Health Care Issues Affecting People with an Intersex Condition or DSD: Sex or Disability Discrimination?

Abstract

People with an intersex condition or a Difference of Sex Development (DSD) depend on health care professionals for critical medical treatment. Many intersex activists assert that some current medical practices are not in the best interests of patients with an intersex condition. They contend that greater safeguards should be adopted to ensure that the rights to liberty and autonomy of people with a DSD are respected. Thus far, intersex advocacy has focused on extralegal strategies. The movement is at a point, however, where legal challenges to current medical protocols could provide an additional tool to improve life altering health care practices.

This Article examines whether the intersex movement could effectively use legal frameworks developed by feminists, the LGBT movement, and disability activists to advance its goal of modifying current medical procedures that are based on sex, gender, sexual orientation, and disability stereotypes.

Keywords: intersex, DSD, disability discrimination, health care discrimination, ADA, sex discrimination, sexual orientation discrimination, gender nonconformity, feminist theory, queer theory, liberty, autonomy, gay, lesbian, transgender

JEL Classification: K19, K32