Swimming against the Stream: Intersex Activism and Democratic Backsliding

• In Event: Gender, Advocacy, and Policy

Abstract

One aspect of democratic backsliding is the spread of anti-LGBTQ policies. Attacks on free speech, libraries, academic programs, gender neutral language, and reforms in family law underscore the fragility of civil and political rights of LGBTQ people. But despite many instances of backsliding, simultaneous reforms to transgress the deeply ingrained gender binary have passed. A number of states have introduced third sex categories and allow for the self-determination of one’s sex.
This paper explains these contemporaneous and seemingly contradictory reforms by focusing on the claims and strategies of intersex activists in Europe and, to a lesser extent, on the United States. Utilizing interviews with activists, politicians, and medical doctors as well as on original databases of social movements documents, I compare how intersex activists in Europe have successfully utilized international political opportunity structures and circumvented opportunity hoarding to put pressure on governments, while American activists have been largely coopted by the medical establishment. As a result, several European states are closing the legal gap that left people with variations of sex characteristics at the mercy of non-consensual medical interventions and are expanding the civil rights of intersex people against involuntary sex assignment.
The paper sheds light on the relevance of transnational cooperation and international political opportunity structures for successful intersex activism. It also recognizes the important differences between LGBTQ and intersex claims for the recent responses by democratic states.

Author

• Angelika von Wahl, Lafayette College