Exploring Intersex Identity- with advocate Erika Lorshbough
Breaking Down Patriarchy
Amy McPhie Allebest
4.9 • 654 Ratings
🗓️ 14 October 2025
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Amy is joined by Erika Lorshbough, Executive Director of InterACT, to learn what it means to be intersex, the major struggles facing the intersex community, and how intersex issues are also women's issues.
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Erika Lorshbough is an intersex advocate and activist for civil and human rights. Most recently, Erika served as deputy director for policy at the New York Civil Liberties Union and led the organization’s extremely successful statewide legislative program advancing principles of freedom, justice, and equality. Along with their experience in program and organizational management, Erika brings two decades of heart work in community organizing and social action. Their law and policy experience has spanned the areas of gender and sexuality, voting rights and democracy, economic justice, criminal legal system reform, and the rights of people experiencing detention and incarceration. Erika completed their undergraduate studies in psychology and public policy at UCLA and the Luskin School of Public Affairs and received their J.D. from Brooklyn Law School. In addition to numerous public interest awards and legal fellowships, Erika has been honored as a Rising Star by the Brooklyn Law School Alumni Association, and was named one of the Best LGBTQ+ Lawyers Under 40 by the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association. Erika is a certified restorative justice practitioner, an adoring caretaker of plants and animals (and people!), and a fan of wandering and getting lost from time to time.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Breaking Down Patriarchy. I'm Amy McPhee, all the best. As a project dedicated to understanding |
| 0:07.6 | and deconstructing patriarchal structures, a lot of our conversation here at Breaking Down Patriarchy |
| 0:13.2 | is conversation about the two binary sexes, female and male, and the two binary genders that |
| 0:19.4 | typically tie to those sexes, women and men. |
| 0:22.7 | But as listeners know, there are many, many people who exist outside of these tidy categories. |
| 0:29.4 | Some people transition between genders and some people embrace non-binary identities. |
| 0:34.8 | And then there are the 1.7% of our siblings who are born intersex. |
| 0:40.3 | As it turns out, the population of people born intersex is just about the same size as the |
| 0:45.3 | percentage of people born with red hair. So chances are, if you know any redheads, you probably |
| 0:50.9 | know some intersex people as well. But how much do you really know about them and what it |
| 0:56.1 | means to be intersex? What is life like for our country's intersex community? What are their |
| 1:02.5 | struggles? How can we help? And what can we learn from them as well as we all work together for |
| 1:07.9 | an egalitarian future? I'll admit I don't have all the answers to any of |
| 1:13.6 | these questions myself, but that is why I'm so thrilled to be joined today by one of the nation's |
| 1:18.6 | leading intersex advocates. They're an outspoken activist, a hardworking lawyer, and the executive |
| 1:24.2 | director of Interact, the only intersex-led policy organization in the United |
| 1:29.5 | States. Their name is Erica Lorschba, and I'm so excited to have them joining us today. Welcome, |
| 1:35.1 | Erica. Yeah, thank you so much. I'm so glad to be with you. Erica Lorshba, whose pronouns are they, |
| 1:42.1 | she, is an intersex advocate and activist for civil and human rights. |
| 1:46.7 | Their law and policy experience has spanned the areas of gender and sexuality, voting rights and democracy, economic justice, criminal legal system reform, and the rights of people experiencing detention and incarceration. |
| 2:00.0 | In addition to numerous public interest awards and |
| 2:02.8 | legal fellowships, Erica has been honored as a rising star by the Brooklyn Law School Alumni |
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