Intersex is an umbrella term for the experience of being born with a body that does not meet the societal expectation of male or female. We are individuals born with sex characteristics that are either female and male at the same time or not quite female or male or neither female or male. Our sex characteristics and bodies are healthy variations of the human sexes.

Innate variations of sex characteristics can be manyfold: inner and/or outer genitalia,  chromosomes and/or the hormonal structure may not match societal and medical expectations, as may other sex characteristics like muscle mass, hair distribution or stature, to name but a few.

Although we are born with variations of sex characteristics, they might not be visible at birth. Intersex bodies can present themselves as intersex prenatally, at birth, during childhood, in puberty or in adulthood. A person may realize being intersex at a very early age or later on in life. Depending on the life circumstances and the specific body some intersex people even might never know that they are intersex.

If you are intersex you may have, or have had, some of the following experiences: Being surgically and medically treated during childhood, adolescence and/or adulthood; you have been told that the reason for the treatment is related to your bodily diversity; you have been diagnosed with a diagnose related to “disorder/differences of sex development” (DSD) or another older diagnose refering to intersexuality or hermaphroditism; you may or have/had experience that people harass you on the grounds of your bodily diversity.

Intersex people are still very invisible – very often there is a lot of taboo and shame connected with being intersex. If you don’t find testimonials in your language, this does not mean that there are no intersex people in your country. It just means that they have not spoken up yet. If you are intersex yourself and want to contribute to this website or get in touch, we would love to hear from you.
If there is no content in your language yet, you will be led to the English version.

Intersex people all over Europe face severe breaches of their human rights, including pathologisation of their bodies, medical interventions without personal, prior, persistent and fully informed consent, violation of their physical integrity, psychological trauma, invisibilisation, stigma, structural and verbal discrimination, harassment, lack of access to relevant or/and needed medication and lack of legal recognition.

This can lead to follow-up surgeries, life-long hormonal treatment and health imparements as well as to high risk of becoming a school drop-out, leading to inadequate education, broken carreers and poverty (including homelessness) due to pathologisation and related trauma, a disturbed family life due to taboo and medicalisation, lack of self-esteem and a high risk of becoming suicidal.

OII Europe is the umbrella organisation of European human rights based intersex organisations , working on the promotion of self-awareness, visibility and recognition of intersex people in Europe and world wide. OII Europe was founded on Human Rights Day, 10 December, during the Second Intersex Forum at Stockholm in 2012 and is a registered charitable NGO since 2016.

To learn more please visit oiieurope.org