Do you know the story of Intersex Awareness Day?

We won’t repeat all the details here. But it’s a good one.

This year’s IAD, October 26, 2026, marks 30 years since the event that some say launched a broader U.S. intersex movement. Some of the earliest out intersex people, aided by Transexual Menace, protested the American Academy of Pediatrics at its 1996 conference.

1996 was the year that new U.S. laws against FGM/C gave doctors a pass: infant genital surgeries affecting sexual function, including cutting a large (intersex) clitoris, were exempt for “medical necessity.”

History repeats. Pretty much every bill against trans healthcare includes language protecting surgery or hormones to alter minors’ intersex anatomy. Once again: “medical necessity” pays consent no mind.

This aggression takes us out of our bodies. It isn’t just the aggression faced by intersex people asking for consent-based healthcare. It’s the aggression of healthcare bans. Of rape culture. Of making “sex” into a tool for surveillance.

Power doesn’t only belong to states and professionals. When we feel our pain and our history, we increase our ability to connect with each other and demand better.

Intersex Awareness Day should be a day to honor our histories. Too often we’re left isolated and far away from others. We want to change that.

This year we’re working with interACT to bring together speakers across bodily autonomy movements. Join us for a cozy gathering that will include a group embodiment practice, open virtual chat, live panel discussion, and teasers for two new projects.

Thank you to our friends in Mexico, Brújula Intersexual, for the flyer translation, and to our partner, interACT, for co-planning and sponsoring live Spanish translation.

As always, our virtual spaces are donation based. Paying what you can helps us compensate speakers and translators. We also want you there! If a donation isn’t doable, email [email protected] and we’ll make sure you are on the invite list, no questions asked.

Hope to see you soon.

Hans & Saifa
Strategy Lab for Intersex Movements