INTERSEX SHOULD BE CLASSIFIED AS DISABILITY - STAKEHOLDERS

MBABANE – Intersex should be classified as a disability.

This is according to stakeholders’ submissions towards the National Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Bill of 2022. The Ministry of Home Affairs tabled the Bill in Parliament last year and further welcomed interested parties to make submissions and amendments towards the Bill. On Wednesday, the ministry presented the submissions that were made by the stakeholders, who are TransSwati, Mbabane Pastors’ Fraternity, Restoring Laminin and individuals. The submissions were presented before the ministry’s portfolio committee in the House of Assembly. According to the submissions which were made under Section 20 of the Bill on intersex children, some of the organisations and individuals felt that intersex should be listed under disability in Eswatini.

Restoring Laminin, which was presented by Cebile Henwood and Lindokuhle Vilakati, noted that intersex was a disorder of sex development. They proposed that if a child was to be born under the condition in Eswatini, they should be registered under the National Disability Act of 2018. “The disorder of sex development manifesting as ‘intersex’ is a disability which must be identified in the Disability Act of the Kingdom of Eswatini. It is not a third gender. It is not a neutral gender!” The organisation further proposed a card should be given to people who are intersex. “Allow automatic registration of all persons born with a disorder of sex development as disabled under the relevant Disability Act and issue them with a disability card, indicating they are intersex. The card is important in case their names or physical appearance does not match the sex indicated in their identification cards,” proposed the organisation.

Intersex

Adding, the organisation also submitted that in cases where a child born with intersex, they developed characteristics of a male to female or from female to male, on developing the secondary sexual characteristics at puberty, on their request or that of the guardians or parents, shall be re-examined by a team of health professionals from the relevant disciplines, who would examine the child born with the intersex condition, do tests and determine the most probable sex of either male or female, which would be registered in the birth certificate in the usual manner. The organisation also presented that the medical facts should be taken into consideration by the Government of Eswatini, to avoid being manipulated by LGBTIQ+ and transgender activists, who are pushing dangerous sexual ideology for surgeries to mutilate perfectly healthy genitals and provide hormone therapies and puberty blockers for children and adults suffering from a mental health condition called gender identity disorder or gender dysphoria.

They went on to submit that doctors and other medical professionals do not assign or determine the sex of a newborn child, but simply look between the legs and make a simple scientific observation, which is then documented. “Intersex is not a third sex. They are not intersex persons, but persons born with intersex – intersex is a condition. At puberty, when the secondary sexual characteristics develop, the true sex becomes clear. The difficulty in observing the sex of the intersex child is therefore temporary and naturally resolves at puberty,” they added.
Furthermore, they stated that if the sex assigned to the person with intersex at birth changed to the opposite when they develop secondary sexual characteristics, the law must allow for the biological marker on their identification documents to be changed. “This is the reason why people advocating for the so called LGBTIQ+ rights are interested in intersex, they want to abuse these – children to create a law that can allow surgical and chemical alteration of a normal male to look like a female or vice versa,” they stated through the submissions that were presented before the portfolio committee.

Meanwhile, TransSwati submitted that the term ‘hermaphrodite’, which was used in the section, was unacceptable and had been abandoned worldwide in new legislations. “To those affected by it, the term hermaphrodite’ is offensive and unacceptable. The proper and acceptable up-to-date term is intersex. “Intersex people are born with sex characteristics that vary from norms for female and male bodies. Because of this, intersex people are frequently subjected to so-called normalising procedures to make them conform to sex and gender stereotypes,” submitted the organisations, which was represented by National Director Pinty Mdluli, Tshepo Dlamini and Model Dlamini, among others.

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