The Intersex Campaign For Equality (ICE) is the United States affiliate of the Organisation Intersex International (OII), the world’s largest intersex human rights organization (founded in 2003). OII’s American branch was originally founded as OII-USA by Hida Viloria in February, 2011, to advocate for equality and human rights for intersex Americans, particularly the right to bodily integrity and self-determination. OII-USA provided news, information and peer support for intersex people and their allies in the United States via email, lecturing, publishing, lobbying and consultation, and created two groundbreaking resources for the intersex community and our allies: Brief Guidelines for Intersex Allies, and Your Beautiful Child: Information for Parents. Both documents are available here under “Resources”.

On February 19, 2015, intersex activists Dr. Dani Lee Harris, Hida Viloria, and Dana Zzyym re-branded OII-USA by co-founding the Intersex Campaign for Equality. The Intersex Campaign for Equality advocates for human rights for all members of the intersex community, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, race, ability or class, recognizing that some intersex individuals, particularly gender nonconforming intersex people and intersex people of color, remain marginalized even within the intersex community.

 

About OII

The Organisation Intersex International – OII – is the world’s largest intersex advocacy organization, with branches on six continents, representing over ten languages.  Founded in Quebec (hence the “Organisation” spelling) in 2004 by and for intersex people by Intersex American Curtis Hinkle, OII’s mission is to attain human rights for intersex infants, children, and adults, particularly the right to bodily integrity and self-determination.

OII rejects the medicalized labels of disorder, such as Disorders of Sex Development (or DSD) — which was imposed on intersex people in 2006 by the medical community to describe intersex people — because it is stigmatizing and facilitates nonconsensual medical and psychiatric practices. We also reject  the recent inclusion of intersex variations, under the language of DSD, in the American Psychiatric Association’s statistical manual, the DSM-V.

We are in alliance with LGBTQIA people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities as we recognize that intersex people are discriminated against due to our non-adherence to sex and gender norms.  The ethos of the Organisation Intersex International is that intersex people will hold different views as appropriate to the individual, and that all these views should be respected.