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Intersex Awareness Day: Visibility Must Be Matched by Autonomy, Dignity and Care
AWARENESS STATEMENT
For Immediate Release
26 October 2026
Thirty years ago, a small group of intersex people and their allies gathered outside the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics in Boston. They were challenging medical practices that had shaped their bodies and lives, often before they were old enough to understand what was happening or participate meaningfully in decisions about their own care.
That protest on 26 October 1996 became the historical foundation for what we now recognise internationally as Intersex Awareness Day. What began as a demand to be heard has developed into a global movement concerned with bodily autonomy, informed consent, dignity, appropriate healthcare, freedom from stigma and the right of people with innate variations of sex characteristics to participate in decisions affecting their own bodies.
For the Australian Association of Mental Health Practitioners, the thirtieth anniversary provides an important opportunity not simply to say that intersex people should be “seen and celebrated”, but to understand what visibility actually asks of health professionals, mental-health practitioners, families and communities.
Awareness begins with getting the language right. Respect goes considerably further.
Understanding what intersex means
The Australian Government currently uses the term people with innate variations of sex characteristics, commonly referred to as intersex. These variations can involve chromosomes, hormones, reproductive anatomy, gonads or other sex characteristics that do not fit typical medical expectations for exclusively male or female bodies. Some variations are apparent at birth, while others may become evident during puberty, through fertility investigations or other healthcare, and some may never be identified at all.
It is equally important to understand what intersex does not mean.
Intersex is not another word for transgender. It is not a sexual orientation. Intersex people may be women, men, non-binary or use other descriptions of gender. They may be heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual or identify in other ways. Some intersex people identify strongly with LGBTQIA+ communities; others do not.
AAMHP Chair Shane Warren said this distinction matters because well-intentioned inclusion can still become a form of erasure when different experiences are collapsed together.
“Putting another letter into an acronym is not the same thing as understanding the people represented by it. Intersex describes variations in sex characteristics. It does not tell us somebody’s gender, sexuality, relationships or how they understand themselves. The first act of respectful practice is often surprisingly simple: learn what the words mean, and then listen to the person in front of you.” [Shane Warren]
Shane Warren said practitioners should also be cautious about assuming that difference itself constitutes pathology.
“Human bodies are extraordinarily varied. The mental-health question should never begin from an assumption that somebody is psychologically unwell because their body developed differently from what medicine once considered typical. Where distress exists, we need to understand its source rather than automatically locating the problem inside the person.” [Shane Warren]
That distinction is central to contemporary conversations about intersex health and human rights.
When difference becomes secrecy
For many intersex people, the psychological impact of their experience has not arisen simply from having an innate variation of sex characteristics. It may instead be connected with the way their variation was explained, or not explained to them, how their body was discussed by others, experiences within healthcare, secrecy within families, stigma, unnecessary shame or the discovery later in life that important information had been withheld.
The Australian Human Rights Commission’s landmark report Ensuring Health and Bodily Integrity: Towards a Human Rights Approach for People Born with Variations in Sex Characteristics examined medical interventions on people born with variations in sex characteristics and called for stronger human-rights protections. Its recommendations include improved oversight, stronger requirements around informed decision-making and limits on circumstances in which interventions should occur without the consent of the person affected.
The Commission’s work reflects a broader principle that should matter deeply to mental-health practitioners: people should be participants in their own lives, not merely subjects of decisions made about them.
AAMHP Secretary Susan Sandy said psychological care has an important role when individuals or families are navigating uncertainty, but that support must not reinforce shame.
“Parents may receive information they never expected to hear about their newborn child. Young people may begin asking questions about their bodies during puberty. Adults may discover information about themselves through medical investigations years later. Those can be significant moments, and people may need time, accurate information and somewhere safe to talk.” [Susan Sandy]
“Mental-health support should help people tolerate uncertainty and make sense of their experience. It should never begin from an assumption that an intersex body is a psychological problem requiring correction.” [Susan Sandy]
There is an important difference between helping somebody process an experience and trying to persuade them how they should feel about it. Good therapeutic practice makes room for anger, relief, grief, pride, confusion, curiosity, indifference and the many other responses that may arise.
