Intersex Day of Remembrance
Since 2005, Intersex Day of Remembrance and Intersex Day of Solidarity serve to draw attention to the discrimination faced by inter* people, fight for the improvement of their rights and show solidarity with them.
In addition to the day itself, the period between the Intersex Awareness Day on October 26 and the Intersex Day of Remembrance is also used for campaigns.
The Intersex Day of Remembrance takes place on the birthday of the inter* person Herculine Barbin. Barbin lived in France in the 19th century and left behind a series of autobiographical texts that were later published by the philosopher Michel Foucault, together wir other contemporary papers and essays, in the book De L'identité . Barbin's memoirs illustrate how the constraints of a binary gender order operate and how opportunities are granted or denied on the basis of a presumed gender (queerhistory 2019).
Discrimination against inter* people occurs in particular when they are forced into a binary gender order. This happens through external (violent) interventions on the self-determination of inter* people. This includes medically unnecessary, sex-normalizing surgeries performed in infancy and childhood, which is carried out without the consent of those affected (Enzenhofer & Mac Gowan 2012). Strict gender segregation in sports also repeatedly leads to discrimination against inter* people, as they can be excluded from competitions due to their specific hormone production, for example (Köster 2018).
In recent years, progress has been made in Germany towards the legal and physical self-determination of inter* people, for example through amendments to the Civil Status Act in 2013 and 2018. These amendments made it possible to leave the gender entry in the birth register blank or to enter "diverse" (LSVD 2019).
In Germany, organizations such as the German Society for Transidentity and Intersexuality (dgti.org 2021), the German branch of the International Association of Intersex People (IVIM) and the organization Intersex International (OII Germany 2021) are committed to the interests of inter* people and fight for their self-determination and rights not only on this day.
Sources (in German)
- dgti.org (2021): Deutsche Gesellschaft für Transidentität und Intersexualität e.V. Last accessed: 02.11.2021.
- Enzenhofer, B. & Mac Gowan, J. (2012): 1-0-1 Intersex. Last accessed: 02.11.2021.
- Intersexday.org (2017): Intersex Day of Solidarity. Last accessed: 02.11.2021.
- Köster, E. M. (2018): Intergeschlechtlichkeit im Sport-Wettkampf: Der aktuelle Stand der Debatte. Last accessed: 02.11.2021.
- LSVD (2019): Der dritte Geschlechtseintrag im Personenstandsrecht – Dokumentation des Gesetzverfahren. Last accessed: 02.11.2021.
- oiigermany.org (2021): IVIM / OII DEUTSCHLAND. Last accessed: 02.11.2021.
- Queerhistory (2019): Die Memoiren der_des Herculine Barbin. Last accessed: 02.11.2021.