The Road to Hell. Intersex People, Sexual Health and Human Rights

Over the past twenty five years, intersex advocates and
its allies have struggled to put an end to pathologizing
taxonomies and mutilating interventions, whose goal is
to ‘normalize’ those bodies being born with variations
of sex characteristics. In spite of groundbreaking
human rights advances at the national, regional and
international levels, very little have changed in the
medical management of intersex. Worst, the eleventh
version of the International Classification of Diseases
released by the World Health Organization this year
reinforces this approach. One of the key obstacles to
address intersex issues in medical settings from the
human rights framework is the normative identification
of ‘normalizing’ procedures with health providers’ best
possible intention -and, therefore, those procedures
and their consequences cannot be identified as human
rights violations. In this lecture it will be sustained that
for intersex people’s sexual health to be achieved it is
imperative to examine and dismantle the ‘best intentions’
narrative and to replace it with a strong evidence-
based approach fully compatible with human
rights standards.
Keywords: intersex, best intentions, human rights
Source of Funding: Lecturer have received support
from OSF, GEF and Arcus Foundation
Conflict of Interest and Disclosure Statement: None