Introducing the special issue: on Intersex Joy

While intersex studies and activism understandably focus on violence, trauma and anger to fight against the myriad forms of interphobia, various intersex people, scholars and activists seem to be turning to joy to resist deficit frameworks. Responding to this turn, our introduction to the special issue ‘On Intersex Joy’ unpacks and theorises the potential of placing intersex studies in conversation with feminist theorisations of joy and happiness. Intersex and anti-interphobic perspectives and testimonies can open up a well-spring of ideas in feminist thinking about joy and happiness. Some of the questions we ask include: How might critical intersex studies scholars and intersex activists/advocates prompt feminist scholars to rethink or reimagine happiness? How do intersex studies scholars’, activists’ and advocates’ understandings and experiences of joy challenge interphobia? How does intersex joy interrupt the presumption that intersex people's lives are always and already doom and gloom unless they conform to endonormativity?