Brújula Intersexual: Working Strategies, the Emergence of the Mexican Intersex Community, and Its Relationship with the Intersex Movement

Abstract

After a decade of work, Brújula Intersexual has become a reference in Mexico and Latin America. However, the presence of the Latin American intersex movement in the specialised literature in English is restricted. We consider that conducting a self-reflexive review of Brújula Intersexual could contribute to understanding (1) the work strategies implemented by Brújula Intersexual; (2) the formation of the Spanish-speaking intersex community and movement in Mexico; and (3) the heterogeneous dynamics of the global intersex movement. We designed a qualitative–quantitative study involving discussion meetings with the Brújula Intersexual team, revision of the Brújula Intersexual archive, a scoping review, and a timeline. The results and discussion are focused on two axes: (1) Brújula Intersexual: structure and working strategies, in which two concepts are developed, namely, the intimate sphere and the atmosphere of trust; (2) The articulation of Brújula Intersexual within the intersex movement and its resonances in public policy. Researching Brújula Intersexual contributes to the collective memory and reveals important events that link the Spanish-speaking and global anglophone intersex movements. In particular, Brújula Intersexual was configured as a critical counter-device that manages intense flows of affection, allowing for the production of new subjectivation modes for people with intersex bodies.

1. Introduction

Over the last thirty years, thanks to the actions of the international intersex movement, the visibility of intersex people has increased worldwide. Intersex activism began in the 1990s; however, situations of medical violence and social discrimination have not yet been effectively resolved (Carpenter 2022). Interest in intersex issues is often limited to theoretical discussions anchored to the regime of sexual difference and sex/gender dichotomies. We understand the deconstructive potential that intersex experiences bring and know that it is essential to develop a new sexual epistemology. However, we concur with Monro et al. (2021) that it is urgent to anchor this interest to singular and localised experiences, with the everyday issues and human rights violations faced by intersex people in the foreground.

Over the past three decades, the intersex movement has diversified. Its configuration is heterogeneous, and its dynamics are transnational (Rubin 2017). Unique forms of intersex activism occur across the globe, given the diverse historical and local conditions and variable economic, social, political, cultural, and technological dynamics. Even so, global discussions—both those related to medical protocols and those that flow within the human rights system—are conducted primarily in English, with a predominance of actors and issues located in Global North countries (Cabral in Vieira et al. 2021; Carpenter 2022). This has meant that the field of knowledge on intersex issues is unevenly structured according to a hierarchy of values on which knowledge (1) circulates in English, (2) is generated in the USA and Europe, (3) is supported by or emerges in academic contexts, and (4) is available in digital format. Processes of racism and precarious economies limit the presence of the Latin American intersex movement in global discussions, both in activism and in critical intersex studies written in Spanish and Portuguese (Cabral in Vieira et al. 2021). We concur with Mauro Cabral, the first intersex activist in Latin America, that “o que a dominação sobre o ativismo intersex e a academia intersex tende a produzir é um disciplinamento colonial na forma como a intersexualidade é pensada e escrita. […] Por que o inglês é sempre a língua correta para falar sobre intersexualidade?” (“What the domination over intersex activism and intersex academia tends to produce is a colonial discipline in the way intersex is thought of and written […]. Why would English be the right language to speak about intersex?”) (Vieira et al. 2021, p. 225; own translation).

Given this situation, it is important to offer a first analysis of Brújula Intersexual and the work conducted over the last decade in English using an academic format. On the 27th of October 2013, Laura Inter1 created a Facebook page in Spanish named Brújula Intersexual. At present, Brújula Intersexual operates using virtual meeting spaces, including Facebook (11,300 followers), Instagram (5300 followers), X/Twitter (3090 followers), and a website. According to the statistics of the website brujulaintersexual.org, from February 2015 to October 2023, it accumulated 1,514,881 visits, of which 73.95% corresponded to America, 25.25% to Europe, 0.56% to Asia, 0.13% to Oceania, and 0.12% to Africa. In particular, Latin America and the Caribbean accounted for 63.8% of the total number of visitors. The highest number of visits were from Mexico (25.81%), Spain (22.86%), Argentina (11.74%), the United States of America (9.91%), Colombia (6.92%), Chile (4.71%), and Peru (3.36%), which together accounted for 85.31% of the total visits. In line with the impact reflected in these numbers, Alejandra Sánchez Monroy (2021) has situated Brújula Intersexual as a central reference for the problematisation of the violence and discrimination experienced by intersex people, not only in Mexico but also beyond national borders.

Given the need to better understand the emergence of the Spanish-speaking intersex community and the dynamics of Latin American movements, as well as the role that Brújula Intersexual plays in it, we consider four questions: (1) What is Brújula Intersexual? (2) What actions and strategies have been implemented, and what results have been achieved? (3) What role has Brújula Intersexual played in the creation of the Spanish-speaking intersex community? (4) How is it related to the global anglophone intersex movement? In order to answer these questions, we propose three objectives. The first is to analyse Brújula Intersexual, the work strategies implemented for over a decade, and the results that have been achieved. The second objective is to identify key coordinates of the Spanish-speaking intersex community and movement, as well as the roles that Brújula Intersexual play in this context. Finally, the third objective is to analyse the Mexican intersex movement, both within the Spanish-speaking intersex movements—located in Latin America and Spain—and within the global anglophone intersex movement.

Intersex Movement in Latin America

Regardless of language or geographical region, the intersex movement in Latin America shares with the global anglophone movement an interest in making visible the situations of medical violence, discrimination, and violations of the right to bodily autonomy and integrity faced by people born with variations in sex characteristics. In particular, there is a shared desire to protect intersex bodies from pathologisation and medical procedures that are not consented to in a free, full, and informed manner by the person themselves, which represent violations of the right to health, privacy, confidentiality, and bodily integrity (Cabral and Carpenter 2018).

