Mission Statement
The Intersex Campaign for Equality is a human rights NGO founded by intersex individuals to obtain equality for intersex people. We are also known as OII-USA, the American affiliate of OII, the Organization Intersex International.
Our mission is to attain human rights for intersex people regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, race, religion, ability or class, particularly the rights to bodily autonomy, self-determination, and legal recognition.
We recognize that intersex infants and children are extremely vulnerable to violence and Intersex Genital Mutilation, or IGM (the nonconsensual medically unnecessary practices sometimes referred to as “normalizing surgeries”), and work in coalition with children’s rights advocates such as Attorney’s for the Rights of the Child (ARC) and Genital Autonomy America (GA America) to create a world that recognizes, respects and advocates for the birthright of all infants – male, female and intersex – to keep their bodies’ sex characteristics intact.
ICE/OII-USA 2016 Year End Report
We strive to create a world where all intersex people are viewed and treated equally by:
- supporting intersex individuals, including those further marginalized by sexism, homophobia, trans-phobia, gender-variant-phobia and racism, by providing support, information, and resources grounded in feminist, multi-gendered, multi-racial, queer-postive perspectives and values
- advocating for legal protection from discrimination based on intersex status
- advocating for intersex adults’ right to accurate legal gender recognition
- providing information concerning the goals of the intersex advocacy community, the needs of intersex individuals, and the actual life experiences of intersex people from diverse communities, to all those working with intersex people;
- assisting families and friends of intersex individuals in their role as allies, and in understanding intersex people and variations.
- supporting human rights initiatives such as the 2012 Helsinki Declaration on Genital Autonomy, the 2013 Public Statement by the Third International Intersex Forum (aka Malta Declaration), and the Intersex Awareness Day 2016 Joint Resolution.
Our Mission’s History
Our founding director, Hida Viloria, was Human Rights Spokesperson for the Organization Intersex International, aka OII International or OII World, before founding OII-USA, and is currently Chairperson of OII International. S/he included OII’s original mission, below, upon founding OII-USA, now the Intersex Campaign for Equality:
OII World’s Mission 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.