Today, People Magazine quotes our founding director Hida Viloria about the recent historic development in NYC! Last week we shared the great news that NYC had issued a groundbreaking intersex birth certificate—to the fantastic Sara Kelly Keenan, who is also the first non-binary Californian— and we are grateful for all the media coverage which has ensued. From today’s article in People, “Advocates Say Issuing Nation’s First Intersex Birth Certificate Is ‘Critical to Ending intersex Oppression”:

Hida Viloria, chairperson of the Organisation Intersex International, notes that Keegan’s historic intersex birth certificate comes on the heels of another victory for the intersex community: in November, a judge ruled in favor of allowing OII’s associate director Dana Zzyym to be issued a passport despite not identifying as male or female.

“Intersex people have suffered for centuries because of the notion that only males and females exist, which is why our associate director Dana Zzyym successfully fought for federal gender recognition as intersex on their passport last year,” Hida Viloria, chairperson of the Organisation Intersex International tells PEOPLE.

“Having intersex acknowledged as a legal sex/gender category is critical to ending intersex oppression, such as the barbaric nonconsensual medical practices which attempt to render us all males or females,” Viloria continues. “We commend Keegan and Zzyym, and note that until equal services and protections are available to all intersex citizens, this designation should remain a voluntary one only, for adults who seek it.”

As always, we wanted to make sure that people are aware that gender designation issues apply to adults only, because as our E.D. states, intersex infants should not be legally designated as such until we are living in a world in which equal services, rights and protections are afforded to intersex citizens. We know that sometimes people get confused about this and assume otherwise when discussing birth certificate issues, so we extend big thanks to People Magazine for taking intersex advocacy issues to heart in their great coverage of this timely and important historic event!

Read the full article here.

#IntersexID #IntersexEquality #IntersexRights #WeArePeople