Defending Trans Health: Challenges, Responses, and Solidarity with Intersex Health
By Sorcha Ní Fhaoláin (Simply Sorcha / Intersex Ireland / ROSA) “Intersex children are operated on to ‘normalise’ us. Trans people are blocked from hormones unless they jump through humiliating…
“Intersex children are operated on to ‘normalise’ us. Trans people are blocked from hormones unless they jump through humiliating hoops. Different practices, same logic: control.”
Last week at the ILGA-Europe Conference, I spoke at the workshop “Defending Trans Health: Challenges, Responses, and Solidarity with Intersex Health.” It was well attended by activists, healthcare workers discussing the political architecture of control that governs our bodies.
The Logic of Control
From intersex surgeries performed without consent to the bureaucratic torture trans people endure for basic healthcare, the message from institutions is the same – you are not the authority on your own body. These systems are designed to maintain control, not deliver care. And that control is gendered, racialised, classed – it’s the same logic that denies women pain relief, that underfunds reproductive rights, that punishes migrants seeking care.
The Hypocrisy of Protection
We name this hypocrisy often. Across Europe, puberty blockers are banned for trans youth under the false banner of “safety”- yet the same drugs are forced on intersex children to make us fit binary ideals. Hormones are denied to trans people, but imposed on intersex kids. “Protection” becomes an alibi for violence. This isn’t medicine; it’s state-sanctioned conformity.
Feminist Solidarity in Action
In my intervention, I argued that our fight as intersex and trans people is the same fight, the fight for bodily autonomy. Feminists, healthcare advocates, and community movements must refuse to be divided. We cannot afford the old trap of hierarchy, who suffers most, who deserves help first. When movements fracture between the I and the T, between women’s health and queer health, the Right wins.
From Sport to Science – Policing Our Existence
These attacks don’t stop at hospitals. They extend into sport, research, and everyday life. The bodies of intersex and trans athletes are dissected in the media under the guise of “fairness.” But fairness was never the goal. Control was. From Caster Semenya to Imane Khelif, from grassroots athletes to school kids, we see the same project: to police who counts as woman, who counts as human.
Building Real Alliances
As activists, we must do better than token inclusion. Don’t just “add the I” – organise with us. Fund intersex groups. Platform intersex voices. Include intersex people as decision-makers, not footnotes. Because solidarity isn’t a slogan – it’s a practice.
Beyond Conferences
For those of us in the room, the ILGA workshop was more than theory. It was a call to build bridges between feminist movements, healthcare reformers, and queer activists before the backlash hardens further. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, just to stand shoulder to shoulder and refuse erasure.
As I said on stage:
“Check your advocacy for hidden harms. Think about where your arguments might reinforce the systems we’re fighting against. Because only together can we push back against the structures that tell us whose bodies count – and whose don’t.”
And this work isn’t abstract. It’s real, urgent, and alive in every conversation we have. That’s why I also bring this conversation back to spaces like the Arcane Cycling Team, where inclusion, respect, and teamwork show how solidarity can look in practice. Inclusive sport isn’t separate from political struggle — it is political struggle.
Our movements have always known this: autonomy is the foundation of liberation. Let’s defend it , for trans people, for intersex people, for all of us.
ClicK Below to download our excelent PowerPoint from the event:
