Shana Knizhnik testifies for Intro 131 and public education

Sorry, I guess it wasn't letting me unmute myself.

Hi, everyone.

Good afternoon.

Thank you so much to Councilmember Caban for introducing this bill to Chair Hanif, my former councilmember, and Chair Nurse, my current councilmember, for this hearing.

And thank you all for the opportunity to submit my testimony.

I'm so sorry that I am not able to be there in person today.

My name is Shauna Knishnik.

I use she, her pronouns.

I am a white woman with short dyed blonde hair.

I'm wearing glasses and a blue and white striped shirt.

I live and work in New York City, where I have lived essentially my entire adult life, having attended Columbia University and then NYU School of Law.

And I've been a Brooklyn resident since 2010.

I was previously a public defender in Manhattan for six years at the Legal Aid Society, and I'm now a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union's LGBTQ and HIV project.

And I'm a current member of the board of directors of Interact, as you've learned.

the largest organization in the United States dedicated to the rights of intersex people.

I'm also an intersex woman.

I came out publicly in an op-ed in Teen Vogue in 2020 at the age of 32 after a lifetime of secrecy, being lied to, and taught to lie about my own body.

And today I am speaking in my personal capacity in support of Intro 131 2026.

The experience of being intersex, as you've heard from my friends today, is different for every intersex person.

But what connects every single story I've ever heard is that our sex traits, which do not fit typical notions or expectations of male or female bodies, are treated by society at large as a problem to be fixed.

Or completely ignored rather than as a beautiful facet of natural human diversity.

And that treatment leads to almost uniform experiences of shame and secrecy, as you've heard today from so many of my dear friends.

Even within the LGBTQIA plus community, the I can often feel like it stands for invisible.

As a result, intersex people can suffer from exclusion, inaccurate assumptions, which leads to concerningly high rates of discrimination, especially in the areas that the NYC Human Rights Law covers, like housing and employment.

Although many people who are intersex also identify

under other letters of the rainbow acronym, the experiences and treatment of intersex people are unique and deserving of their own recognition, celebration, and equal protection under the law.

Federal protections for LGBTQIA plus Americans have, as we know, been rolled back and attacked at every level by this current federal administration.

Specific protections for intersex people that were only recently adopted by the previous administration have been included in those rollbacks.

And that includes, of course, in the areas of health care as well as employment.

In my day job as a civil rights lawyer, I am actively involved in fighting against these attacks and their impact on LGBTQIA Americans.

And every action that we see that targets our transgender siblings, including in the areas of health care, identity documents, education, sports, bathroom access, and more, also impacts intersex people.

However, the absence of explicit recognition of intersex people in federal anti-discrimination laws makes protecting our rights much more complicated and difficult.

The rollbacks and attacks at the federal level, as well as across numerous other jurisdictions at the state and local level, have been ramping up.

Your time has expired?

Apologize.

I will just say that I'm so

grateful that New York City gets the opportunity to lead the nation in recognizing the reality that sex-like gender identity often does not fit a neat binary and that discrimination based on such traits is unlawful, full stop.

And I hope that this bill is one more small step in many of the history of intersex people asserting our own existence.

Thank you for the opportunity to support.