Intersex people are born with sex characteristics, such as chromosomes, gonads, or genitals that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies". "Because their bodies are seen as different, intersex children and adults are often stigmatized and subjected to multiple human rights violations".
Discriminatory treatment includes infanticide, abandonment, mutilation and neglect, as well as broader concerns regarding the right to life. Intersex people face discrimination in education, employment, healthcare, sport, with an impact on mental and physical health, and on poverty levels, including as a result of harmful medical practices.
United Nations, African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, Council of Europe, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and other human rights institutions have called for countries to ban discrimination and combat stigma. Few countries so far protect intersex people from discrimination.
Protection from discrimination
A 2013 first international pilot study, Human Rights between the Sexes, by Dan Christian Ghattas, found that intersex people are discriminated against worldwide: "Intersex individuals are considered individuals with a 'disorder' in all areas in which Western medicine prevails. They are more or less obviously treated as sick or 'abnormal', depending on the respective society."
The United Nations states that intersex people suffer stigma on the basis of physical characteristics, "including violations of their rights to health and physical integrity, to be free from torture and ill-treatment, and to equality and non- discrimination." The UN has called for governments to end discrimination against intersex people:
A handful of jurisdictions so far provide explicit protection from discrimination for intersex people:
South Africa was the first country to explicitly add intersex to legislation, as part of the attribute of 'sex'. Australia was the first country to add an independent attribute, of 'intersex status'. Malta was the first to adopt a broader framework of "sex characteristics", through legislation that also ended modifications to the sex characteristics of minors undertaken for social and cultural reasons. Since then, several countries in Southeastern Europe have prohibited discrimination based on sex characteristics of intersex status: Albania (since 2020), Bosnia and Herzegovina (since 2016), Greece (since 2015), and Serbia (since 2021) currently prohibit discrimination based on "sex characteristics", while Montenegro prohibits discrimination based on "intersex characteristics" since 2017. Iceland bans employment discrimination based on sex characteristics since 2018. The Netherlands (since 2019), Belgium (since 2020) and Denmark (since 2022) also prohibit discrimination based on sex characteristics. Pakistan prohibits discrimination against intersex people (khusra) since 2018. India also prohibits discrimination against "person with intersex variations" since 2020. Since 2022, Chile is the first Latin American country that provide legal protection from discrimination based on sex characteristics.
Right to life
Intersex people face genetic de-selection via pregnancy terminations and preimplantation genetic diagnosis, as well as abandonment, neglect, infanticide and murder due to their sex characteristics. In 2015, the Council of Europe published an Issue Paper on Human rights and intersex people, remarking:
In 2015, Chinese news reported a case of abandonment of an infant, thought likely due to its sex characteristics. Hong Kong activist Small Luk reports that this is not uncommon, in part due to the historic imposition of a policy of one child per family. Cases of infanticide, attempted infanticide, and neglect have been reported in China, Uganda and Pakistan.
Kenyan reports suggest that the birth of an intersex infant may be viewed as a curse. In 2015, it was reported that an intersex Kenyan adolescent, Muhadh Ishmael, was mutilated and later died. Ishmael had previously been described as a curse on his family.
Medical
In places with accessible healthcare systems, intersex people face harmful practices including involuntary or coercive treatment, and in places without such systems, infanticide, abandonment and mutilation may occur.
Physical integrity and bodily autonomy
Intersex people face involuntary or coerced medical treatment from infancy. Where these occur without personal informed consent, these are "violations of their rights to health and physical integrity, to be free from torture and ill-treatment, and to equality and non-discrimination."