interACT

General program: Interact works to empower intersex youth and advance the rights of all people with innate variations in their physical sex characteristics through advocacy, pulic engagement and community connection.

Media & awareness: staff, youth members and board members participated in / presented 50+ talks and trainings, reaching an audience of 3,000+. Interact partnered with the makers of the film every body, featuring several intersex activists including former Interact youth; attended the tribeca film festival premiere, led interviews with the subjects in the film and joined panels at film screenings. We launched our social media trans and intersex solidarity campaign alongside the national center for transgender equality (now a4te), forming solidarity between transgender and intersex communities while both are under attack by regressive policymaking. Over 30 organizations joined the campaign, including the national lgbtq task force, glma, and the congressional equality caucus. Interact media brought our first-ever youth cohort into awareness-raising and social media advocacy with a media training and social media safety presentation. Youth member adyanj participated in an instagram live with triathlete chris mosier on intersex and trans inclusion in sports, and liat wrote a comprehensive history of intersex identities through the lens of judaism for our blog

Youth: Interact youth is our intersex youth advocacy collective, empowering young intersex advocates with community connection, leadership skills, and a platform to raise their voices. Youth voices are at the heart and soul of Interact's mission to advance intersex bodily integrity and autonomy in medical decision-making. In 2023, Interact implemented a youth advocacy cohort model to invest in youth leadership and development more intensively. Program achievements included providing microgrant and staff support of member-led creative advocacy projects, training youth members in advocacy, media skills and digital safety, preparing youth members to represent Interact at public events such as local pride festivals, and providing full scholarships for 8 intersex youth to attend the 2023 interconnect conference. Ispace, a virtual peer support program for intersex young people established in 2018, grew to more than 160 members. In 2023, Interact awarded the inaugural kimberly zieselman award for young emerging intersex leaders to banti jaswal, an Interact youth member for seven years; with this award, banti was offered a seat on the Interact board.

Law and policy: staff presented a briefing on intersex-affirming policymaking, equality and inclusion to congressmembers. Interact coordinated community responses to an hhs request for public comment in support of its forthcoming report on intersex health equity. Staff presented to the american bar association, which then voted to adopt a groundbreaking intersex-affirming resolution opposing nonconsensual intersex surgery on minors. Interact submitted comments to several federal rulemaking proposals, supported community participation in comment submission, and helped secure intersex-affirming language in the administration's final title ix rules, aca section 1557 rules on healthcare discrimination, and rules on section 504 of the rehabilitation act. Published letter of opposition to hr 734, which failed to advance. Legal and policy director raised awareness about "intersex exceptions" authorizing nonconsensual surgery now extant in all enacted state bans on gender-affirming care for minors. Worked with legislators and governor to secure enactment of new york intersex education campaign bill.