Intersex Visibility Day: Learn more about the little addressed topic in the country

Priscilla Peixoto – Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – According to the United Nations Organization (UNO), until June 2020, intersexuality integrated, on average, 1.7% of newborns in the world. This October 26th, this part of the population celebrates the ‘Intersex Visibility Day’ – a person who is born, physically, between (inter) male and female, having partially or fully developed both sex organs, or one predominating over the other.

The date, formulated by the UN Free & Equal, the Brazilian Association of Intersex and the Brazilian Professional Association for the Integral Health of Transvestites, aims to promote knowledge and awareness about the issue. To celebrate the date, CENARIUM MAGAZINE highlights some relevant points in relation to the subject, based on information from the Brazilian Association of Intersex (Abrai).

The association works on actions focused on raising awareness about sexual variations and intersex issues, defending public policies for the inclusion of this population group in Brazil and promoting solidarity campaigns to support vulnerable intersex people in the country.

Definition

“Intersexual is a person who was born physically between (inter) the male and female sexes, having partially or fully developed both sex organs, or one predominating over the other. (…) Intersexual subjects, who are not few, are the most invisible of all sexual categories. Probably because it is the one that most defies sexual binarism.”

(From the book Intersex, p. 39 and 47, ed. RT, 2018)

• Intersexuality is not a disease, but a biological condition;
  
• Characteristics do not fit the typical definitions of male or female;
  
• These characteristics can be both external and internal (phenotypic- set of observable characteristics of an organism- biological; anatomical or chromosomal);
  
• Currently, more than 54 variations of intersexuality have been identified;
  
• In Brazil, the estimate is that more than 167,000 people are intersexual, according to the UN;
  
• “The most common cases of intersexuality are: Hypospadia, Cryptorchidism, Clitomegaly, Micropenis, Klinefelter Syndrome, Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia and Turner Syndrome”.

• Although not a matter of gender identity or sexual orientation, intersex people are part of the plurality and diversity represented by the letter *I* in the acronym LGBTQ*I*AP+;
  
• An intersex person can be asexual, heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, like any typical person (male and female);
  
• Assigning a person a gender at birth does not guarantee that they will recognize themselves with that gender throughout their life, and people born with intersex traits who have been socialized with any gender can also be transgendered, transvestite, or other gender-variant people;
  
• Many intersex people who have undergone surgical interventions in childhood feel that they have been forced to adopt a gender that is not theirs, causing severe trauma as adults;
  
• Intersexuality is a “joker card” term that covers several conditions. Only a small fraction fall under what used to be called “hermaphroditism”, or “pseudo-hermaphroditism”. Still, the term should be avoided, as it is stigmatizing and incorrect. In summary, it is possible for a person to have vagina and penis, but not to have the two complete systems, having testicle, ovary or ‘ovotestis’, being only one organ capable of producing gametes – reproductive cells responsible for the formation of new life and continuity of the animal species.

To learn more about the subject and help promote the human rights of intersex people in Brazil, visit Abrai’s website.