In an interview published in Portuguese, Mauro Cabral stated that his initial approach to activism was through consulting what was happening in the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) in the mid-1990s (Vieira et al. 2021). He recounts that he conducted these consultations on a computer in the university library and began translating the texts from English into Spanish. In 1999, he travelled to the United States for the first time to attend a regional LGBT conference, and in 2002, he began to work on a Latin American programme for an organisation working with the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. In 2004, Mauro Cabral presented intersex issues at the United Nations for the first time, and in 2005, he became the coordinator of the trans and intersex area for the Latin American programme. It was also in those years—namely, 2004/2005—that Paula Machado (in Brazil) and Eva Alcántara (in Mexico) began researching and writing on intersex issues in their countries, remaining active to date. The intersex activist work of Natasha Jiménez in Costa Rica also began during this period. It was at the IV Conference of the International Association for the Study of Sexuality, Culture, and Society, held in Lima, Peru, in June 2007, that a roundtable on intersex issues was held, which brought together Mauro Cabral, Paula Machado, and Eva Alcántara. The event was also attended by Natasha Jiménez. After that meeting and at the proposal of Mauro Cabral, this small group began a partnership called the Consorcio Latinoamericano de Trabajo sobre Intersexualidades, which, according to Mauro Cabral, allowed for an exchange that generated the first discussions on how intersex experiences occurred in the Latin American region (Vieira et al. 2021). At present, based on available information in the Brújula Intersexual archive and Aguirre Arauz (2023), the Latin American intersex movement is active in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

Understanding the trajectory of the intersex movement in Latin America would require a detailed study that has not yet been written. Latin America is a region that shares historical events as well as cultural and political characteristics; however, like any large region of the world, there are important differences from one country to another, as well as within each country. The commonalities in the demands of the Latin American intersex movement have been gathered in the San José de Costa Rica Statement (First Latin American Regional Conference of Intersex Persons 2018), a document that systematises the demands of the Latin American intersex movement as well as the call that intersex people have made to the States and different social and private sectors. This document adopted the premises of the Public Statement by the Third International Intersex Forum held in Malta in 2013. The second Latin American and Caribbean Conference brought together thirty intersex activists in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2020.

Academic production on intersex issues is grounded in North American intersex studies. Some of these classic authors are well-known by Latin American intersex activists and specialised academics, including Cheryl Chase (1998), Morgan Holmes (2009), Iain Morland (2009), Suzanne Kessler (2002), Anne Fausto-Sterlling (2006), Alice Dreger (2003), Ellen Feder (2014), Katrina Karkazis (2008), and Georgiann Davis (2015), among others. We agree with Cabral (as quoted in Vieira et al. 2021) that it is relevant to open the conceptual, theoretical, and political framework to other languages, which is why it is important to mention that the Latin American intersex activism movement also has a solid written production with ethnographic research—both in Spanish and Portuguese—which allows us to contextualise and historicise some of the social and cultural dynamics in which intersex experiences take place.

In Mexico, anthropological research is part of the broader field of anthropology of sexuality, which was consolidated in Latin America in the 1980s. This field emerged linked to feminist and sexual dissidence thought, as well as to social knowledge committed to several social and cultural dynamics that assume “su producción representa un recurso político y simbólico que distintos sujetos y grupos pueden utilizar para potenciar sus demandas y sus acciones” (“its production represents a political and symbolic resource that different subjects and groups can use to empower their demands and actions”) (Parrini and Tinat 2022, p. 18). We refer to the pioneering work of Mauro Cabral, whose theoretical production is disseminated and deserves to be compiled. Cabral edited Interdicciones: Escrituras de la intersexualidad en castellano (Cabral 2009), which remains an indispensable reference in Spanish. The political involvement of this Argentinian activist has been essential; his work as the director of Global Action for Trans Equality has had an impact on a global scale. He was one of the signatories of the Yogyakarta Principles—a key document for legislative changes in several countries—and his work with the World Health Organisation has sought to influence the way in which the medical system understands and manages intersex individuals. Paula Machado is also an established academic reference in Latin America. Her ethnographic doctoral research, O sexo dos anjos. Representações e práticas em torno do gerenciamento sociomédico e cotidiano da intersexualidade (Machado 2008) gave way to a solid written production that continues to date. In Spain, we have several commonalities with the work of Nuria Gregori (2015) and her doctoral research entitled Encuentros y des-encuentros en torno a las intersexualidades/DSD: narrativas, procesos y emergencias. In Mexico, we refer to the pioneering ethnographic work of Eva Alcántara (2012), as well as the research of Mara Toledo (2018, 2021), Alejandra Sánchez Monroy (2021), and the audiovisual production of the Mexican intersex activist Adiós al Futuro (2018). Finally, the book Brújula. Voces de la intersexualidad en México, coordinated by Laura-Inter [pseud] and Alcántara (2024), brings together texts of analysts, activists, intersex people, and the testimonials of family members.

2. Study Design and Methods

Those of us who write this article are part of the mechanism that directed Brújula Intersexual in its first decade of work. We know how challenging it is to approach our analysis while simultaneously occupying the positions of both the researcher and the researched. More than an autoethnography, we conceive of this work within the framework of an experimental anthropology of the contemporary (Rabinow 2006; Restrepo and Parrini 2021; Fernández de Rota 2023). In this sense, we agree with Paul Rabinow (2006) that “the challenge is to invent new forms of inquiry, writing, and ethics for an anthropology of the contemporary,” as the problem to be solved is “how to rethink and remake the conditions of contemporary knowledge production, dissemination, and critique in the interpretative sciences?” (p. 1). With this in mind, we set out to retrace our steps to understand the working strategies of Brújula Intersexual.

At Brújula Intersexual, we assume that we must invent new routes to solve old problems. The traditional positivist research paradigm assumes a logic that opposes dichotomous pairs: subject/object, researcher/researched, theory/practice, and subjective/objective. By looking through an intersex lens, we have sought to dismantle binary logic. Intersex experiences enabled what Iain Morland (2009) called an “‘afterwardsness’ of intersex and its many lessons” (p. 192), which led us to dismantle the “sexdualidad […] la lógica dual que sostiene la noción tradicional de la diferencia sexual y de la sexualidad en general como oposición” (sexduality […] the dual logic that sustains the traditional notion of sexual difference and sexuality in general as oppositional) (Derrida in Berger 2015, p. 17). We extend this deconstructive approach to dismantle the binary logic that operates in research practices. We form ourselves as a collaborative research team that recognises the unique knowledge and different capacities of each member.

