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The plight of intersex persons and the defence of their fundamental rights is emblematic of the need to sustain legal and policy efforts to ensure and promote LGBTIQ equality in the EU. Intersex and persons with variations of sex characteristics constitute a small group in number, but with a heightened vulnerability to violations of their rights. Their hardships, as well as their desire and fight for equality, reflect the struggles and the aspirations of all LGBTIQ persons while also linking to broader human rights challenges in Europe and the world today, defined by prejudice, intolerance, hate crime and speech, particularly online, and disinformation.
In terms of gender identity, most of the intersex respondents describe themselves as trans, non-binary or gender-diverse and, in terms of sexual orientation, as lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual or asexual. In this respect, intersex persons epitomise the experiences of the LGBTIQ community, in its long history of exclusion, discrimination and victimisation. They are members of a particularly vulnerable segment of it. This segment faces a higher degree, frequency and intensity of victimisation, discrimination and exclusion than that suffered by most LGBTIQ persons in our societies. Their repeated victimisation and the multiple and compounded challenges they face can lead to severe exclusion and critical life situations such as homelessness, suicidal thoughts or suicide attempts.
Today, in a climate of increasing or persisting intolerance and bigotry, as well as intense online hatred campaigns through social platforms and in the public sphere, the LGBTIQ community – particularly intersex, trans and non-binary and gender-diverse persons – is instrumentalised. Disinformation campaigns fomenting intolerance and prejudice are often waged by foreign and domestic actors acting to undermine European and western democracies and core values, such as dignity, equality and diversity. By weaponising the limited information about or understanding of SOGIESC groups on the part of the general population, such campaigns spread disinformation and fuel hatred and violence against them and, by consequence, other marginalised or vulnerable groups.
The EU LGBTIQ Survey III results reveal a harsh day-to-day reality and the serious challenges faced by intersex persons in the EU. The key findings provide valuable insights, urging the EU and Member States to face this critical situation and enhance their efforts to guarantee the respect and protection of the fundamental rights of intersex persons.
Ending IGM and non-vital medical interventions and ensuring free, prior and fully informed consent prior to any medical intervention constitute the first fundamental steps in this process. Access to effective redress and reparation and instituting safeguards that protect against such practices are also necessary. Combating hate crime and hate speech is also critical. Similarly, access to quality healthcare that recognises and caters to the specific needs of intersex persons is vital, as is ensuring that healthcare practitioners receive the necessary training to treat and care for intersex persons appropriately. Moreover, intersex persons need to be able to affirm their gender identity if it is not aligned with the legal sex or gender assigned at birth, such as through official legal gender recognition and changing names or references and gender markers in official documents.
The EU LGBTIQ Survey III (2023) shows that intersex respondents, more than any other LGBTIQ survey group, experience disproportionately higher rates of hate-motivated violence, direct and indirect discrimination and victimisation, despite EU law and the efforts of several Member States to protect them and promote equality.
- Intersex respondents are the survey group that experienced the highest increase of violent victimisation compared with the results of the EU LGBTI Survey II in 2019. The proportion of intersex respondents who say that they experienced one or more physical or sexual attacks in the five years before the survey increased in 2023 (34 %) compared with 2019 (22 %).
- About one in seven intersex respondents (15 %) say that they had been physically or sexually attacked in the 12 months before the survey, compared with 5 % of all respondents. In particular, intersex persons who are trans women (22 %) and trans men (23 %) or non-binary and gender-diverse (21 %) reported much higher violent victimisation rates.
- The share of respondents experiencing harassment – generally motivated by hate – in daily life in the 12 months before the survey is alarmingly high for intersex respondents (74 %), marking a notable increase compared with 42 % of the results of the EU LGBTI Survey II in 2019. It is also much higher than the already too-high rate for all LGBTIQ respondents (55 %) in 2023.
- Intersex survey respondents are the only group among all LGBTIQ respondent groups who did not report any significant decrease of discrimination experiences in at least one area of life in the year before the survey: from 2019 (62 %) to 2023 (61 %).
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Intersex, as well as trans persons, still report the highest rates of discrimination experiences compared with other respondent groups. For example:
- more than one in three intersex respondents feels discriminated against at work in 2023 (38 %) compared with 38 % in 2019. The EU average for all LGBTIQ survey respondent groups was 19 % in 2023, compared with 22 % in 2019;
- a higher proportion of intersex respondents report experiencing discrimination, such as when looking for work (31 %) in 2023 compared with 2019 (27 %) or when looking for housing to rent or buy in 2023 (28 %) compared with 2019 (20 %).[LS1]
- The survey results reveal that 6 % of intersex respondents had to sleep rough in a public space at least once in their life, compared with 0.2 % of the general population and 1 % of other survey groups.
- Intersex respondents reported having experienced medical interventions, including surgical interventions. Such interventions are often unnecessary and are not performed to avert an imminent threat to life or imminent serious damage to physical health. Most of them are carried out without their free, prior and fully informed consent. More than half (57 %) of intersex respondents say that informed consent before surgery or hormonal treatment to modify their sex characteristics was not required from them or their parents. In most cases, such ‘sex-normalising’ interventions take place at a very young age. They are often non-vital interventions but are performed to try to fit the child within the binary (male or female) gender marker categories of official documents and birth registries.
- More than half of the intersex respondents (53 %) contemplated suicide the year before the survey, while this was the case for almost one in four of all survey respondents (37 %). This proportion is much higher for trans women intersex respondents (65 %) and trans men intersex respondents (61 %). It is also extremely high among those intersex respondents who are severely limited by disabilities (69 %), those who face financial difficulties (49 %), are unemployed (61 %) or belong to a minority (62 %), other than being LGBTIQ.
- Being an intersex person with non-conforming SOGIESC identities and in socioeconomic conditions, such as being limited by disabilities, facing financial difficulties or belonging to a minority are strong predictors of harsher experiences in life, as the survey results reveal. Therefore, the survey provides the data and a compelling argument towards an intersectional approach in law and policy protecting the fundamental rights of intersex persons.