Since March 15, 2022, Chile bans discrimination based on "sex characteristics" under Law 21,430 on Guarantees and Integral Protection of the Rights of Children and Adolescents. Between December 2015 and August 2016, the Chilean Ministry of Health issued a regulatory suspension of non-necessary cosmetic medical interventions on intersex children. The guidelines were replaced by guidance permitting intersex medical interventions. History In 2015, Chile briefly became the second country to protect intersex infants and children from unnecessary medical interventions, following Malta, however, the regulations were superseded the following year. Chile also has an early example of court ordered compensation awarded in the Benjamín-Maricarmen case in 2012. In April 2018, Latin American and Caribbean intersex activists published the San José de Costa Rica statement, defining local demands. Since 2022, Chile is the first country in Latin America that provide legal protection from discrimination based on sex characteristics. Physical integrity and bodily autonomy In 2015, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended that Chile recognize the rights of Chilean intersex children, and expressed concern "about cases of medically unnecessary and irreversible surgery and other treatment on intersex children": In January 2016, the Ministry of Health of Chile ordered the suspension of unnecessary normalization treatments for intersex children, including irreversible surgery, until they reach an age when they can make decisions on their own. The instructions were published in Circular 8, 22 December 2015, entitled "Instructions on aspects of health care to intersex children". The circular instructs the ceasing of "unnecessary "normalization" treatment of intersex children, including irreversible genital surgeries, until they are old enough to decide about their bodies", while work takes place to develop protocols that meet human rights standards. The country became the second in the world to protect intersex children from harmful practices, after Malta. However, the 2015 circular was superseded by Circular 7 of 23 August 2016, which states that the earlier recommendation not to perform unnecessary genital surgeries does not apply to "pathologies" where sex can be clearly determined. It also does not apply in cases of congenital adrenal hyperplasia when professionals or the patient deem surgery necessary, and where a patient or their representative (such as a parent) consents. In cases where either sex may be assigned, sex assignment and surgeries may be made by agreement between parents and multidisciplinary teams, also considering the possibility of deferring surgeries to a time when a child