Intersex framings within international human rights law

Over the last decade, intersex human rights issues have received increasing attention at the international level. Largely thanks to the work of intersex human rights defenders, there is greater understanding by international human rights mechanisms as to the harms facing intersex people performed or condoned by states and other actors. As a consequence, there has been an increased amount of work undertaken to acknowledge how international human rights law relates to the rights of intersex people, including via public awareness campaigns and targeted recommendations directed at states to change practices that violate the rights of intersex people. This paper seeks to outline how international human rights law addresses the rights of intersex people. It further considers how intersex issues are framed by the human rights system. 

As part of this research, the author undertook a review of all UN treaty body concluding observations on intersex issues in order to analyse which intersex issues were raised and how they were discussed. How intersex issues are framed in terms of the language used, the aspects of intersex that are considered relevant, and the human rights issues that intersex issues are associated with, can have implications for how states (including Ireland, which is examined as a case study in Section III) understand and respond to intersex issues. The review found that intersex-related recommendations were mostly discussed as ‘harmful practices’, although different treaty bodies take different approaches, and when discussing substantive intersex issues, intersex was rarely included within broader LGBTI frameworks. The findings from the review are discussed further in Section III. At the international level, how United Nations (UN) mechanisms frame intersex issues can impact what degree of responsibility a state may consider it has to guarantee the human rights of intersex people and can further impact what action a state takes on intersex issues. This question of framing can also present opportunities for civil society to demand action from states, in order to ensure the adequate protection of intersex people.