Important Facts For Prelims
First National Conference on Intersex Human Rights
- 03 Jan 2020
- 2 min read
Why in News
Recently, the first national conference on intersex human rights was organised by Srishti Madurai in partnership with Intersex Asia in New Delhi.
- The conference sought a national ban on unnecessary medical surgeries conducted on children with intersex traits and appealed to the Union government to protect their human rights.
- This demand follows Tamil Nadu’s ban on normative surgeries on infants and children, except in life-threatening situations in August 2019.
- If the ban will be adopted nationally, India will become the third country to protect the rights of intersex children after Malta and Taiwan.
Key Points
- The term intersex is often confused with transgender but the two in-fact have very different meanings.
- Transgender: Individuals who identify as transgender or transexual have a gender that is different from the one traditionally associated with the sex they were assigned at birth.
- Intersex: It refers to people born with biological or physical characteristics that are more diverse than stereotypical male or female bodies.
- The World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) have called upon the Member States to end invasive and irreversible medical surgeries and other medical treatment on intersex children.
Srishti Madurai
- It is India’s first Genderqueer and Intersex led human rights movement and was established in September 2011 in Madurai, Tamil Nadu.
- It aims to create a space for Genderqueer, Intersex and LGBTQA+ Indians in the public discourse.
Intersex Asia
- It is an autonomous regional network of intersex-led organizations and individuals from Asian countries that work to support, educate and advocate for the rights and lives of intersex individuals and raise awareness on human rights violations and discrimination faced by intersex communities.
- It was established in February 2018 in Bangkok, Thailand.