We conducted a qualitative–quantitative study that involved:

• Periodic work meetings and discussions—we held meetings to discuss in pairs and as a team, and together, we chose the concepts to develop and proceeded to construct the structure of the article and write it. In addition, we carried out the revision of a specialised bibliography.
• Revision and analysis of the Brújula Intersexual archive—published and unpublished materials produced within a ten-year period were analysed. The timeframe covered the emergence of Brújula Intersexual from the 27th of October 2013 to the 8th of August 2023. We located materials produced that contain testimonies in the Brújula Intersexual archive—describing both everyday situations and intimate experiences—in order to reflect on how we came to them (Brújula Intersexual 2023a; Laura-Inter [pseud] and Alcántara 2024). This unveiled the basis of the functional mechanism of Brújula. With this in mind, we went back to reading, searching for resonances in the literature that would allow us to understand and explain that mechanism. In this research, ethical considerations regarding the use of cited testimonies were followed. The four intersex individuals who provided their testimonies for the Brújula Intersexual YouTube channel were informed that their testimonies would be used for this manuscript. They provided us with informed consent letters.
• A scoping review— we conducted a scoping review (Table S1) covering October 2013 to August 2023, using the keywords Brújula_Intersexual, Laura_Inter, and Encuesta_Intersex as search queries. We reviewed the sources and the form in which the keyword Brújula_Intersexual was referred to in digital spaces. The information obtained was organised by the research term in reverse chronological order in spreadsheets along with the following aspects: publication date, title, author, country, and type of document. The academic research was extended to two databases: Ebsco and Jstor. The name Laura_Inter was also sought on Academia.edu, yielding 3547 mentions in papers; however, as access was not paid, it was not possible to review the sources. The data collected were organised in tables and graphs.
• A timeline—to understand the chronology and events relevant to Brújula Intersexual located at three levels (national, regional, and global), we developed a timeline (Timeline S1). For this purpose, the timeline created by Hana Aoi/Sánchez Monroy (2018) was taken as an initial reference. Events referred to in research carried out by former and current core members of Brújula Intersexual were added to this timeline: Alcántara (2012), Toledo (2018, 2021), and Sánchez Monroy (2021). The Timeline of Intersex History found on (WikiPedia n.d.) was consulted. The timeline was completed through an intentional internet data search that included other relevant events on intersex activism in Mexico and Latin America linked to the work of Brújula Intersexual.

3. Results and Discussion

The analysis that we decided to present is not exhaustive but rather problem-oriented (Rabinow 2006). Considering the questions that we formulated, the objectives that we set, and the way in which we organised the information collected, we decided to develop two axes of analysis. In different proportions, each author contributed fragments of written text. A first draft in Spanish was assembled by the first author, which was subsequently revised by the team. Finally, it was translated into English by the third author and revised by the team.

The first axis presents the structure and working strategies of Brújula Intersexual and introduces two concepts: the intimate sphere and the atmosphere of trust. The second axis explores the activation of the intersex movement in Mexico, the articulation of Brújula Intersexual within the intersex movement, and presents some strategies that impacted public policy.

3.1. Brújula Intersexual: Structure and Working Strategies

When Laura Inter founded Brújula Intersexual, she desired to meet other intersex people and, therefore, imagined a place that could serve as a guide for other people. Ten years later, Laura Inter and those of us who write this article are surprised by the scope of that initial desire, and we wonder: What is Brújula Intersexual, and how does it work? To answer these questions, we developed the following two sections: In the first section, we address the structure of what we call Brújula. In the second section, we explain the axis of the working strategies of Brújula Intersexual, for which we propose two concepts: the intimate sphere and the atmosphere of trust.

3.1.1. An Organic, Spherical and Layered Device

The structure of Brújula is more animate than inert; it is an organic device. Its shape is spherical, and its interior resembles the layers of an onion. The nucleus of Brújula consists of five people, three of whom have been constant over the first decade. Those who have been part of the nucleus have different professional backgrounds and have contributed a wide range of knowledge that is fundamental to understanding and influencing issues related to intersex, including intersex experiences, computer skills, human rights, Lacanian psychoanalysis, feminisms, gender studies, anthropology, computer systems, engineering, internal medicine, bioethics, social networking, languages, graphic design, and writing. We highlight that the three people who have remained stable in the project have subjective strengthening practices, which have allowed them to maintain certain emotional stability: Buddhism and/or Lacanian psychoanalysis. Having financial resources was also an important factor that was gradually achieved. More robust financial stability for the only person who receives a full-time salary from the project’s funding has not yet been achieved, and most of the contributions of endosex people have been voluntary. In addition to the authors of this article, the core group has involved the participation of Mara Toledo (2015 to 2020), Hana Aoi (2016 to 2020), and Mar Is (2015 to present). A total of four intersex people and three endosex people have participated or are participating in the core group. All of them have at least a bachelor’s degree, and two of them obtained professional degrees with research linked to their involvement at Brújula Intersexual.

The next layer is made up of around ten people, not only from the Mexican intersex community but also from Spain, Venezuela, and Argentina. This work was carried out through specific projects, and the participants were paid per project: drawing, embroidery, illustrations, writing texts, co-production of informative materials and different contents, providing accompaniment, and participating in interviews, talks, workshops, and classes. The third layer of collaborators consists of around eighty people from the Mexican intersex community, as well as twenty more people located in Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Guatemala, Venezuela, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, and Spain. Their contributions consisted of written testimonies. The methodology based on testimonies was the basis for the materials produced and the workshops, conferences, and media in which Brújula Intersexual participated.

The fourth layer that has projected Brújula Intersexual is its allies. These are professionals who have great recognition and prestige in their field, some of whom work in state institutions and are decision-makers. The connection with people in the National Council for the Prevention of Discrimination (CONAPRED) and the Human Rights Commission of Mexico City (CDHCM) has been important. A sister project with whom we have a lot in common, who also supported us from the beginning and sometimes advised us, is 17, Instituto de Estudios Críticos (https://17instituto.org/), a space for critical theory that was conceived as a post-university at the crossroads of academia, culture, and psychoanalysis. Its publishing house, Editorial 17, published El libro intersexual (Adiós al Futuro 2018) and Brújula. Voces de la intersexualidad en México (Laura-Inter [pseud] and Alcántara 2024).

