Highlighting Human Rights on Intersex Awareness Day

LGBTQIAP+. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer – and that’s where many people get stuck. This “I”, standing for intersex, gets talked about much less frequently than some of the other letters in the “LGBTQ+ alphabet.” However, intersex individuals are more common than you might think. 

While medical records don’t always indicate if a person is intersex, research has estimated that 1.7% of people in the world are intersex. This means that nearly 1 in 600 people are born with intersex traits. Some research has indicated that estimates should be closer to 4%, while other research puts estimates much lower, at 0.02%. However, when we use the most common definition of intersex, 1.7% seems to be the most reliable estimate, a number that is similar to the percentage of people with red hair.