VIENNA: Intersex people across the European Union are experiencing increasingly severe violence and harassment according to the bloc’s fundamental rights agency.
The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights published its second comprehensive report based on an online survey of 1,920 intersex individuals across 30 EU and Western Balkan countries conducted in 2023.
FRA director Sirpa Rautio described the findings as showing alarming levels of exclusion, discrimination and violence requiring urgent response.
One in three intersex respondents reported experiencing physical or sexual assault within the five years preceding the survey.
This represents a sharp increase from the previous 2019 survey and is three times higher than the rate for the broader LGBTIQ community.
Sixty-nine percent of respondents identified negative political discourse as the primary reason for escalating violence against intersex people.
The agency noted that LGBTIQ communities are being instrumentalised within a climate of growing intolerance and widespread online hatred campaigns.
These campaigns actively spread disinformation that fuels hatred and violence targeting intersex individuals according to the report.
Fifty-seven percent of survey participants reported undergoing surgery or medical treatment to modify sex characteristics without their informed consent.
Thirty-nine percent revealed they were forced to undergo conversion practices aimed at changing their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Intersex people are born with innate variations in sex characteristics that do not fit typical female or male definitions.
Only Bulgaria and Hungary within the EU fail to provide any legal pathway for gender recognition according to the findings. – AFP