Intersex people and their symbolic annihilation

 
Many people may be unaware that today is Intersex Awareness Day or may forget the I in LGBTQIA.  Media representation of intersex people is pretty limited and mostly trivialized if it does come up. I specifically remember watching Kathy Griffin and Larry King go over the acronym LGBTQIA and when it got to intersex, they were confused and just said. "What's intersex? What does that mean?" The kind of strides towards intersex include supermodel Hanne Gaby Odiele and the MTV show Faking It which reached out to intersex organizations on how to best represent intersex character. However, Faking It was cancelled after three seasons. Because of this symbolic annihiliation of intersex people, the rest of society doesn't realize the gravity of the issues facing the intersex community. Mic made an article and series of videos with intersex people as part of intersex awareness day. When intersex people are born, they have a variation of reproductive or sexual anatomy that does not typically fit in with male or female. Kids born as intersex have no idea that they are intersex and instead parents and doctors put children through a variety of surgeries, called "normalizing surgeries" at a young age without the agency of the child. Surgeons often assign their intersex patients a gender, with no input from the child. Additionally, the symbolic annihiliation of intersex identity in the media hurts kids who now face much less protection regarding their gender identity at school. For those looking for more information on intersex organizations and the issues facing the intersex community: https://interactadvocates.org/
http://www.isna.org/
https://www.intersexrecognition.org/
http://www.pidgeonismy.name/