Part I Experiences of being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex in the Asia Pacific [In China], information and research on intersexuality is even less available than it is for other LGBT groups. However, while the visibility of intersex people is improving, their public image remains negative. Reports about intersex infants and children in the media are still commonly linked to family shame and the need to perform gender normative surgeries. These reports often use a sensational tone . . . Moreover, as the parents retain ultimate rights on the determination of their children’s sex, the voice of intersex children is rarely heard.243 However, intersex activists in the Asia Pacific region are part of a small but growing international movement that is challenging the silence. They have participated in the three International Intersex Forums held between 2011 and 2013. The December 2013 statement from the third forum in Malta sets out a comprehensive list of human rights demands “aiming to end discrimination against intersex people and to ensure the right of bodily integrity, physical autonomy and self-determination”.244 Intersex people from Taiwan and Australia were part of the first United Nations expert meeting convened by OHCHR in Geneva in September 2015.245 A month later, intersex groups based in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand were among the inaugural recipients of grants from the Astraea Intersex Human Rights Fund.246 That same month saw the first gathering of intersex activists from across Asia at the 2015 ILGA Asia conference in Taipei.247 With the support of UNDP’s Being LGBTI in Asia Programme and the MultiCountry South Asia Global Fund HIV Programme, one of the participants at that meeting hosted Nepal’s first national intersex workshop in January 2016. The National Human Rights Commission of Nepal and UN agencies also attended the second day of the workshop. 4.2.2. Intersex people and human rights International human rights standards apply to all people, including intersex people. There has been slow progress from human rights bodies in articulating the specific human rights issues that intersex people face. At first these were seen as coming under a broad definition of gender identity. This has now developed more properly into recognition of either ‘intersex status’ or ‘sex characteristics’ as a prohibited ground of discrimination, distinct from gender identity. The key human rights issues now more widely understood to impact on the lives of intersex people, including in this region, are: • the right to physical integrity, and the associated rights to freedom from torture and ill-treatment and to live free from harmful practices • equality and freedom from discrimination • recognition before the law • effective remedies and redress.248 For this manual, attempts have been made to collate available information from the Asia Pacific region about intersex people and the human rights issues they face. No information was identified about experiences in Pacific Island States. To date, only a very small number of NHRIs in the region have worked on intersex human rights issues. Therefore, this chapter draws more heavily than others on the experiences of Australia and New Zealand, where intersex NGOs have a longer history and NHRIs have started to work on the issues they have raised. 243 UNDP and USAID, Being LGBT in Asia: China Country Report, 2014; pp. 28-29. 244 Public statement by the Third International Intersex Forum, 1 December 2013; at https://oii.org.au/24241/public-statement-bythe-third-international-intersex-forum/ (English) and at www.oii.tw/Home/3rd-is-forum-statement (Chinese). 245 The International Intersex Forums were held in Brussels in September 2011, Stockholm in December 2012 and Malta in November /December 2013. Hiker Chiu from Taiwan, founder of Oii-Chinese, a platform for Chinese-speaking intersex people, was the only intersex person from Asia at the first two fora. 246 See http://astraeaintersexfund.tumblr.com/. 247 See http://intersexday.org/en/ilga-asia-2015/. 248 OHCHR, Fact Sheet: Intersex, 2015; Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, Human rights and intersex people: Issue Paper, April 2015. Chapter 4: Being intersex in Asia and the Pacific | 67