"This year's Intersex Awareness Day must be an opportunity for political action to stop invasive and irreversible 'sex-normalisation' practices that constitute an outright violation of intersex people's basic human rights", stated today Catiuscia Marini, reminding that the 26th of October is an international day that aims at raising awareness about the multiple discriminations facing people whose sex identities do not fit the typical definition of male-female.
Intersex people represent up to 1.7% of the population and they are born with biological sex characteristics (genitals, gonads, hormone levels and chromosome patterns) that do not allow for their classification as male or female. Compulsory registration of sex at birth is a very significant legal challenge for intersex infants and their parents.
"Progressive local and regional authorities can help change social prejudices by providing parents of children with intersex traits with appropriate information and counselling so that they are aware of all alternatives to unnecessary 'corrective' surgery or medical treatments", said Marini. "Legal recognition of intersex people and prohibition of medical interventions without an intersex person's informed consent are a prerequisite for ensuring their physical and mental integrity and for protecting them from harmful practices and ill-treatment", she concluded.
The UK, Latvia, the Netherlands and Germany allow a sex-neutral identification to be registered in birth certificates whilst in Malta, the entry of a sex marker on the birth certification can be postponed until the gender identity of the child is determined. It is worth noting that Malta adopted in 2015 the Gender Identity, Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics Act, which is the first law to prohibit surgery and treatment on the sex characteristics of minors without informed consent.
