On May 14th 2024, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) published the third edition of its survey on LGBTIQ people, providing up-to-date information on the lives of LGBTIQ people in the 27 EU Member States and EU candidate countries of Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia. This year’s survey saw a significant increase in the number or intersex respondents. However, it also showed that intersex people face alarmingly increasing levels of violence in their everyday life.
“Questions about intersex people’s experience were included for the second time in the survey, after 2019. Having repeated surveys like this one is key, because we can now compare data from the two surveys and identify trends”, says Dan Christian Ghattas, Executive Director of OII Europe. “Unfortunately, the numbers we are seeing are deeply worrying, and considerably higher than in 2019, especially when it comes to violence and harassment, but also bullying at school and homelessness which are issues affecting young intersex persons disproportionately”.
Data on intersex genital mutilation shows that more than half of the intersex respondents (57%) who were subjected to surgery did not provide – and were not asked for – their own or their parents’ informed consent before their first surgical treatment to modify their sex characteristics. Almost half of the intersex respondents (49%) said that fully informed consent was not provided for hormonal treatment. These numbers are very close to those recorded in 2019.
The survey also shows that intersex persons experience disproportionately high levels of discrimination, with 61% of intersex respondents reporting having experienced discrimination because of being LGBTIQ in at least one area of life in the year before the survey, such as when looking for work (31%) or when looking for housing to rent or buy (28%).
“The findings also confirm the highly difficult situation intersex people find themselves in when they need access to healthcare”, says Kristian Ranđelović, Co-Chair of OII Europe, “43% of the participants to the survey encountered difficulties when accessing or trying to access sexual healthcare”.
According to the survey findings, 39% of intersex respondents encountered challenges when trying to access mental healthcare, 20% when accessing emergency care and 48% when accessing other medical care. Around one in five intersex respondents said that they had to change their medical practitioner or specialist because of their negative reaction, and 8% of intersex respondents said that they were refused treatment.
Magda Rakita, Co-Chair of OII Europe adds, “Strikingly, 74% of intersex respondents said that they experienced hate-motivated harassment in daily life in the 12 months before the survey, compared with 42% in the 2019 FRA LGBTI II survey. This is an incredible increase. But unfortunately, we are not surprised. Intersex people have become more visible and we know from reports and national research conducted by intersex organisations that intersex people have become a target of anti-rights actors and the anti-gender movement.”
In comparison to 2019, considerably more intersex respondents, 34%, said that they experienced one or more physical or sexual attacks in the 5 years before the survey. The overwhelming majority of them, 72%, experienced multiple hate-motivated physical or sexual attacks, with more than half saying that they had experienced three or more physical or sexual attacks in the 5 years preceding the survey.
“While intersex people of all ages are targeted, young intersex people are especially vulnerable”, says Tobis Humer, Secretary of OII Europe, and continues: “Reports of bullying experiences at school have increased by a third, with 76% of intersex respondents saying that during their time in school they suffered bullying, ridicule, teasing, insults or threats, compared to 50% in 2019.”
“The data on homelessness are similarly alarming”, adds Kaisli Syrjänen, “a notable proportion of intersex respondents, 6%, have had to sleep rough in a public space at least once in their life, that is 30 times more than the general population, with only 0.2% ever having been in this situation. These findings complement the reports that OII Europe and its member organisations have been gathering on the life experiences of intersex persons, whether it relates to homelessness, access to healthcare, employment, education as well as experiences of discrimination, violence and harassment.”
“At the same time, these worrying findings remind us once again of the urgency to protect intersex persons from discrimination and violence at European and national levels” concludes Dan Christian Ghattas, Executive Director of OII Europe. “Intersex genital mutilation needs to be banned across Europe and sex characteristics need to be recognised explicitly as a protective ground in anti-discrimination legislation and in hate crime and hate speech legislation. Intersexphobic crimes must be prosecuted as such and must constitute an aggravating factor. We therefore call once again on EU Member States to accept the European Commission’s proposal to extend the current list of EU crimes in Article 83(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) to hate crimes and hate speech.”
