Intersex Society of North America

The Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) was a nonprofit organization founded in 1993 in San Francisco, California, by intersex activist Cheryl Chase (also known as Bo Laurent). It was formed to provide peer support to intersex people, to educate family and friends, and to advocate for changes in the medical practices imposed on intersex infants. ISNA was the world’s largest intersex organization in the 1990s and played an important role in the U.S. intersex rights movement. The organization had approximately 3,500 members, many of whom were educated, white, middle-class people between the ages of 30 and 45. Most were from the United States and Canada, but some resided in the United Kingdom, Germany, and New Zealand.

In the 1990s, discussions surrounding intersexuality started to grow, ...