Intersex Visibility Fortnight 2023: here is the program to fight intersexophobia

The Collective of Intersex Activists – OII France (OII means International Organization of Intersex), a French association of and for intersex people, has been organizing around fifteen intersex visibility events for several years. As specified by the CIA – OII France, October 26 commemorates the first public intersex rally in front of the American Academy of Pediatrics, in 1996. This date has been celebrated since 2003 as International Intersex Awareness Day. While November 8 refers to the birth of Herculine Barbin, the oldest intersex person whose memories were found in 1838. Her birthday has been Intersex Remembrance Day since 2005.

This is an opportunity for the first interested people to organize themselves to meet, inform each other, hold each other accountable, but also fight against intersexophobia. The latter can range from harassment to poor medical care and other difficulties in accessing work. Their main objective is to stop mutilations and hormonal treatments imposed without danger to life and without the consent of the people concerned. France, for example, was condemned three times in 2016 by the United Nations for this type of mutilation of intersex children.

What is intersexuality? Why are we talking about intersex people?

Recall that intersexuality concerns variations in sexual development, whose sexual characteristics do not correspond to typical, binary male or female norms. As defined by Amnesty International, these characteristics may involve primary sexual characteristics such as internal or external genitalia, reproductive systems, hormone levels and sex chromosomes; or secondary sexual characteristics that appear during puberty. Intersexuality concerns biological characteristics and not gender identity as such. It’s also not about sexual orientation: intersex people have different sexual orientations.

The program for the two weeks of intersex visibility in 2023

It is to the Intersex Activists Collective – OII France that we owe the program for the two weeks of intersex visibility in 2023:

• Wednesday 25th October
  • 5pm: Screening of the documentary Between two sexes during the welcome and listening service at the Touraine LGBTI center (11bis Rue des Tanneurs, 37000 Towers).
  • at 7.30pm: Screening and conversation around Hermaphrodites speak! with the collective Archives Derrière les fagot.es at the Piquemil headquarters (6 Rue Piquemil 31300 Toulouse).
• Thursday 26 October
  • 4pm: Conference What rights do intersex people have today? at Science Po Toulouse (21 allée de Brienne 31000 Toulousebuilding D, ground floor, room MD007).
• Friday 27 October
  • 6.30pm: Inauguration of the exhibition XY de Marin at the EST gallery (76 rue Saint-Maur 75011 Paris).
  • at 6.30pm: Evening of support for the CIA at the queer and feminist bar La Gougnotte (18 avenue Etienne Billières, 31300 Toulouse).
  • at 8pm: Screening-debate on the documentary Ni d’Eve Ni d’Adam at the Library of the LGBTI Center of Lyon (19 rue des Capucins, 69001 Lyon)
• Sunday 29th October
  • 3pm: Conference and debate on representations of intersex people in fiction as part of the Trans Arts and Creation Festival and Aude Nasr exhibition at the Théâtre de l’Élysée (14 Rue Basse Combalot, 69007 Lyon). Doors open at 2pm for a free brunch
  • at 6pm: Bingo Drag to benefit the CIA, hosted by Minima Gesté, followed by DJ set, at La Folie (Parc de la Villette, 26 avenue Corentin Cariou, 75019 Paris). CIA table from 4pm
• Tuesday 31 October
  • at 7.30pm: Meeting with Michal Raz and Loé Petit around the book Intersexuality, from medical power to self-determination by Michal Raz in the Le Monte en l’Air bookshop (2 Rue de la Mare, 75020 Paris).
• Wednesday 1 November
  • 2.00pm-3.00pm: Screening of the documentary “ What if we didn’t care » by Johanna Lagarde, as part of BIZARRE · Queer Cinema Day from 12pm to midnight at La Folie (Parc de la Villette, 26 avenue Corentin Cariou, 75019 Paris).
  • at 7pm: Debate on Literature and intersexuality, at the Mercury bar (26 Rue des Écoles Laïques, 34000 Montpellier).
  • at 8pm: live Twitch evening on intersex on Cassandre’s channel “EVERYTHING about INTERSEX STRUGGLES feat. Loé of the CIA “(event on line).
• Thursday 2 November
  • at 5pm: CIA-OII France conference for medical students, upon invitation of the Gender and Equality Center of Solid’UP and CQFD, at the Faculty of Medicine of Bichat (16 Rue Henri Huchard, 75018 Paris).
  • 6pm: Investigation (collective reading workshop) around the book Intersexuality, from medical power to self-determination by Michal Raz at the Touraine LGBTI center (11bis Rue des Tanneurs, 37000 Towers).
  • at 8pm: reading of Herculine Barbin by the Nosig theater company and talks with the CIA in Pol’n (11 Rue des Olivettes, 44000 Nantes)
• Saturday 4 November
  • at 5.30pm: Public demonstration for the rights of intersex people organized by the CIA-OII France in front of the Museum of the History of Medicine (12 Rue de l’École de Médecine, 75006 Paris), followed by a meeting with the collective at the Cabaret des Merveilles (25 Rue de l’Hirondelle, 75006 Paris).
• Wednesday 8 November
  • at 10 o’clock : 10 years later: Malta Declaration and intersex flag. Meeting with Morgan Carpenter, online with RéFRI. At the time of registration (event on line).
  • 6pm: Screening-debate of the documentary Between two sexes with the Student Solidarity of the Faculty of Tanners (room 120, University of Tours, 60 Rue du Plat d’Étain, 37000 Towers). Subject to.

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