Global Intersex News Quarter 1 – 2025

January 10, 2025
‘Juice’: River Roux’s poetic embrace of the intersex body. Performance artist River Roux confronts binary impositions on intersex bodies through this expertly delivered piece of theatre. This intimate, affecting one-woman production from the performance artist River Roux about the experience of existing in and as an intersex body is a work of sociology, of history and of autobiography, but most of all of poetry. Read more.

February 18, 2025
LGBTI Hate Crimes In Europe Hit Record Level in 2024. Governments across Europe and Central Asia increasingly targeted lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people last year as a means of promoting laws that undermine broader civil liberties and democratic values, according to an annual report by a Brussels-based advocacy organization.
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April 18, 2025
Lethaby Gallery opens exhibition celebrating trans, non-binary and intersex lives. Lethaby Gallery at Central Saint Martins presents TRANSCESTRY: 10 years of the Museum of Transology, a groundbreaking exhibition marking a decade of community collecting by the Museum of Transology – home to the world’s biggest collection of objects and stories celebrating trans, non-binary, and intersex lives.
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March 18, 2025
The documentary “The Secret of Me” caused a stomach-churning reaction. Grace Hughes-Hallett’s The Secret of Me, which was screened at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, left audiences with a knot in their stomachs. The reason? It is almost unimaginable that something like this is still happening today.
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March 25, 2025
Gender Equality Minister Yuriko Backes has pledged to counter global regression on LGBTQIA+ rights as Luxembourg advances its revised National Action Plan. Gender Equality Minister Yuriko Backes unequivocally endorsed this approach, citing concerning international trends affecting both women and LGBTQIA+ communities. She referenced recent domestic tensions, including heated parliamentary debates and hostile social media reactions to equality petitions.
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January 6, 2025
Egypt’s Fourth Cycle UPR: The Right to Health for Transgender and Intersex Individuals. In the framework of Egypt’s 4th UPR cycle, TIMEP and Cairo 52 Legal Research Institute have submitted an alternate report to the UPR Working Group regarding the discriminatory laws, policies, and practices that prevent transgender and intersex individuals in Egypt from the full enjoyment of their fundamental right to health.
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January 12, 2025
Tinubu Assents To Law Criminalising LGBTQI. Bola Tinubu has assented to Section 26 of the revised Harmonised Armed Forces Terms and Conditions of Service, which bans members of the Armed Forces of Nigeria (AFN) from participating in activities of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender or Trans, Queer or Questioning, Intersex, Asexual or Agender, Two-Spirit (LGBTQIA2S+) group, as well as cross-dressing.
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January 22, 2025
LGBTIQ+ Community Mourns Intersex Activist Dimakatso “Garfield” Sebidi. South Africa’s LGBTIQ+ community is mourning the loss of Dimakatso “Garfield” Sebidi (they/them), an intersex rights pioneer and fearless advocate who passed away on 18 January 2025 following a short illness. Born in Soweto on 1 April 1983, Sebidi’s life and work profoundly impacted intersex visibility and justice, not just in South Africa but globally.
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February 5, 2025
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women was briefed by civil society organizations on the situation of women’s rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nepal, Belarus and Luxembourg. This includes indigenous women and girls, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex women, and women sex workers
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February 11, 2025
Kenya Officially Gazettes Intersex as Third Gender, to Be Recognised Alongside Male and Female. Kenyans born intersex will now not be forced into other genders as they will occupy the newly gazetted one.
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February 17, 2025
Black intersex people are among the most marginalized. A Black intersex person who also identifies as nonbinary is no stranger to being bullied. They have been called slurs like “monkey” (because of their “African nose”), “she-male”, and “hermaphrodite” (because of their muscular build and excess hair). Some have even gone as far as to call them an abomination. They have endured experiences like this since childhood. Kenyans born intersex will now not be forced into other genders as they will occupy the newly gazetted one.
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January 17, 2025
New HHS Report Condemns Nonconsensual Surgeries on Intersex Youth. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a report this week backing intersex rights and bodily autonomy, in what community advocates say is the first report of its kind by the U.S. government.
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January 21, 2025
Trump’s reactionary executive orders harm trans and intersex people and fail to protect women, . During his first day in office, US President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders — one of which directly targets trans and intersex people under the false pretence of “defending women”. ILGA World argues that this policy ignores solutions to actually protect women, and is even more dangerous as it sets a precedent that might inspire similar initiatives in other countries
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January 26, 2025
US stops issuing gender-neutral ‘X’ passports under Trump order. The United States has ceased issuing passports with a gender-neutral “X” option, the State Department said, following President Donald Trump’s order limiting government recognition of transgender identity. The State Department issued its first passport with the X designation in October 2021 after a long legal battle waged by a person from Colorado who is intersex. It began regular processing of X passports in early 2022. The move leaves an unknown number of people awaiting further guidance on the fate of their pending applications and already issued passports.
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February 4, 2025
Marana teacher was fired after explaining how intersex people don’t fit into Trump’s executive order. A teacher at Marana High School was fired after sharing what he learned about a chromosomal disorder with relevance to current events to his students.
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February 4, 2025
Government agencies scrub LGBTQ web pages and remove info about trans and intersex people. The website of the Social Security Administration, an independent federal agency, formerly had a page about “Social Security for LGBTQI+ People”; it has now been updated to “LGBQ People,” removing the mention of transgender people and those who are intersex, meaning those who are born with physical traits that don’t fit typical definitions for male or female categories.
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February 28, 2025
Controversial bill stripping gender identity protections passes in Iowa Senate, House. The Iowa Senate and House have passed the bill that removes gender identity protections from civil rights. The bill, first introduced the week earlier, raced through the legislative process despite opposition from LGBTQ+ advocates who rallied at the Capitol on Monday and Tuesday.
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March 3, 2025
U.S. withdraws from U.N. LGBTQ+ and intersex group. The U.S. has pulled out of the United Nations’ LGBT! Core Group, which supports the rights of LGBTQ+ and intersex people around the world. “In line with the president’s recent executive orders, we have withdrawn from the U.N. LGBTI Core Group,” a State Department spokesperson told the Washington Blade.
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March 11, 2025
Hospitals continue non-consensual intersex surgeries while shutting down gender-affirming care. In his Day One “gender ideology” executive order, President Trump declared the existence of only two “immutable” sexes, male and female, and denied federal funds to institutions providing gender-affirming care to transgender minors.
But when it comes to infants and toddlers who are identified as intersex at birth, the surgeries continue. In many cases, the same healthcare providers that have stopped gender-affirming care have also largely continued to perform controversial sex-altering operations in the form of intersex pediatric surgeries, according to InterACT, an intersex rights group.
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March 12, 2025
The LGBTQI+ Community Reported High Rates of Discrimination in 2024. The 2024 survey shows that LGBTQI+ people continue to experience significantly higher rates of discrimination than non-LGBTQI+ people across every queried environment, including in health care, employment, and school settings. Furthermore, LGBTQI+ people of color and disabled LGBTQI+ people experience higher rates of discrimination than their white and nondisabled counterparts. The 2024 survey is similar to the 2022 survey in that it includes responses from a significant sample of intersex people.
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