LGB+ and heterosexual-identified people produce similar analogies to intersex but have different opinions about its medicalisation

Qualitative researchers have long observed that rationales for medical interventions on intersex characteristics, or variable sex characteristics (VSC), invoke heteronormative ideals. Such medical interventions are controversial and described as infringing human rights. Recent survey research has confirmed that support for medical intervention, and opposition to its legal limitation on human rights grounds is predicted by (1) identifying as heterosexual and (2) endorsing gender binary beliefs. We replicated both findings here among 59 LGB+ and 61 heterosexual participants. Opinions about medical interventions on intersex characteristics were additionally predicted by belief in heterosexual complementarity among all participants, and by strength of heterosexual identification among heterosexual-identified participants. Participants read excerpts from three published interviews with a medical professional, a parent of a child with intersex characteristics, and an adult with intersex characteristics and generated analogies to these experiences. Participants who generated more diverse analogies endorsed the gender binary and medical interventions less, and supported legal limitations more. The results are discussed in relation to the formation and distribution of public attitudes to the controversial medicalisation of intersex characteristics

‘You’re basically calling doctors torturers’:stakeholder framing issues around naming intersex rights claims as human rights abuses

In this article we address activist, patient advocate and medic perspectives on framing intersex, variations of sex characteristics and disorders/differences in sex development medical treatment as human rights abuses. Problematic aspects of intersex medical treatment have increasingly been highlighted in national debates and international human rights bodies. Some intersex activists have framed aspects of intersex medical treatment as human rights abuses since the 1990s. Other stakeholders in shaping medical treatment, such as patient advocates and medical professionals, are not always content with human rights framing, or even the term intersex. In order to address the different perspectives in this arena we provide background on the primary rights claims that have arisen followed by key human rights framing of these claims. We provide a short discussion of activism styles, looking at pan-intersex social movements and variation-specific patient associations as different styles of health social movements. The analysis of stakeholder perspectives on the use of human rights strategy in health areas provides a useful case study for medical sociology and policy in general