Initially, Brújula Intersexual was self-funded by its founder, Laura Inter. Fundraising enabled her to sustain her work, and in 2015, it became possible to obtain the first funding from the Intersex Human Rights Fund of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, which has been maintained to date. In 2020, Fondo Semillas provided Brújula Intersexual with additional funding, which continues to date. Over these years, the project has also received occasional financial support from other sources. Between 2019 and 2023, funding averaged USD 19,980 per year. There is no certainty regarding how long we will continue receiving this funding. The intersex people participating in the core group do not have health insurance or any other social benefits.

3.1.2. Mechanism: Intimate Sphere and Atmosphere of Trust

Intersex disrupts the sexual binary that assumes a man/woman as a dichotomous relationship. The existence of intersexed bodies demonstrates that sex is not just a matter of two opposing and mutually exclusive categories whose ultimate truth would be found in biological characteristics. As stated by Monique Wittig, the category of sex is a product of heterosexual society: “straight society is based on the necessity of the different/other at every level. It cannot work economically, symbolically, linguistically, or politically without this concept. This necessity of the different/other is an ontological one for the whole conglomerate of sciences and disciplines that I call the straight mind. But what is the different/other if not the dominated?” (Wittig 1980, p. 163).

We think of Brújula Intersexual as a laboratory where we test how to reconnect people with other people living similar situations, with their bodies, and with the joy of living. We understand that trust is an essential factor for adults to seek help, and that is where it is indispensable to imagine a place where other people, as Laura Inter stated, “did not feel as lost and alone as I once did” (Laura-Inter [pseud] 2015, p. 97). In this sense, the intersex community turns out to be fundamental, as it is easier to communicate with a person who has gone through similar situations. We believe that this form of authentic meeting is capable of fracturing the dominant meaning from the medical gaze, which is subsumed within what Monique Wittig (1980) called The straight mind: the framework of thought that—through social institutions—structures and imposes a hierarchy of value that takes heterosexuality as the dominant norm, the same one that conceives sex as universal, natural, dichotomous, and binary.

If the medical dispositive of intersex works on the unique case, in Brújula Intersexual, we work on the unique—the singularity—to generate not a case but a house, a territory built of common fabric, making a displacement of place where someone can be one more person and feel that lives in the company of other equals possible. Below, we develop two notions and present some of the testimonies collected from Brújula Intersexual on the occasion of its tenth anniversary. These and other testimonies can be found in the documentary film Abriendo la Brújula (Brújula Intersexual 2023a).

Hi. My name is Mer. I have Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, 46 XY.

I came across Brújula Intersexual looking for answers, looking to understand a bit more and to understand myself. Also, I found a lot of stories that represented me that I did not know about or could not find. And the most important thing I found were people—people who not only had the same thing that happened to me but who understood me when I talked to them. And in our case, finding someone who understands you, someone you can talk to, and, on the other side, realising that they understand what you are saying, that they understand what you feel or your feelings… that is immense.

So, the most important thing I found was people who understood me and wanted me not to be the only one but just another person, and I am grateful for that.

(Brújula Intersexual 2023b, translated by Frida Flores)

The listening carried out in Brújula Intersexual spaces is characterised by being patient, respectful, and deeply aware of the uniqueness of each person and each lived experience. This listening configures a space that we have denominated the intimate sphere, which is not only about hearing words but also about understanding the silences, the emotional resonances, and the flows of affection presented. Listening goes beyond the verbal; it tries to embrace the person as a whole and to make space for their fears, hopes, and traumas. This type of listening allows people to feel safe and validated. Subjectivity is anchored in cis-heteronormativity as a compass that guides the sense of the world and verifies its coordinates in the lives we are living. Thus, cis-heteronormativity permeates all of Western culture, placing sexual practices, modes of relationship, and the social representations that shape it at the top of the hierarchy of value. At Brújula Intersexual, we have understood that this regime is sustained simultaneously in several dimensions: economic, social, political, psychic, and affective. The disruptive potential of intersex requires an exercise of cognitive and affective deconstruction that works to resituate what cruelty, violence, exclusion, and mockery have left in intersex people. It is clear that those of us who do not enter the cis-heteronormative system are repelled, rejected, or, at the very least, ignored. Through recognising the prevalence of the cis-heteronormative regime in the interpretation of our bodies, the listening carried out at Brújula Intersexual provides a possibility to resituate the coordinates that guide one’s life and the meaning of living.

We foster an atmosphere of trust where individuals can express themselves freely and without fear of judgement. Listening is active, not only seeking to understand but also to support and accompany. We recognise the complexity of the individual experience and how complicated it is to share experiences; as such, we do not pressure anybody. Listening becomes an act of caring and respect, often being the first step in a process of healing and self-acceptance.

People often come into contact with Brújula Intersexual via Facebook, email, or the website. Sometimes, our support groups for specific intersex variations are the first point of contact. Over the years, the number of people who approach us has increased.

Particularly for me, as Camino Baró, an activist, you have helped me a lot… but also in my more private sphere, in my personal sphere, to gradually graduate the information that I could assimilate to reduce that feeling of loneliness that you have when you discover that you are a person with an intersex condition, and then you realise that there are many other variants, many other realities. After all, many people may be in the same situation as you.

(Brújula Intersexual 2023c, translated by Frida Flores)

How does one participate in someone’s most private and personal sphere? Especially when healthcare experiences have created an “ontological insecurity […] a profound insecurity about the body and being, and one’s right to ownership of both” (Karkazis 2008, p. 219). The concepts of intimate sphere and atmosphere of trust have their roots in the work of Rodrigo Parrini (2018), Suely Rolnik (2021), and Benjamin Mayer Foulkes (2022). The intimate sphere is a space that, once formed, allows the structure of the social bond to be intervened in (Mayer Foulkes 2022). The intimate sphere emerges, where a shared inner world is generated in the encounter between two people. When people with intersex bodies begin to connect with each other, a common fabric is built. This world in common opens the door to another mode of subjectivation. We take from Felix Guattari (1992) the notion of friendly complicity to understand that, in such a relationship, there is always a third term, namely, the world that is being woven, that is being worked. The intimate sphere is this space of shelter that allows for subjective explorations derived from the atmosphere of trust, which enables the presence of sympathy, thus tuning a channel of affinity that prepares the possibility of dialogue to a frequency characterised by shelter and conviviality (Parrini 2018, p. 200). The encounter has the quality of an event characterised by flows of affection that activate the impulse by introducing a rupture where, before, there was a fixation of a material and unconscious order (Rolnik 2021, pp. 32–33). This activation has the force:

“To disarm the configurations of power […] it neither begins nor ends in the individual […] such a practice feeds on resonances of other efforts going on the same direction and the collective force they promote, not only because of their power of pollination but also and fundamentally because of the synergies they produce. […] Such resonances and synergies produced create the conditions for the formation of a common collective body whose power of invention, acting under singular and variable conditions, can become strong enough to contain the power of forces prevailing in other constellations […] With these synergies, ways are opened to divert such power from its destructive destiny.”

