Intersexuality - Dealing with Intersexuality

Socio-cultural Attitudes - Legal Traditions

All legal traditions have a religious origin, because originally all law was divine law. This remained true even when the laws were first written down. All ancient law givers - from the Babylonian ruler Hammurabi (18th century BC) to the biblical Moses (ca. 13th century BC) - cited some divine will as the source of their legal codes. Egyptian pharaos proclaimed their divine birth, the emperors of China and Japan called themselves sons of heaven, Roman emperors were venerated as gods, and even in the 7th century AD, the Prophet Mohammed still claimed divine inspiration, a claim kept alive in current Islamic law. It was only in modern times that Western legislators began to eliminate religious influences from the law, for example the French emperor Napoleon in his revolutionary Penal Code of 1811. Since then, Western law has become increasingly secular, and especially in the area of human sexuality, has gradually become more pragmatic. After all, in modern democracies the law is seen as the work of human legislators who are elected to express the will of their constituents. This popular will, however, has to respect certain irrevocable civil rights. Thus, for example, the basic rights of religious, racial, and ethnic minorities remain protected, no matter what the majority might wish to decide. In recent decades, and to a certain extent, such basic rights have also been extended to sexual minorities. Nevertheless, in the case of intersexuality, the law remains inadequate. Therefore, intersex advocacy groups demand additional legal reforms, especially in the the following areas.