Celebrating Intersex Solidarity Day: Graduation of the First batch of Intersex Asia’s Fellowship Program

On the special occasion of Intersex Remembrance Day 2021, the first batch of intersex activists graduated from Intersex Asia’s Fellowship program after a year-long training program. The IA fellowship program was launched on 8^th November 2020 – Intersex Solidarity Day with the objective of promoting new leadership in the Asian intersex movement. Through this program, we aim to focus on the capacity building of new activists who are working towards advancing intersex rights in the Asian region. 

The intersex movement in Asia is still at a nascent stage and therefore, the foremost priority for Intersex Asia since the beginning has been community-building and building the capacity of new intersex leaders In the first batch, we selected eight intersex activists from six Asian countries – Mongolia, Singapore, Philippines, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. It has also been a growing realisation within Intersex Asia that the movement should reach more and more Asian countries where there are no public intersex activists. Towards this end, we are delighted that we were able to involve intersex activists from countries like Mongolia Singapore and Pakistan where the intersex movement hadn’t reached so far. Further, it was also a moment of pride for Intersex Asia that one of our fellows from Bangladesh played a crucial role in establishing Bangladesh’s first intersex-led group- the Bangladesh Intersex Forum (BIF). In India and the Philippines, our fellows are playing a major role in organising the intersex community. 

With regard to the selection process, Intersex Asia followed a competitive process to select the fellows after two rounds of selection. Conscious of the financial challenges that new Asian intersex activists in the region face, Intersex Asia made a provision for a small stipend to all the fellows as well. This is a part-time program in which fellows will get knowledge and skill training from experts and peers. In our curriculum, we have included training sessions on one knowledge-related subject and one skill-training subject every month. Following the training sessions which are scheduled on weekends, fellows were also encouraged to work together on their project ideas.

Throughout the program, Intersex Asia ensured that there was a constant feedback process as a consequence of which we were able to improve the structure of the program. In the next edition of the fellowship, we aim to implement the learnings of the first edition from the start.  

As per the feedback of the program, there were two critical components of the fellowship which had the maximum impact. Firstly, the fellows gained a lot of insight into the world of intersex activism and inspiration from their interactions with senior intersex activists from different regions of the world. These interactions gave them a framework to think about activism as per their own context and learn from the experience of senior activists as they handle the challenges that are likely to come their way. Secondly, the fellows also greatly benefited from a structured skill training curriculum that included important subjects so that they could build the capacity to envision and implement projects relevant to the community. We would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to Khine Su Win (Program Officer, ILGA Asia) and Guo Miao (Formerly with Asia Catalyst as Senior Program Officer). They were solely responsible for handling our skill training sessions since February 2020. Hans Lindahl, the former senior communication officer of InterAct was also invited as the intersex expert to conduct a comprehensive workshop on using social media tools for advocacy.  

Over the past 12 months, we organised training sessions with well-respected intersex activists, public health experts, human rights advocates from around the world. The trainers included: Hiker Chiu-our Chair and Executive Director, Jeff Cagandahan- our Co-chair and Co-founder of Intersex Philippines, Esan Regmi- IA’s board member and Executive Director of CFC Nepal, Gopi Shankar from Srishti Madurai India, Julius Kaggwa from SPID Uganda, Irene Kuzemko from OII Europe, Laura Inter and Hana Aoi from Brújula Intersexual Mexico, Ging Cristobal from OutRight International, Dr. Pragati Singh from Indian Aces.  We are indebted to all the trainers and partner organisations who gave their valuable time to train our fellows. Organising such a capacity-building initiative during the pandemic was extremely challenging for everyone involved. However, we are pleased to share that our collective effort helped us see through this phase. In the initial plan, we had envisaged in-person meetings with the fellows as well. Due to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, we were unable to organise any such meetings. We hope that we will be able to create a platform for our fellows to meet in the near future. 

We are immensely grateful to our donors and partners for their support. In particular, we would like to thank Open Society Foundations for supporting this initiative of Intersex Asia. Also, we would like to especially thank ILGA Asia for their guidance and support throughout the program.

On this special day, we would like to conclude the first edition of the fellowship by congratulating all the fellows who showed their interest and actively participated in the training. We wish them all the best for their future in activism and pledge our support in their journey to work for intersex rights. Today, Intersex Asia is pleased to launch the brochure which contains details about the program as well as profiles of the current fellows to celebrate the intersex solidarity initiated in Asia. It is available here for download.