(Rolnik 2021, pp. 33–34, translated by Frida Flores)

Guattari and Rolnik (2006) stated that “lo que caracteriza a los nuevos movimientos sociales no es solo una resistencia contra ese proceso general de serialización de la subjetividad, sino la tentativa de producir modos de subjetivación originales y singulares, procesos de singularización subjetiva” (what characterises new social movements is not only a resistance against its general process of serialisation, but the attempt to produce original and singular modes of subjectivation) (p. 61).

My name is Pauli. I am a member of Potencia Intersex […] I came to Brújula in 2018 with quite an existential crisis, without knowing who I was, without knowing what place or group I belonged to, and I was able to find in this space not only a lot of containment and understanding, but also the possibility of being part of a movement that goes beyond Brújula, that goes beyond me. This movement is the global intersex movement, the intersex movement in the world, of which Brújula Intersexual is part, and it is a fundamental part, because it has been one of the first organisations that started to promote and generate information in Spanish, and also, in some way, to promote spaces for meeting, conversation, talk, dialogue about our corporealities.

Through Brújula, I could understand that I wasn’t a person with a disease, but a body different from other bodies and that I belonged to a group of people who respond to an international political movement that seeks to end genital mutilation in childhood, which is part of the experiences that intersex people go throughout our lives and that increasingly needs to be heard, to be listened to, to be seen… because, even today in all parts of the world or in many parts of the world, there are still children who undergo surgery to be mutilated and their bodies corrected and, so they can fit into the binary logics that move the world.

(Brújula Intersexual 2023d, translated by Frida Flores)

Intimate spheres have the potential to destabilise the dominant forms of subjectivation. What happens in the intimate sphere disrupts the psychic and political dimensions simultaneously, blurring the boundaries between one and the other. The work of the intersex movement intervenes in the political dimension while disrupting the ontological dimension of sexduality. Understanding how the axes of power that underpin gender norms work has been vital for intersex people. In consonance with the Mexican psychoanalyst Benjamín Mayer Foulkes, we conceive our work as a critical counter-device that operates through the deconstruction of the social bond in a twofold way. Mayer Foulkes (2023) proposed the deployment of the formulas of the four discourses proposed by the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, denominating two of them as subjectivising deconstruction and instituting deconstruction. The first is related to providing an environment in which desire can make its way—in this case, facilitated by the intimate sphere and the atmosphere of trust—which encourages the life potency of a singular subject. Meanwhile, instituting deconstruction implies not only dismantling the existing sex-gender structures but also constructing new signifiers that make it possible to situate oneself differently in the social world.

We think that, in this moment of history, the term intersexual in Spanish (intersex in English) guides another existence, this time inscribed in the coordinates of possibility and encounter. The collective agency of this term and its reinscription in the human rights framework open up a possible path of subjective reconfiguration and community emancipation. In our experience, it is not a matter of assuming an identity label but of locating intersex issues as the central point that guides where a personal search begins, a journey that will always be singular.

I had the feeling that it was a congenital malformation, as I was told to call it, and that I was a genetic accident, as if I were… I don’t know… an alien. However, through research I found other doctors who had a different sense of how to treat my medical condition or my diagnosis, which is Total Androgen Insensitivity. So that’s how I found Brújula.

[…] Thanks to them, I have recognised that I am part of a tribe, that I am not alone, that there are many of us but we have to start speaking out to make visible a condition that has been seen as a stigma, as something shameful that should not be talked about.

I think that genitalisation of our lives has been what has caused us the most harm, because we have been made to feel that there is a kind of handicap in our human condition compared to the rest of the people. However, thanks to Brújula I have found that this is not so, that I do not have to degrade the situation I live with and that I should feel proud. And the actions that I take will benefit me, the people in my tribe, and those who will come into existence in the future.

(Brújula Intersexual 2023e, translated by Frida Flores)

The first contact at Brújula Intersexual is Laura Inter. Given her workload, she has not been able to keep an exhaustive record of the intersex people who contact her, including family members of people with intersex variations. We estimate that only 10% of the people we have had contact with in this decade have either shared their life story, decided to get involved in activism or participated in activities promoted by Brújula Intersexual, participated in another intersex organisation, or have decided to attend community meetings. This implies that public access to what takes place in the intimate sphere is limited to those who participate in the meetings. We can share that the main issue that occurs during the initial meeting usually corresponds to doubts related to intersex bodily variations and the effects associated with them. The vast majority of people who contact us have not wanted to get in touch with other people with similar life experiences. They are people reaching out to us with particular inquiries: they have doubts about their bodies or about the surgical procedures performed on them during childhood or adolescence without their consent and want to know what exactly was done to them, or they need to resolve health situations that have not been addressed (some associated with non-consensual genital surgeries). Others did not undergo surgeries in childhood and are going through a process of deliberating whether or not to have the surgeries; others require information on how to make their gender change in their official documents; others want to know their chances of becoming pregnant; others seek informed and qualified medical or psychological support; and others simply want to be listened to by someone who understands them.

Regarding family members, commonly the person who contacts us is the mother. When their children are young, they usually seek information that helps them to better understand their child’s situation; they also have doubts about the surgical procedures proposed by doctors and seek wider and more understandable information about what happens to their child, and, in cases of CAH, they ask about pharmacological treatment. When their daughters or sons are adolescents or young adults and underwent genital surgery in childhood, the mother commonly has questions about the associated physical or mental health problems and seeks support and information. At Brújula Intersexual, we embrace the call that—from the San José de Costa Rica Statement—is made to families to open their ears beyond the cis-heteronormative medical system, to study the issue from the information produced by intersex activism, and to join us in our work to unmask human rights violations.

