Brújula Intersexual (Intersex Compass) is a voluntary organisation for

intersex Intersex people are individuals born with any of several sex characteristics including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical bina ...

people that promotes the

human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...

and bodily autonomy of intersex people in Mexico, and across Latin America. Founded in 2013, Brújula Intersexual provides peer support, education and information.

History

Brújula Intersexual was founded by Laura Inter on the day after

Intersex Awareness Day Intersex Awareness Day is an internationally observed awareness day each October 26, designed to highlight human rights issues faced by intersex people. History The event marks the first public demonstration by intersex people in North America ...

in 2013, 27 October. The organization is intended to help intersex people find each other, connect, and improve their human rights situation.

Activities

Physical integrity and bodily autonomy

Brújula Intersexual calls for self-determination by intersex people. It documents the health and human rights situation facing intersex people in Mexico, and in the Latin American region more broadly, including societal taboos, incomprehension, unnecessary medicalization, and discrimination. Ricardo Baruch, writing in ''Animal Politico'' and citing Laura Inter, describes the situation on where intersex is constantly left out of discussion or policy because it is not very understood, even though it is a biological situation. In March 2017, Inter and colleagues including

Natasha Jiménez Natasha Jiménez is a trans and intersex activist and author who is currently the General Coordinator for MULABI, Latin American Space for Sexualities and Rights, the first host of the Intersex Secretariat for ILGA. She is an advisory board member ...

of MULABI, testified before the

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (the IACHR or, in the three other official languages Spanish, French, and Portuguese CIDH, ''Comisión Interamericana de los Derechos Humanos'', ''Commission Interaméricaine des Droits de l'Homme'', ...

on the human rights situation facing intersex people in Latin America. The organization also engages in training for human rights and public institutions.

Access to healthcare

Brújula Intersexual has found that few doctors are trained and sensitized on intersex issues, leading to a tendency to recommend genital surgeries or hormonal treatments to create "normality" even where individuals have escaped such

intersex medical interventions Intersex medical interventions, also known as intersex genital mutilations (IGM), are surgical, hormonal and other medical interventions performed to modify atypical or ambiguous genitalia and other sex characteristics, primarily for the purposes ...

as children. It has documented problems with medical examinations and treatments as a result of such practices. Brújula Intersexual has also documented significant levels of poverty and disparities in access to health care based upon family wealth and income.

Identification documents

Laura Inter and Eva Alcántara of

UAM Xochimilco UAM Xochimilco is one of the five academic units of the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico City. UAM Xochimilco is located in the southern portion of the city and was founded on November 11, 1974. It offers 18 undergraduate degrees. Hi ...

have cited arguments that the most pressing problems facing intersex people are treatment to enforce a sex binary, and not the existence of the sex binary itself. Inter has imagined a society where

sex or gender Though the terms ''sex'' and ''gender'' have been used interchangeably since at least the fourteenth century, in contemporary academic literature they usually have distinct meanings. ''Sex'' generally refers to an organism's biological sex, while ...

classifications are removed from birth certificates and other official identification documents.

International work

Laura Inter represented Brújula Intersexual at the Fourth

International Intersex Forum The International Intersex Forum is an annual event organised, then later supported, by the ILGA and ILGA-Europe that and organisations from multiple regions of the world, and it is believed to be the first and only such intersex event. Predeces ...

, held in Amsterdam in April 2017.

External links

References

{{intersex Intersex rights organizations Intersex medical and health organizations Intersex support groups Intersex rights in Mexico