On November 4, 2025, Hiker Chiu, the Executive Director of Intersex Asia, had the opportunity to attend the International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) virtually. ICFP is an extremely critical platform for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) issues, which made it even more meaningful for Intersex Asia to speak up on the issue of Intersex Genital Mutilation, which is an urgent and often-overlooked SRHR issue of the intersex community.
We are thankful for the constant support of the IPPF-ESEAOR team and the conference organizers for ensuring that the voice of the Asian intersex community could be part of this vital global conversation. Without their help, our participation would not be possible.
The “I” in our rights for bodily autonomy
For too long, the “I” for intersex has been silent, invisible, or tokenized within the broader SRHR framework. Hiker Chiu’s presentation, “Bodily Autonomy as a Human Right,” was a call to action to move the intersex community from the margins to the very center of the fight for bodily autonomy.
Intersex people- the estimated 1.7% of the population born with variations in sex characteristics- are not a medical disorder to be “fixed”. They are a natural and healthy part of human diversity. For this community, SRHR (Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights) is not an abstract concept that begins with puberty or sexual activity. It is a fight that begins at birth: the fight for their right to their own bodies, free from non-consensual medical intervention.
The central SRHR issue for the intersex community is Intersex Genital Mutilation (IGM). This is the practice of performing medically unnecessary, irreversible “normalizing” surgeries on intersex infants and children. These procedures are not done to treat a medical emergency; they are done to make a child’s healthy body conform to rigid, binary social expectations of what “male” or “female” should look like. The consequences are devastating and lifelong. They include irreversible sterilization, chronic pain, loss of sexual sensation, extensive scarring, and profound psychological trauma, including depression, PTSD, and a staggeringly high risk of suicide.
Parallel faces of the same issue
In the presentation, Hiker Chiu also drew a critical parallel between IGM and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Both are non-consensual procedures performed on children for non-therapeutic reasons. Both are driven by a desire to enforce rigid social and gender norms. And both sacrifice a child’s future autonomy and well-being to satisfy present-day social anxieties. This comparison exposes a profound and dangerous double standard. How can procedures that are universally condemned as “mutilation” be systematically categorized as “corrective surgery” or “treatment” despite causing harm to both baby intersex and girls? This medical language provides a shield of legitimacy for what is, at its core, a human rights violation.
This is not a theoretical problem but something that has been well-documented in Intersex Asia’s research. The groundbreaking “Intersex Justice in Asia” research reports, which cover countries in both South and Southeast Asia, have documented a landscape of systemic invisibility. Intersex people are largely ignored by legal frameworks, educational curricula, and medical establishments. This lack of recognition is what allows discrimination and medical malpractice to flourish.
This research also highlights a key challenge: the constant conflation of intersex issues with those of the broader LGBT community. While cross-movement solidarity is vital, the primary human rights violation faced by many intersex people is a non-consensual medical violation of bodily integrity in infancy- a violation that occurs before an individual can develop or express a sexual orientation or gender identity. Legal frameworks built to protect “identity” often fail to protect the community from violations based on innate physical “characteristics”.
The Demands for future protection!
Guided by the principle of “Nothing About Us Without Us,” Hiker reiterated the demands of the Asian intersex community in her presentation:
- An end to all harmful practices, specifically the prohibition of all non-consensual, medically unnecessary surgeries on intersex children.
- Comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation that explicitly includes “sex characteristics” as a protected ground.
- Non-pathologizing, affirmative psychosocial and peer support for intersex individuals and their families.
- Access to justice and redress for the lifelong harm that has been inflicted upon the community.
The SRHR landscape needs stronger engagement with the intersex movement to address these issues, and this conference was a vital step in forging that alliance. Intersex Asia hopes to continue this crucial engagement with all stakeholders in the SRHR space. The organization is committed to its role in developing knowledge resources, backed by community-led research, and advancing advocacy to build a future where their rights are not just discussed, but guaranteed.
The fight for sexual and reproductive health and rights cannot be selective. True bodily autonomy must be universal, or it is not at all. We invite all SRHR stakeholders to join Intersex Asia in its efforts to ensure that all bodies, in all their diversity, are protected, respected, and celebrated.
