Part I Experiences of being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex in the Asia Pacific Where health systems recommend surgeries on infants and children with intersex variations, these costs are often publically funded. However, intersex adults frequently cannot access any public funding to reduce the physical or emotional impacts of such treatment. A preliminary survey of intersex advocates in eight countries – including Taiwan, New Zealand and Australia – identified concerns about the lack of research on the long-term impact of surgeries.296 Institutions do not typically engage in long-term follow-up and have no responsibility to keep historical medical records. Many parents were discouraged from sharing information with their children as they grew up about medical interventions performed when the child was younger. In addition, the fragmentation of health provision into paediatric, adolescent and adult services results in intersex people’s health needs falling through the gaps. More qualitative research is needed to give intersex adults the opportunity to describe the long-term consequences of having, or not having, medical and surgical intervention. Interviews with intersex adults have also informed the development of resources for parents raising intersex infants and children today.297 Thoughts and stories of being Being LGBTI by Being LGBTI in Asia. Recent intersex community-led research from Australia provides invaluable insights into these impacts. Sixty per cent of the 272 people who completed the survey reported having had medical treatment interventions related to their intersex variation. Intersex people’s experience of medicalisation was often negative, with poor information, many poor outcomes and “strong evidence” suggesting a pattern of institutionalised shaming and coercive treatment. Over half of the reported treatments occurred when the participants were under 18 years old. The most common treatments were genital surgeries, many of which occurred in infancy, and hormone treatments. Most participants were given no information on the option of declining or deferring treatments; a fifth were given no information at all about any of the treatments they received. The majority of participants listed at least one negative impact from their treatments; for some, these were life-threatening.298 296 D.C. Ghattas, Human rights between the sexes, a preliminary study of the life situations of inter* individuals, Heinrich Böll Stiftung publication series on democracy, Vol. 34, 2013. 297 G. Davis, ‘Five things you can do for your intersex child’; at http://theparentsproject.com/five-things-you-can-do-for-yourintersex-child/. 298 T. Jones, B. Hart, M. Carpenter, G. Ansara, W. Leonard and J. Lucke, Intersex: Stories and Statistics from Australia, 2016. Chapter 4: Being intersex in Asia and the Pacific | 75