What Lawyers Should Know About Intersex Variations, Bodily Autonomy, and Impacting Policies

Legal professionals across the country have witnessed the wave of harmful bills targeting transgender youth in recent sessions, but many don’t know that a second community is frequently impacted by these discriminatory efforts as well: intersex children, who have innate variations in their physical sex characteristics that challenge the stereotypes associated with male and female bodies. For the estimated 1.7% of the population with intersex traits, issues like access to sports teams and school restrooms, and mistreatment in healthcare or the workplace, are just as relevant as they are to other communities under the LGBTQI umbrella that often suffer discrimination more visibly—but intersex people are frequently left out of these discussions, largely due to a lack of public awareness. The most pressing intersex rights issue is the ongoing practice of harmful, medically unnecessary surgeries on intersex infants and children to forcibly conform their sex characteristics to what is considered “typical&q