The Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) is an advocacy, education, and peer support group which works to create a world free of shame, secrecy, and genital mutilation for intersex people. (Intersexuality refers to people who are born with anatomies that are not clearly male or female.)

ISNA works against strong cultural pressures which ascribe an urgency to children being labeled and easily classifiable as either "male" or "female." These cultural pressures result in massive human rights violations against intersex children generally in the form of invasive, involuntary and irreversible medical surgeries designed the make the child "look normal." ISNA offers a nuanced alternative, suggesting that children be labeled with a sex at birth, but that cosmetic surgical alterations of the genitals not be performed unless they are desired by the subject of the operation.

ISNA's advocacy campaign starts with the dissemination of first-person accounts, testifying about intersexuality in general, and about the damage caused by involuntary Intersex Genital Mutilation (IGM). These first-person account testimonies are of paramount importance, as they give a face and a voice to a minority previously found only in specialized medical text books, where the intersex 'specimens' traditionally appear photographed naked, with their eyes covered. ISNA's testimonies have also managed to attract other intersex people, who previously did not know where to turn or with whom to speak about their condition.

ISNA has worked tirelessly for justice both in the United States and abroad with a minimal operations budget and scant support from the medical and human rights communities. With limited assistance from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, ISNA prepared a 10,000-word legal brief for the Colombian Constitutional Court. The Court issued two unprecedented and groundbreaking rulings in 1999, based heavily on ISNA's extensive documentation, forbidding IGM to children older than 5 years old, and allowing it for smaller children only under exceptional circumstances. The Court ruled further that intersex people were a minority protected from discrimination in Colombia.

Ms. Cheryl Chase, founding Executive Director, will be receiving the award on ISNA's behalf.

Additional Resources:

• The Intersex Society of North America (ISNA)
• Colombia High Court Restricts Intersex Genital Mutilation: First High Court to Address Human Rights Violation
  October 26, 1999

Additional Pictures:

• Ms. Cheryl Chase, founding Executive Director of ISNA (photo by Phyllis Christopher)
• Intersex infant