WASHINGTON – The United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on Friday on the rights of intersex persons. It was the first time such an international body has approved a legal affirmation intersex rights.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights offers a definition of intersex persons which is accepted by the US Department of State.
“Intersex people are born with sex characteristics (such as sexual anatomy, reproductive organs, hormonal patterns and/or chromosomal patterns) that do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies,” the office states.
Intersex people are often compelled to present as strictly male or female and face legal, medical and social discrimination according to an international study on intersex identity published by the UN in 2019.
The Friday resolution called upon governments to create additional legal protections for intersex persons. The United States co-sponsored the resolution.
The United States is one of only three counties which has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The other countries are Somalia, which has been embroiled in civil war since 2009 and does not have a functional central government, and South Sudan, which became an independent nation in 2011.
The US has also declined to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and a convention banning discrimination against women.
It is unlikely that a convention on the rights of intersex persons would find the necessary support for ratification in the US Senate regardless of State Department support.