It is important to note that the intimate sphere is generated between peers, not only intersex people but also between endosex and intersex people, between endosex people, between intersex activists and mothers of intersex children, and between former patients and health professionals who participate in the core group of Brújula Intersexual. To understand that intersex bodies are not homogeneous, that there is no uniformity of circumstances, and, above all, to listen directly to the voices of people, we invite you to read the book Brújula. Voces de la intersexualidad en México (Laura-Inter [pseud] and Alcántara 2024), which brings together texts of analysis; testimonies of activists, intersex people, and family members; and the findings of Dr. Narváez, a doctor specialising in internal medicine and to whom we refer people seeking medical attention.

3.2. The Articulation of Brújula Intersexual within the Intersex Movement and Its Resonances in Public Policy

The term intersex is a century old. It was not initially linked to the human rights activist movement but instead emerged within the medical system (Carpenter 2022). In Spanish, we find that the term estados intersexuales was used to group what were considered to be “patologías de los caracteres sexuales” (pathologies of sex characteristics) (Marañón 1951, p. 67). This was the first denomination used in the Mexican medical system (Matus 1972). Therefore, how did intersex become the cardinal point that oriented encounters and activated the movement in Spanish? In the following paragraphs, we will analyse what happened from the experience of Laura Inter, who selected that term as the guiding direction of Brújula.

Laura Inter was born in 1983. Her body presented genital variations that included a larger-than-usual clitoris and a urogenital orifice. While she was not subject to genital surgeries, she endured constant genital examinations during childhood. At the age of 15, in 1998, Laura Inter wondered why her body was considered different and began an internet search based on terms she had found in her medical records: Pseudohermaphroditism, Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH), and genital malformation. These words led her primarily to medical references, and two years later, she found the English term intersex. ‘Intersex’ guided her to two websites: Bodies Like Ours and the Intersex Society of North America. Using a dictionary as a translation tool, she participated in an online forum, where she received a response from Betsy Driver—co-founder of Bodies Like Ours—who was also born with CAH and is an intersex activist in the United States. This is how she found other people with intersex bodies who spoke English, and the exchange with them provided her with new affirmative coordinates that allowed her to redefine her body and understand that sexuality comes in many forms:

I realized I was not “deformed”, that there was nothing wrong with my body, that intersex is not a disease in itself, and that my genitals were quite healthy as they were and were not a problem. I understood that intersex is more common and more normal than we think. This helped me to find peace with my body. I also found people who had not had surgery and to my surprise they were healthy, and had satisfying sex lives, which reassured me. I have come to understand, through my own experience, that being intersex opens a whole new world of possibilities around sexuality. Our anatomies may oblige us to rethink sexuality, to challenge sexist or preconceived ideas about it, and this is a good thing. Now I am sure that nonconsenting surgeries, genital exams in infancy and early childhood, as well as the language doctors use, only serve to make things worse.

(Laura-Inter [pseud] 2015, p. 97)

Laura Inter thought that there should be other intersex people who spoke Spanish, and she restarted the search for the Spanish word intersexualidad. She did not find a community but was able to contact other people in Mexico and also found texts written by Mauro Cabral, where the term intersexualidad appeared as a main axis in the reflection. Thus, the terms intersex and intersexualidad became the epicentre for exploring new paths and catalysing the encounter that led to the emergence of Spanish activist movements.

How did the extensive search for the terms intersex, intersexual, and intersexualidad begin on the American continent? To address this question, we used Google Trends to inspect the frequency of searches for these terms in Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina, as well as in the United States and Spain. As can be seen in Figure S1, the results indicate that, in the last decade, searches for these terms have been consistent with a slight increase. Frida Flores drew our attention to another term that appears frequently in medical records, which she used when she started her search on the internet: hermaphrodite. To our surprise, this word persists as a predominant search term in several Latin American countries, while the term intersex is the second most common and has gained ground in the last decade (Figure S2). Michel Foucault (2001) showed the centrality of this term in structuring the field of teratology and constructing the representation of the monster in the 18th century, thus delimiting the field of abnormality and establishing the coordinates of biological legal regulations. Alice Dreger (2003) analysed the centrality of the term hermaphrodite to the medical invention of sex. This term was taken up by the scientific medical discourse and has been rejected by the intersex movement, as it is pejorative and evokes stigmatising images that are also inaccurate. Bo Laurent attempted to reappropriate the term with an emancipatory impetus in the 1990s (Chase 1998). Figure S2 shows that, in the United States, there is a clear downward trend in search frequency for the term hermaphrodite, while searches for the term intersex have increased. Intersex and hermaphroditism came to be used in medical environments as synonyms. Hermaphrodite and pseudohermaphrodite are words that once indicated individual diagnoses and, therefore, can be found in medical records (Carpenter 2022). It would be interesting to think about what condenses the term hermaphrodite and its representation, as it persists not only on Google Trends but also in current cultural narratives and cinematic representations (Amato 2016). We believe that, in the fight for representation, it is relevant to continue using the term intersex as a bridge to open up a reflection on the human rights of people who present congenital bodily variability concerning sex characteristics. In this sense, we concur with Morgan Holmes that: “’Intersex’ is not a final term, nor the most appropriate term, but a powerful term whose historical, social and political importance remains critical as a tool for interrogating heteronormative and bionormative presuppositions about proper embodiment. Intersex also remains a critical site for our interrogation of the limits of its ability to speak of and to the experiences of self of those so labelled, and a critical site for the examination of scholarship on intersexuality” (Holmes 2009, p. 7).