There is no single correct way to experience being intersex.
Bodily autonomy is also psychologically important
The history commemorated by Intersex Awareness Day is inseparable from questions of bodily autonomy.
The 1996 protest that inspired the day specifically challenged non-consensual interventions on infants and children intended to make their bodies conform more closely to conventional expectations of male or female anatomy. Those concerns remain central to intersex-led advocacy internationally.
Australia has also grappled directly with this issue. The Australian Human Rights Commission concluded that nationally consistent, human-rights-based approaches are needed when decisions are being made about medical interventions on children with variations in sex characteristics, with particular attention to bodily integrity, informed decision-making and the future autonomy of the child.
This does not mean every healthcare intervention involving an intersex person is inappropriate. People with innate variations of sex characteristics can have healthcare needs like anybody else, and some variations may involve specific health concerns requiring medical monitoring or treatment.
The crucial distinction is between healthcare that responds to a genuine health need and intervention driven primarily by pressure to make a body appear more conventionally male or female.
For mental-health practitioners, the principle of autonomy has a familiar resonance. A psychologically safe relationship does not remove somebody’s agency in the name of professional expertise. It creates the conditions in which the person can understand, question, consider and participate.
The burden of explaining yourself
There is another quieter challenge that awareness campaigns can help address: the exhaustion of repeatedly having to explain one’s own existence.
An intersex person should not have to become an educator every time they encounter a health practitioner. Families should not have to rely entirely on internet searches to find accurate information. Young people should not grow up believing their body is something that must remain secret because the adults around them are uncomfortable talking about it.
Shane Warren said health professionals have a responsibility to undertake some of that learning themselves.
“Curiosity is valuable in practice, but curiosity should not become interrogation. There is a difference between asking somebody what language they prefer or what their experience means to them, and expecting them to provide an introductory lecture on intersex variation before we can offer competent care.” [Shane Warren]
This is particularly important because intersex experiences are diverse. A practitioner who has worked with one intersex client has not therefore become an expert on every intersex person.
The better stance is informed humility: understand the fundamentals, know where reliable specialist information and referral pathways exist, and remain interested in the particular person rather than treating their body as the most fascinating thing about them.
Australia is beginning to build better pathways
There have been important developments in Australia.
The National Action Plan for the Health and Wellbeing of LGBTIQA+ People 2025–2035 explicitly includes people with innate variations of sex characteristics and establishes principles including supportive and autonomous care, self-determination in health decision-making, culturally safe services and a workforce capable of providing responsive and inclusive care.
When launching the Action Plan, the Australian Government also announced $500,000 to expand the InterLink program, a community-led psychosocial support service specifically for people with innate variations of sex characteristics.
InterLink provides mental-health and wellbeing support for intersex people and family members across Australia, including knowledgeable counselling and opportunities for peer connection. The Australian Human Rights Commission identifies InterLink, InterAction for Health and Human Rights and Intersex Peer Support Australia among specialist resources available to people with variations in sex characteristics and their families.
These developments matter because specialist community knowledge and mainstream professional capability need to develop together.
An intersex person should be able to access specialist support when that is useful. They should also be able to walk into an ordinary counselling practice, GP clinic, community service or mental-health setting without encountering disbelief, inappropriate assumptions or professionals who treat their existence as an exotic clinical curiosity.
Families need support without being taught fear
Families also form an important part of this conversation.
When a child is born with sex characteristics that differ from what parents expected, families may encounter unfamiliar terminology, specialist medical teams and decisions they never anticipated having to consider. Fear can emerge quickly when difference is presented primarily through a language of abnormality, disorder or urgency.
