Art as a tool to combat intersex situated hermeneutic injustice

Description

Many intersex people are unfairly disadvantaged from childhood in their ability to render their own experiences intelligible to themselves and to others and left to navigate life without positive cultural representation. Much of this epistemic injustice stems from medical policy and procedure purported to benefit intersex people. Shame, stigma, secrecy, and intersex invisibility deprive many intersex people of opportunities to share their experiences with others unless they can overcome barriers to accessing intersex community or peer support. Intersex people say it can be difficult finding mental health professionals who are affordable or qualified to help them with their difficulties. This paper draws on semi-structured interviews with older European intersex people conducted by Dr Berry where participants, some explicitly, spoke about employing creative mediums such as sculpture, writing, or music, to understand and express intersex experience. This paper also employs autoethnography, employing the authors’ lived experience of using creative arts as a tool to counter intersex epistemic injustice. Art and creative expression allow intersex people and others to express themselves in an affordable way in the absence of language and accepting audiences. The paper concludes with a discussion of creativity workshops conducted by the authors who teach participants to overcome barriers to expressing themselves.

Period	9 Jun 2025
Event title	Intersex Insights
Event type	Conference
Location	Dublin, IrelandShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International