Resonances and synergies of intersex movements are amplified in the form of expansive circular waves—rings that spread energy from the epicentre outwards (Rolnik 2021). The public presence of Brújula Intersexual shows an increasing trend that follows this dynamic. In the Timeline of Relevant Intersex Events (Timeline S1), we can see that this increase is related to a broader strengthening of intersex activism in Spanish, as well as the presence of Latin American intersex activists—including Laura Inter and other Mexican intersex activists—in meetings held in countries of the Global North. Regional and global intersex meetings allowed for networking, the exchange of information, and the fine-tuning of intervention strategies. Among the most important collaborations that we have carried out with the international intersex movement, it is possible to mention four: (1) the presentation—together with the Swiss NGO StopIGM.org and intersex activists—of reports on genital mutilation in Mexico, Chile, and Spain before the CRC 2017, CEDAW 2018, and CCPR 2019. These reports succeeded in getting the UN to make a declaration regarding the insufficient support and lack of effective resources to address the claims of intersex people in Mexico who underwent unnecessary medical interventions; (2) in April 2017, Laura Inter attended the 4th International Intersex Forum in Amsterdam with activists for different regions; (3) in 2017, Laura Inter participated in the Public Hearing on the human rights situations of intersex people in the Americas, before the IACHR in Washington D.C.; and (4) members of the core group of Brújula Intersexual took part in the committee that organised the First Latin American and Caribbean Conference of Intersex People in Costa Rica in 2018 and the Second Intersex Conference of Latin America and the Caribbean in 2020.

Table S1 presents the information gathered extensively through the scoping review, which is presented in a synthesised form in the Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3 and Figure 4. As can be seen from Figure 1, there was a gradual and increasing number of mentions per year of the keywords Brújula_Intersexual, Laura_Inter, and Encuesta_Intersex as search queries, starting in 2016. If we add the coordinates provided by Timeline S1, it reveals that other Spanish-speaking intersex organisations gradually began to emerge. In Mexico, Proyecto Intersexual (2015), Vivir y Ser Intersex (2016), and Intersex y Andrógino (2016) have been founded. Laura Inter received messages from people located in other Latin American countries who were interested in being part of the project, which is why some projects emerged at the beginning as “branches” of Brújula Intersexual. Over time, Laura Inter encouraged those people to become independent, which produced (among other things) a change in the name of some projects, such as Brújula Intersexual Chile to Intersexuales Chile, and Brújula Intersexual Colombia to Colombia Intersex (currently inactive), both founded in 2016. In 2018, Brújula Intersexual Argentina was founded, which became Orquidea Intersexual. In Spain, we closely suppoted Caminar Intersex since their foundation in 2019 and in 2020 the same happened with the Asociación Peruana de Personas Intersexuales (also known as Perú Intersex), and with Argentina Intersex. From 2020 on, more intersex websites in Spanish began to emerge, and we believe this is the reason for the decrease in the number of visits to the Brújula Intersexual website: 2015/50,054 visits; 2016/100,707 visits; 2017/130,547 visits; 2018/192,324; 2019/281,174 visits; 2020/278,896 visits; 2021/192,400 visits; 2022/173,461 visits; 2023/144,459 visits (according to the statistics of the website brujulaintersexual.org).

Figure 2 shows the countries with the highest number of mentions of the terms used, which, in decreasing order, are Mexico, Spain, the United States, Chile, Argentina, Australia, Peru, Colombia, and Brazil. This does not imply that the intersex movement is not active in other countries in the region but, rather, that Brújula Intersexual and the work conducted have circulated more in the aforementioned countries.

According to the consultations that we received during the first decade, we believe that the impact of Brújula Intersexual in those countries is related to (1) the presence of legal demands and/or legal and/or human rights debates linked to intersex medical care; (2) the presence of Spanish speakers interested in the issue, such as intersex people, mothers, and also journalists and academics; (3) the country where Brújula Intersexual was founded and where it operates; (4) access to the internet and social networks; (5) the economic capacity of the country; and (6) the presence of networks of work and sociability among intersex activists located in different countries.

Spheres of Insurrection and Public Space

Over this first decade, the second aspect of Brújula Intersexual’s work in Mexico refers to the public space, which is the most visible part of the project. In line with what Suely Rolnik (2021) denotes, Spheres of insurrection, we consider our work to be part of a set of micropolitical interventions aimed at destabilising the dominant forms of subjectivation rooted in the regime of sexual difference and dichotomous sex. This regime has an institutional dimension that regulates the state, which is why we have been interested in intervening in this biopolitical organisation. Below are some of the strategies that we have implemented to transform the public policies that regulate intersexuality.

Brújula Intersexual’s work in the public space includes collaboration with state institutions and universities, the creation of materials and informative brochures, and participation in training courses and workshops. All of these activities are aimed at raising awareness of the human rights violations and discrimination experienced by intersex people. With this, we seek to influence the generation of public policies and the transformation of institutional practices that respond to the knowledge of the daily situations and violence experienced by people with variations in sex characteristics.

To understand the resonances of Brujula Intersexual’s work in the public space, we analysed in Figure 3 the variety of documents in which the terms Brújula_Intersexual, Laura_Inter, and Encuesta_Intersex are referred; while Figure 4 summarises a more detailed approach to the types of mentions that we were able to identify with respect to the keyword Brújula_Intersexual. We have the impression that this technique allowed us to identify a kind of magnetic field that responds and mobilises with a peculiar dynamic. We set ourselves the task of reviewing each URL that mentioned the keyword to answer two questions: How is Brújula_Intersexual quoted? And what content produced by Brújula_Intersexual is retrieved or mentioned?

A first approximation allowed us to identify the following: (1) There are four fields in which the search term moves—media, emancipation movements, government, and academia. (2) The boundaries between the identified fields are porous and sometimes are not easy to discern, as a mention can oscillate between two or more fields. (3) There is a networked circulation that interweaves Brújula_Intersexual not only with intersex activism but also with other social emancipation movements, including LGBT+, feminism, and the disability movement, among others. (4) Table S1, as a whole, shows that the energy generated by the intersex movement tends to expand and circulate, establishing connections of varying intensity that multiply over time.

A more detailed review of the data allowed us to classify the type of format in which the search terms were mentioned (Figure 3). The most accessible was through blogs—the same format in which Brújula Intersexual operates—being one of the most accessible and popular ways to build communities and networks. The second is journalistic notes. We believe that this is due to the growing interest in intersex issues in recent years as a result of various debates around intersex birth registration and positions on a third legal gender (Cabral 2014). In Mexico, the association of the word intersex with a third gender led to the presentation of three misguided bills, which sought to register babies with intersex bodies outside of binary girl/boy assignment. In Figure 3, the third place is for academic articles, both in Spanish and English, which seems to indicate an increasing interest in non-pathologising approaches to intersex experiences.

