well-rounded just as we are.

🟡 Purple and yellow represent the complexity of Intersex expression. Yellow is unrelated to red or blue binary gendered colors, and purple combines red and blue.

🟡 The term for non-Intersex people is Endosex. It means “within sex characteristic norms.”

For more information, including a guide for people who think they may be Intersex, check out T.I.G.E.R.S. (Transgender, Intersex, and Gender-Expansive Revolutionary Resources and Services).
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