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Astraea launched the Intersex Human Rights Fund in 2015 to honor the resilience, creativity and growth of intersex activism and to ensure the human rights of intersex people.
We recognize that the entrenched practice of organizing the world into the sex binary and gender binary has alarming and rights-violating consequences for intersex bodies. People with intersex variations face invisibility, stigma, discrimination and violence. Intersex babies, children and teenagers are widely subjected to normalizing, non-consensual, harmful surgeries and other medical interventions, with life-long consequences, including but not limited to sterilization and genital mutilation. There are very few legal frameworks to protect intersex people from multiple forms of discrimination and institutional violence. While intersex activism has been growing around the world, intersex issues and communities remain starkly under-funded, receiving less than a fraction of 1% of global foundation funding for LGBTQI people and/or women and girls.
The Intersex Human Rights Fund supports organizations, projects and timely campaigns led by intersex activists working to ensure the human rights, bodily autonomy, physical integrity and self-determination of intersex people.
Astraea particularly seeks proposals from intersex activists who have never applied for a grant or received foundation funding. Groups with small or no budgets, staff or structures are eligible and encouraged to apply.
We make grants with the support of our Intersex Fund Advisory Board, a body of six intersex activists covering all regions of the world who inform our grantmaking strategies and decisions.
Update for 2021:
We are sorry to inform you that we are currently not accepting unsolicited proposals for the Intersex Human Rights Fund.
The Intersex Human Rights Fund currently funds over 50 intersex organizations and projects all over the world. In line with the IHRF’s commitment to providing accompaniment and support beyond grantmaking, acknowledging the increased challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and faced by intersex organizations and activists in all regions, and mindful of our capacity limitations, we will not have an open call for applications in 2021.
We will continue to support our current grantees (through renewal grants) and regional movements, particularly in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean, through our capacity-building programs and funding.
If you are an intersex activist or an intersex-led organization looking for funding, we recommend sending us an email at intersexfund@astraeafoundation.org with your organization’s name and contact details, so we keep you in our records and inform you when we next have an open call for applications (likely in 2022).
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