Intersex Society of North America

From 1993 to 2008, the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) was at the forefront of the effort to destigmatize intersex and reform the medical treatments regularly practiced by doctors treating intersex conditions. As a result of this activism, this medical approach was propelled into crisis and reform and remains in a state of flux today. The timing of the intersex patients’ rights movement in the mid-1990s followed on the heels of the considerably larger lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender movements. This entry defines intersex; examines the medical treatment model in question; and discusses the development, impact, and dissolution of the Intersex Society of North America.