More detailed information on how Brújula Intersexual has been mentioned can be found in Figure 4. The mentions highlight the most visible part of our work, including collaborations with state institutions and universities, the creation of informative materials, and participation in trainings and workshops. Through these actions, we seek to influence the formulation of public policies and the transformation of institutional practices to address everyday situations and combat the violence faced by people with intersex variations. Our objective with this public participation was to raise awareness about human rights violations and discrimination against intersex people.

From 2021 onwards, mentions of the term Brújula_Intersexual increased considerably in different media formats. Timeline S1 shows the years in which relevant public policies materials (to which we contributed) were published; for instance, the Guía para la atención a la intersexualidad y variación de la diferenciación sexual by the Ministry of Health (Secretaría de Salud 2017) and the results of the Intersex Survey (2020). Other published materials that have been adopted in institutional spaces related with public policies are Guía sobre Intersexualidad para madres y padres (2022); Guía para madres y padres Hiperplasia Suprarrenal Congénita (2022); Folleto sobre Intersexualidad en las escuelas (2023); Microrrelatos sobre intersexualidad (2023); ¿Qué del hospital enferma? Relatos intersex sobre atención médica (2023); and the short film Abriendo la Brújula (2023).

4. Conclusions

Over the past three decades, the intersex movement has diversified its configuration and expanded its scope transnationally, facing significant challenges due to diverse economic, social, and cultural dynamics around the world. However, despite the increased visibility and multiplicity of intersex activism, unresolved situations of medical violence and social discrimination persist. Most global discussions—both medical and human rights-based—are primarily conducted in English, leading to the effect of remaining dominated by actors from the Global North, thus creating an unequal knowledge structure around intersex.

Brújula Intersexual was founded in 2013. From then on, it has played a crucial role in the visibility and problematisation of intersex people in Mexico and beyond. Brújula Intersexual’s structure is organic and dynamic, and collaboration and knowledge exchange have been key elements in its operation. Digital platforms are the vehicle through which it has been possible to reach a wide and diverse audience. The testimony-based work methodology has allowed this organisation to capture and give voice to the unique experiences of intersex people, contributing to the construction of a resilient and supportive network. Community-building and trust-building were the key focus of its work in the first decade. Brújula Intersexual is referred to as a safe space where it is possible to share experiences and find support. In terms of impact, Brújula Intersexual has managed to influence public policies in Mexico by collaborating with state and educational institutions and generating informative materials. It has sought the transformation of institutional practices through the training of public servants. Brújula Intersexual’s work is characterised by a profound connection with its members, seeking to balance the demands of restorative justice for past injustices with the creation of new narratives and tools for a better future for intersex people.

The analysis of cis-heteronormativity has allowed us to deconstruct the binary logic that underlies intersex medical care. Understanding that the categorisation of sex is a product of the heterosexual regime has helped us to understand its functioning at the economic, symbolic, linguistic, and political levels. At Brújula Intersexual, we have worked to dismantle this dual logic, creating a space where intersex people can reconnect with their bodies and live their lives with joy and authenticity.

Intersex activism faces ongoing challenges, especially in contexts of economic precariousness and structural violence in the Global South. The visibility and circulation of the demands of the intersex movement add to the dynamics of contemporary sexual politics occurring on a global scale, as well as in Latin America and Mexico in particular. It is not possible to develop an analysis of these dynamics at length, but it is relevant to mention that the human rights framework has made it possible to construct a robust basis for collective emancipation. This is a transformation that Paul Preciado (2022) has called “un proceso de mutación planetaria en curso […] una serie de micromutaciones que llevarán, tarde o temprano, esta es la apuesta, a la transformación del régimen sexual, racial y productivo de la modernidad en una nueva configuración de las relaciones históricas entre poder, saber y vida” (“an ongoing process of planetary mutation […] a series of micro mutations that will lead, sooner or later, this is the bet, to the transformation of the sexual, racial, and productive regime of modernity to a new configuration of historical relations between power, knowledge and life”) (p. 31; own translation). This process is not exempt from confrontations and hostilities. In particular, that which mobilises the anti-gender movement needs to be addressed, hence the importance of “exploring TERFnesses” to understand “the links between anti-trans feminist activism, institutional politics, and anti-gender movements” (Cabral Grinspan et al. 2023, p. 10).

Intersex activism is not massive, and it is not the same everywhere. In Latin America, the visibility and circulation of the demands of the intersex movement take place in countries with all types of violence, great social inequalities, and economic difficulties (Borón 2020). In the countries of the global south, facing these difficulties, particularly economic precariousness, is a daily challenge. This reality has led some people to perceive activism as a way to improve their life situations. In this context, claiming to be intersex can be perceived as the first step in accessing sources of funding. There have been cases of people claiming to have variations in sex characteristics when this does not correspond to their reality. They create intersex organisations with the objective of accessing funding sources, which is sometimes successful. Activists impact on three dimensions simultaneously: on a social level, they inform intersex issues; on a political level, they reinscribe them within the human rights framework; and, on a theoretical level, they push for a different reading of the world, which is essential to transform intersex healthcare practices. Therefore, activist work requires a careful and responsible approach.

At Brújula Intersexual, we perform committed activism that is characterised by listening and the formation of close and meaningful networks between its members, collaborators, and other intersex people and their families. Not everything has been harmonious, and there have been many disagreements, some of which have ended in breakups. We have worked with heavy emotional burdens, which is exhausting, frequently struggling to maintain our sanity in a tidal wave of affective intensity. Rather than a calm river, this work has flowed in the middle of the storm. These bonds are often intense, and therefore, overflowing is inevitable as people approach us with traumatic situations and strong emotional burdens (Melero 2023). Over the years, we have faced complex situations associated with feelings of anguish, depression, anxiety, or anger. We have consciously tried to ensure that the activism carried out by Brújula Intersexual is based on creativity, intelligence, and a deep connection with other people. We try to find a balance between the past, the present, and the future; as such, we work not only to demand restorative justice for past injustices but also with current issues, such as the physical repercussions from surgeries and mental health repercussions that generate an emotional overflow that is very difficult to deal with on a daily basis. In addition, we deal with what continues to happen every day in paediatric hospitals around the world. We are in contact with mothers and intersex children, and we desire a better future for them. We work towards generating new narratives and creating new tools that allow intersex individuals to have a different life, one in which their human rights are respected, where they can grow up free from discrimination and violence, and where they can access information that allows them to have a better life.