Organisation Intersex International
The Organisation Intersex International (OII) is a global advocacy group for people with intersex traits. It is the largest intersex support group in the world.[1]
Founded in 2003 by Curtis Hinkle,[2] OII is a decentralised network established to give voice to intersex people primarily outside the USA, those speaking languages other than just English, and people who do not fit the medicalised categories of disorder promoted by some other intersex groups: it is for people born with bodies which have atypical sexual characteristics. OII rejects the terminology of disorder (as in Disorders of sex development), as well as the sexualization of intersex (as in intersexuality) within an LGBT framework; rather OII seeks to acknowledge intersex people's own distinct sexuality, or non-sexuality, or as people who may identify as gay, lesbian, trans or straight, and in alliance with people of diverse sexual orientations.
Their objective is to bring about systemic change and resist the fear, shame, secrecy and stigma imposed upon adults as well as children through both the practice of non-consensual genital surgeries and the arbitrary assignment of a particular gender without informed consultation with the individual concerned.[3] The ethos of the group is that people will hold different views as appropriate to the individual; this often entails treating as optional socially and medically constructed categories such as binary genders, sexual identifications as well as specific and non-specific pathologisms; the identity human being being seen as the fundamental identity.
References
- ^ Diamond, Milton and Hazel G Beh (2008). Changes in the management of children with intersex conditions. Nature Clinical Practice Endocrinology & Metabolism Jan;4(1):4-5. PMID 17984980
- ^ Cohen, Stephan L. (2007). The gay liberation youth movement in New York: "an army of lovers cannot fail" Routledge, ISBN 9780415957991, page 121
- ^ Chiland C (2008). La problématique de l’identité sexuée. Neuropsychiatrie de l'Enfance et de l'Adolescence Volume 56, Issue 6, September 2008, Pages 328-334