Bodily Integrity
Bodily integrity is the principle that all people, including children, have the right to autonomy and self-determination when it comes to their own bodies.
For more information, contact: Cianán Russell, Senior Policy Officer
This includes being protected from intersex genital mutilation (IGM), forced sterilisation and forced medicalisation. Bodily integrity also means increased access to many healthcare fundamentals, like sexual and reproductive healthcare and rights – and assisted reproductive technologies and insurance coverage.
At ILGA-Europe, we work to protect LGBTI people’s bodily integrity in a few ways.
To start with, our team supports the work of the EU and Council of Europe to develop international human rights standards – and ensures that violations are well-documented by national and international bodies.
We also support medical and ethical bodies in developing guidance by working with the Council of Europe Committee on Bioethics, among others. Besides, we support national policy development processes and coordinate with national civil society to support ICD-11 implementation. Last but not least, we engage in strategic litigation as well as advocacy with NGOs working on similar issues.
Overall, our work to sustain LGBTI people’s bodily integrity revolves around a few focus areas: sexual and reproductive health and rights, IGM and trans bodily integrity.
Here is how we work with each of these focus areas:
Sexual and reproductive health and rights
Protecting sexual and reproductive health and rights comes down to a few actions. Specifically, we advocate for non-discriminatory access to assisted reproductive technology (ART) — regardless of SOGIESC. We also advocate for access to insurance coverage for ARTs, based on the body of each individual.
At ILGA-Europe, we specifically work to advocate for sexual and reproductive health and rights by collaborating with NGOs working on similar issues (i.e. abortion rights). And across the board, we collaborate with the EU and CoE in their development of international human rights standards, support national advocacy and engage in strategic litigation.
Intersex genital mutilation (IGM)
Prohibiting intersex mutilation is one of the goals we work towards at ILGA-Europe. That means we advocate to legally ban IGM on national levels; to support infrastructure for intersex people and their families based on human rights principles; and to develop human rights-based medical guidelines on both national and international levels.
Our advocacy looks like assisting efforts to document IGM and its consequences and supporting medical and ethical bodies in developing guidance. We also collaborate with NGOs working on similar issues, like FGM.
Trans bodily integrity
Some governments continue to infringe on the bodily integrity of their trans citizens, in Europe and beyond. So at ILGA-Europe, we advocate against these human rights violations — like forced medicalisation, sterilisation and pathologisation. Instead, we advocate for informed consent-based transition-related healthcare (TRHC); including TRHC in insurance coverage; and SRHR protections based on individual body parts.
We do this work by engaging in strategic litigation and supporting national LGR and TRHC policy development processes. We also collaborate with the European Professional Association for Transgender Health (EPATH) and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) on our advocacy. Besides, we offer support to ICD-11 implementation — and develop international human rights standards with the EU.
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For more information, contact: Cianán Russell, Senior Policy Officer
