We welcome the VEOHRC Guidelines for General Practitioners

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VEOHRC GP Guidelines
We welcome the publication of guidelines for general practitioners by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission. With our input, it includes a good statement about what constitutes discrimination by family doctors towards intersex people. The statement reads:

Intersex people are a distinct group from transgender people and may experience different forms of discrimination. This might include:

  • failure to fully disclose diagnosis details, or doing so in a disrespectful manner or ways that prejudge treatment paths
  • failure to fully inform regarding treatment options, risks and outcomes, including options to delay or avoid interventions
  • suggesting that they must identify as a specific gender, or must have genital surgery, hormone or other treatment
  • irrelevant focus on the sex of the patient, including binary definitions of sex on intake and patient record forms (for example, tick-boxes that only offer two options, ‘male’ or ‘female’).

The Guidelines also include a good definition of intersex, and information about OII Australia and the AISSGA in the appendix.

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