Intersex rights in South Africa
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Intersex people in South Africa have some of the same rights as other people, but with significant gaps in protection from non-consensual cosmetic medical interventions and protection from discrimination. The country was the first to explicitly include intersex people in anti-discrimination law.
Early and prominent intersex activists include Sally Gross and Nthabiseng Mokoena. Gross, an anti-apartheid and intersex activist, was a founder of Intersex South Africa, an autonomous intersex community organisation affiliated with Organisation Intersex International.
In 2000, Gross helped to secured the first known mention of intersex in national law, with the inclusion of "intersex" within the definition of "sex" in the anti-discrimination law of the Republic of South Africa. Subsequently, she helped to draft legislation on the Alteration of Sex Descriptors, and the Promotion of Equality.
In 2016, the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights joined other human rights institutions in condemning human rights violations on intersex people, including in medical settings. In 2016, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child issued recommendations to guarantee bodily integrity and self-determination of intersex and other children, and ensure sanctions on perpetrators of harmful practices. The South African government acknowledged that such practices occur in the country.
In South Africa, the Judicial Matters Amendment Act, 2005 (Act 22 of 2005) amended the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act, 2000 (Act 4 of 2000) to include intersex within its definition of sex. Sex is one of the prohibited grounds under the act, which means that discrimination on the basis of sex is presumed to be unfair, and therefore prohibited, unless proven otherwise. The act provides that:
'intersex' means a congenital sexual differentiation which is atypical, to whatever degree; 'sex' includes intersex;
It is not known whether or not Caster Semenya has an intersex condition. However, the controversy surrounding her treatment and sex verification tests has made her a cause célèbre. Prominent South African civic leaders, commentators, politicians, and activists characterised the controversy as racist, as well as an affront to Semenya's privacy and human rights.
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