Theme: Advocacy
Held on 26th -29th of September, 2019
Local Host: KollekTIRV (ex TransAid)
With 68 participants attending the 3rd OII Europe Community Event and Public Conference in Zagreb, this event was again the biggest gathering of intersex people in Europe and globally to that date. We were especially happy to accommodate two intersex children with their parents and family members.
The community event was characterized by a colourful mixture of activism and self-care workshops, networking opportunities and feel-good activities like intersex-themed bracelets crafting.
The workshops ranged from newbie sessions to taking care of one-self when going public with one’s own history, a training on UN-mechanisms, the situation of intersex refugees, the still prevailing pathologisation of variations of sex characteristics in the revised ICD 11, the history of the medicalisation of intersex people and of intersex activism through art, feminism and intersex or a workshop where participants created content for the Awareness Raising Campaign 2020, which will be created on the basis of the participant’s contribution.
The event also included specific opportunities for parents and family members of intersex people to discuss and exchange their experiences. Being together with so many intersex peers in a safe place can be a very emotional situation. A special awareness team made sure that all participants had emotional support whenever needed.
Continuous international collaboration is part of the beauty of the intersex movement. We were excited to invite fellow activists from Asia, Africa and South America who presented the situation of intersex people in their countries and regions, which allowed for strengthening the bonds between the European and the international community.
In between the two event days we held the Public Conference. The opening speech was given by Helen Nolan from the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) on „Intersex from the UN perspective”.
Other contributions on the agenda included a presentation on the legal and social situation of intersex people in Europe and a presentation of a local health professional.
The latter unfortunately showed that the relationship between medical professionals and intersex activists and organisations is still very fragile and the breach of mutual agreements made it necessary to end the presentation. However, through several measures we altogether took to confine the impact of the incident, the situation turned in the end into a very empowering experience for the intersex participants.
Some of the feedback OII Europe received included:
”This event is the single most important thing I have seen done for intersex people in Europe, it brings people together and give them a sense of belonging and improvement, it also serves as great way to communicate to policy makers that things need to change, as they can see the people directly impacted, also you fell less alone after this event :).“