Susan Sandy said practitioners can help families create space between uncertainty and reaction.
“Parents naturally want their children to be healthy, safe and accepted. When something unexpected occurs, the instinct can be to ask, ‘How do we fix this?’ Sometimes a more useful question is, ‘What does our child actually need right now?’ Those are not always the same question.” [Susan Sandy]
“Families benefit from clear information, specialist advice, connection with people who understand the experience and psychological support that helps them make thoughtful decisions without turning difference into shame.” [Susan Sandy]
Children also need age-appropriate truth.
Secrecy introduced with the intention of protecting a child can sometimes communicate that there is something about them too shameful to name. As children mature, information about their own bodies should be approached with sensitivity, honesty and respect for their developing autonomy.
The task is not to burden a child with information they cannot yet understand. Nor is it to construct a family story in which the truth about their own body becomes something everybody else knows except them.
Intersex people are more than their healthcare experiences
Intersex Awareness Day necessarily draws attention to healthcare, rights and bodily autonomy because these have been central to intersex advocacy. But awareness should not reduce intersex lives to those issues either.
Intersex people are partners, parents, children, colleagues, neighbours, professionals, artists, athletes, students, leaders and members of communities. They have ordinary ambitions, relationships, frustrations, careers and lives.
Sometimes an intersex person coming to counselling wants to talk about being intersex.
Sometimes they want to talk about their mother.
Or their mortgage.
Or their partner.
Or retirement.
Or why they hate their job.
Inclusive mental-health practice means being capable of understanding the relevance of somebody’s intersex experience without insisting that it must be the explanation for everything else happening in their life.
Susan Sandy said this is ultimately about seeing the whole person.
“People want practitioners who understand enough about their experience that they do not have to start from the beginning every time. But they also want the freedom to simply be a person whose life contains many things. Respect means knowing when identity matters enormously and knowing when it is simply one part of a much larger human story.” [Susan Sandy]
Thirty years after the protest
Intersex Awareness Day began with people refusing to remain silent about what had happened to their bodies.
Thirty years later, awareness should mean more than knowing that intersex people exist.
It means understanding that human sex characteristics are naturally diverse. It means using accurate and respectful language. It means recognising that intersex is not synonymous with sexuality or gender identity. It means challenging stigma and unnecessary secrecy, supporting families with reliable information, protecting bodily autonomy and ensuring people can participate meaningfully in decisions about their own healthcare.
For mental-health practitioners, it also means recognising that psychological wellbeing is strengthened when people are treated as participants rather than problems.
AAMHP acknowledges the generations of intersex people and advocates whose willingness to speak publicly has changed healthcare, law, professional practice and community understanding. We also recognise those who have chosen privacy, those still making sense of their own histories, families learning alongside their children and professionals working to create safer and more respectful systems of care.
Thirty years ago, intersex people gathered outside a medical conference and demanded that professionals listen.
Perhaps the most appropriate way to mark this anniversary is to demonstrate that we finally understand the importance of that request.
Awareness means seeing people. Respect means listening to them. And dignity means ensuring that decisions about their bodies and lives are never made as though their voice is incidental.
About Intersex Awareness Day
Intersex Awareness Day is observed annually on 26 October. The date commemorates the first public demonstration by intersex people and allies in the United States on 26 October 1996, when activists protested outside the American Academy of Pediatrics conference in Boston against non-consensual medical interventions on intersex children. The day subsequently developed into an international occasion for intersex visibility, education and human-rights advocacy.
Australian support and information
InterAction for Health and Human Rights is an Australian intersex-led organisation working on health, human rights, bodily autonomy, community education and policy for people with innate variations of sex characteristics.
InterLink provides psychosocial and wellbeing support for people with innate variations of sex characteristics and their family members across Australia.
Media Contact:
Shane Warren, Chair
Susan Sandy, Secretary
Philip Armstrong, CEO
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