Intersex and Education: What Can Schools and Queer School Projects Learn from Current Discourses on Intersex in Austria?

How young people talk about their variations in sex characteristics: making the topic of intersex talkable via sex education

“…This aligns with a more general argument that sex education should provide young people with correct and useful information about human sexuality (Aggleton and Campbell 2000). Two important goals of including intersex in sex education are: first, to recognise the existence of young people with variations in sex characteristics who may then feel that they are not alone (Breu 2009); and, second, to increase awareness and acceptance in students with no prior knowledge of variations in sex characteristics (Enzendorfer and Haller 2020). Achieving these goals could promote individual wellbeing and intervene in the social contexts in which children grow.…”

“…Several calls have been made to include the topic of intersex in sexuality education in order to promote visibility and raise awareness (Breu 2009, Enzendorfer and Haller 2020, Koyama and Weasel 2002 and to counter the silence around variations in sex characteristics in an understanding that this silence is embedded in the culture into which children are socialised (Enzendorfer and Haller 2020, Breu 2009, Jones et al 2016. This aligns with a more general argument that sex education should provide young people with correct and useful information about human sexuality (Aggleton and Campbell 2000).…”

“…Providing young people with sex education information is not straightforward, either generally (Aggleton andCampbell 2000, Allen 2004), or in specific relation to intersex (King 2016). Educating about intersex can be problematic in a number of ways such as when medicalised perspectives are foregrounded (Enzendorfer and Haller 2020) and when a voyeuristic or exoticising perspective is taken (Enzendorfer and Haller 2020, Koyama and Weasel 2002, Brömdal et al 2017. It would also be problematic to use the topic of intersex only to deconstruct binary sex or to take an 'othering' approach that assumes people with intersex characteristics are not in the classroom (Koyama and Weasel 2002).…”

“…Contexts where the hetero-, binary cis-and endonormativity that underpin sex education are not talkable are of particular concern. In these contexts, it may be difficult to broach the topic of intersex without activating a warning that some things are dangerous for young people to know about (Brömdal et al 2017, Enzendorfer and Haller 2020, Jones et al 2016. McAvoy (2013) argues that education that goes beyond information-giving should engage with young people's understanding of themselves as subjective beings living within social and normative contexts.…”

“…Sex education is a messy business with or without consideration of intersex. Sex education classrooms are important spaces for youth with variations in sex characteristics as much as for their classmates (Enzendorfer andHaller 2020, Breu 2009), but classrooms have received far less attention than clinics in intersex studies.…”