By Meg Foley Yoder
Most people have never heard an intersex person speak about their own rights. Fewer still know that intersex people make up an estimated 1.7 percent of the global population. That gap in public understanding shaped the conversation at the Carr-Ryan Center’s recent webinar, “Intersex Rights Movement Today: Successes and Challenges.” Over sixty minutes, panelists from three continents and moderator Kimberly Zieselman, an intersex advocate from the United States, outlined a global movement gaining traction while navigating distinct regional challenges.
A Shift from Invisibility to Recognition
Zieselman opened by noting that an introduction to intersex issues had been covered in a Carr-Ryan webinar held last year and that this session would focus instead on the current landscape. She invited the panelists to reflect on conditions in their regions. Crystal Hendricks of ILGA World and the Intersex Society of South Africa, Magda Rakita of Fundacja Interakcja and OII Europe in Poland, and Jeff Cagandahan of Intersex Philippines and Intersex Asia in the Philippines each described advances in visibility and recognition alongside the medical, cultural, and political harms that continue to shape intersex people’s lives.
A central theme was the landmark report on intersex rights released this fall by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Hendricks called the moment “a win for us” and emphasized its weight. “We have gone from invisibility to recognition,” she said. The report identifies intersex rights violations as human rights violations and calls on states to prohibit medically unnecessary interventions on intersex children, strengthen access to justice, and include intersex people in laws and data collection.
“My life was completely changed by meeting other people with similar variations. This is what we need: adults, youth, and parents meeting others so that anxiety can be reduced.”
–Magda Rakita
Hendricks noted that the report reflects more than a decade of testimony, organizing, and pressure from intersex human rights defenders globally. It also provides leverage for national advocacy, whether through ministries of health, universal periodic review processes, or regional bodies. At the same time, she stressed that progress means little without resources. Many intersex organizations in Africa operate on budgets around five thousand dollars a year. “Most of the people are volunteering,” she said.
Regional Contexts: Momentum and Headwinds
Cagandahan underscored that recognition at the UN does not erase national barriers. In the Philippines, he said, the long campaign for legal gender recognition has produced promising momentum through the proposed Cagandahan Bill, which would create an administrative path for intersex people to change their names and sex markers. “It will empower them, assert their identity, and live authentically,” he said.
Yet he also described entrenched resistance fueled by religious influence and an increasingly coordinated anti-gender movement. “They are more organized than us. They are fully funded,” he explained. Broader LGBTQIA legislation has stalled for decades, leaving intersex people vulnerable to discrimination in healthcare, education, and employment.
“The anti-gender rights movements are more organized than us, and they are fully funded. That resistance, supported by conservative groups, makes it difficult to advance policies.”
–Jeff Cagandahan
In Europe, Rakita noted that the Council of Europe recently adopted a unanimous recommendation for equal rights of intersex people. The document outlines protections against discrimination and medically unnecessary interventions. But she warned that visibility remains a challenge in Central and Eastern Europe, where anti-rights actors often use intersex issues to attack other minorities. That climate of fear, she said, keeps many intersex people from coming forward because the risks feel too high.
Rakita also highlighted gaps within healthcare systems. Multidisciplinary teams often fail to communicate, she said, and medical decisions are still driven by surgical priorities rather than psychosocial support. She urged clinicians to engage with research on the lived experiences of intersex people and to connect families with peer-support networks, which she described as life changing.
Movement-Building Under Pressure
Hendricks described both severe harms and striking organizing across Africa. She spoke of ongoing cases of infanticide, abandonment, and coercive surgeries, as well as linguistic and cultural barriers that prevent parents from understanding medical recommendations. Despite this, she said, the African intersex movement now includes more than forty organizations, including in regions where none existed a few years ago.
“Most intersex infants (in Africa) are actually killed at birth. We had an ethical paper where 88 of 90 traditional midwives admitted to killing intersex children if they are born with ambiguous genitalia. It is devastating that this is still happening in 2025.”
–Crystal Hendricks
One milestone was the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights’ first resolution on intersex rights in 2023. Hendricks noted that while some of its language needs improvement, the resolution calls for an end to harmful medical practices and for greater visibility and participation of intersex people. She also highlighted the step forward that Kenya’s first census count of intersex people represents. “Even if they counted one, it proved that intersex people exist,” she said.
When asked how to advance rights amid funding cuts and anti-rights pressure, the panelists emphasized alliance-building beyond the LGBTQIA sphere. Cagandahan called for stronger partnerships with child rights, disability rights, women’s rights, and sexual and reproductive health movements. Hendricks urged activists to work with national offices of UN agencies when global institutions feel distant. Rakita emphasized the need for medical professionals to understand the social realities of intersex lives.
Zieselman closed with a reminder of the movement’s resilience, but also its limits. Progress is undeniable, she said, yet unsustainable without broader solidarity and resources. She noted that visibility has improved but remains far from universal. The challenge now is turning that incremental recognition into concrete protection.
