The ‘I’ in LGBTQIA+ stands for people who are tired of being overlooked

When Betsy Driver’s mother took her to medical appointments as a child, she asked whether other children were like her daughter. According to Driver, doctors told her no.Years later, Driver found people with the same intersex variation who had been treated at the same hospital.“We were lied to, plain and simple, lied to,” she told The Advocate.The discovery propelled Driver into work that connected people across countries and generations. She co-founded the online community Bodies Like Ours, helped establish Intersex Awareness Day, and became the first openly intersex person elected to public office in the United States.On Monday, that observance marks 30 years since intersex activists and transgender allies protested outside an American Academy of Pediatrics conference in Boston. Their demand — an end to medically unnecessary interventions performed before patients could consent — remains unfinished business. Now, advocates confront policies restricting transgender healthcare while preserving exceptions for procedures on intersex children.“Stop cutting our bodies,” Driver said. “Stop cutting us, please, and let us be.”Related: How anti-trans policies are disrupting efforts to prevent genital mutilationFinding community after a childhood of secrecyIntersex people are born with variations in sex characteristics, including chromosomes, hormones, or reproductive anatomy, that differ from typical expectations for male or female bodies. Some traits are identified at birth; others emerge later. Intersex people can be women, men, nonbinary, or another gender. Some are transgender; many, including Driver, are not.Driver has congenital adrenal hyperplasia, an inherited condition affecting hormone production in the adrenal glands. Some forms cause excess production of androgens, hormones that influence sexual development. Exposure before birth can cause girls to be born with genital variations. The condition can also cause serious hormone deficiencies requir