Intersex and Anti-Gender Discourse

Description

Furore surrounding participation of boxers Imane Khalif and Lin Yu-Ting in the 2024 Olympics highlighted intersections between anti-gender discourse and intersex people. A key component of the anti-gender movement’s campaign has been the generation of a moral panic surrounding irreversible genital surgeries and hormonal interventions performed on transgender children. It is rare for transgender children to receive gender affirming surgery of any sort; however, intersex children are regularly subjected to irreversible genital surgeries and other harmful procedures without informed consent. Secretive medical practices mean that childhood medical histories are often kept hidden from intersex people and there is little literature on adult and later life outcomes. Because of secretive medical practices, stigma, and misinformation, little is known about how intersex people, including intersex people who are transgender, are impacted by societal sex and gender expectations. Drawing on original field data from semi-structured interviews with intersex people older than 50 years of age from across Europe, this paper examines how intersex people with gender identities different from their sex assigned at birth are impacted in key areas of their lives from healthcare settings to education, employment, community, and relationships. This research shows that binary societal expectations and how they are policed can have devastating effects on the lives and wellbeing of those who cannot meet those expectations. These findings shed light on some of the direct and indirect consequences of binary societal expectations and policing of them on intersex lives.

Period	23 Apr 2025
Event title	British Sociological Association Annual Conference 2025: Social Transformations
Event type	Conference
Organiser	British Sociological Association
Location	Manchester, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	National