The report, “I Want to Be Like Nature Made Me: Medically Unnecessary Surgeries on Intersex Children in the US,” was released earier this week, on July 25th. In yesterday’s article, “Rights group calls on US to end surgeries on intersex children,” The Jurist covers the 160-page report, produced by Human Rights Watch and InterACT, and current efforts for intersex human rights including our Associate Director Dana Zzyym’s landmark lawsuit for a non-binary passport.

As reported, intersex adults, parents of intersex children, and medical practitioners working with intersex people were interviewed for the report, which documents the impact of medically unnecessary surgeries, aka Intersex Genital Mutilation (IGM), concluding:

“…the experience of those who have undergone the surgery and principles of medical ethics suggest that unless and until there is outcome data establishing that the medical benefits of specific surgical procedures on infants and young children outweigh the potential harms, they should not be used.”

We thank HRW and Interact for creating this important document, and HRW for the beautiful accompanying video below!

http://www.jurist.org/paperchase/2017/07/rights-group-calls-on-us-to-end-surgeries-on-intersex-children.php