This Saturday marks Intersex Awareness Day, an opportunity to shed light on the rights of people who have genitals, chromosomes or reproductive organs that don't fit into a male-female sex binary. Experts lament that the rights of intersex people are not yet sufficiently protected in Luxembourg.

In this context, the association Intersex and Transgender Lëtzebuerg has been organising conferences and events for professionals and the wider public since last week.

Law professor Benjamin Moron-Puech highlights the importance of recognising intersex people's existence as people who do not correspond to a binary definition of gender.

A practical example here is that they should not be operated on without their consent in order to conform to a male or female norm – a practice that takes place in many countries as soon as a baby is born with intersex genitals.

A perfect legal framework does not yet exist in other countries either, but there are positive developments. The Council of Europe is in the process of drawing up recommendations and the EU Commission has already commissioned a study to compare the legal frameworks, for example.

Professor Moron-Puech goes on to highlight that little has progressed since his visit to Luxembourg in 2012.

"whereas in the meantime, many other countries have made efforts to integrate the existence of intersex people and to protect their rights. France, Spain, Belgium, and Germany have taken action, but I have yet to see developments in Luxembourg."

One of Intersex and Transgender Lëtzebuerg's primary demands is that surgical interventions that aren't urgently necessary for a child's health should be paused until the child is old enough to have a say.

Dr Erik Schneider adds, "If a child expresses its wishes to pee standing up like the other kids, for example, you can tell that there is an intention behind it, at which point you can discuss the pros and cons of surgery and establish informed consent. That's simply impossible with a one to two-year-old child."

On a global level, experts notice a reduction in operations on intersex children, but there are also cases in which children are wrongly assigned a gender as female or male at birth.

For instance, some children have a large clitoris or so-called hypospadias, where the urethra does not end at the tip of the penis. There are about 50 operations to change hypospadias in Luxembourg per year, according to Intersex and Transgender Lëtzebuerg.

On this Intersex Awareness Day, Intersex and Transgender is organising one last conference focusing on the issue of medical necessity. You can find the link to the event here.