An exhibition will take place in the City Museum of Kyiv, Bohdan Khmelnitsky st., 7, by October 16 in the lobby at the 4th floor. This opening, displaying artistic photos of intersex people from different countries, discloses the dignity and beauty of these people that live among us, but still hide themselves from hostile glances.
This action is organized by Égalité Intersex Ukraine and supported by Program “Resilient Movements, Stronger Communities” operated by RFSL and by the Government of Sweden.
Intersex people are one of the most vulnerable groups of Ukrainian society today. Égalité Intersex Ukraine considers now the right time to make this new step towards improving the situation with human rights for intersex people in our country, to stop performing inhuman mutilating operations. We need to make it possible for intersexes to update documents to reflect their correct gender. The problem with an ID or photo can seem minor for many, but for intersex it is critical, and can create incredible hindrance for them in getting medical care, looking for employment or traveling. To draw public attention to the problems of intersex people, October 26 has been declared the Day of Awareness of the Status of Intersex people.
However, to our mind this problem has a much wider dimension. The mentality of Ukrainian society is still predominantly traditional. It mainly focuses on men in language, way of thinking and behavior. In such circumstances, it is very difficult to expect real equality for women, and even more so equality and social justice for women-intersex.
Our organization is presenting an exhibition of photo portraits of intersex people from around the world, in order to show to everybody, the beauty and dignity of intersex people from different countries and continents. This event became possible thanks to, Katia Repina a famous photographer from New York and Carla Moral independent photographer from Spain. Katia and Carla have spent many years traveling all over the world collecting photos and stories of intersex people. Articles featuring their pictures can be found in The Washington Post, the NY Times, Vogue, The Time and other influential newspapers.
By opening this exhibition, we want to foster the process of educating the citizens of Ukraine about respect for human diversity, empathy and tolerance, because we are trying to nurture in our society an understanding that we all live together in our beloved home, Earth.
Égalité Intersex Ukraine is nongovernmental, nonpartisan organization founded in 2014 by a group of intersex and allied people who share our values of equality for all people and support our goals to help intersex people to find a worthy place in society, the equal right for health care, and the right to study and work. We are working to educate the Ukrainian society that the intersexuality is not a cause for social and professional discrimination.
The exhibition will hold from October 16 till 1 November 2020.
