New Idea Mag: Intersex is “Shocking Discovery”, in one-pager on Phoebe Hart

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Intersex documentary filmmaker Phoebe Hart appears in an article in popular Australian women’s magazine New Idea this week. The report ends by mentioning that she appears in Orchids: My Intersex Adventure this Sunday but not that she is the director. Other inaccuracies are scattered throughout the article.

Phoebe in New Idea

Some notes for journalists reporting on intersex:

  • Even though some intersex people reclaim the term, most intersex people don’t use the term hermaphrodite. There is technically no such thing as a human hermaphrodite: hermaphrodites have both sets of reproductive organs of each sex, simultaneously or sequentially.
  • Intersex describes a range of natural biological variations in sex, like hair colour, tallness or shortness or the colour of one’s skin are natural variations. Is having dark hair or dark skin a “medical condition” to be “cured”? No and neither is intersex.
  • Intersex Australians do not currently have equality, human rights or protection against discrimination. OII Australia continues to make gains in that area though.
  • The marriages of intersex Australians are in unclear legal territory due to amendments to the Marriage Act 1961. Marriage equality is as much an issue for intersex people as it is for the rest of the LGBTI community.
  • Intersex newborns, infants and teenagers continue to be subjected to unnecessary medical interventions including surgery that requires one takes HRT for the rest of one’s life. This is non-consensual, cosmetic surgery. As with female genital mutilation – FGM – human rights activists want IGM banned or criminalized.
  • The surgery on Phoebe was justified by a cancer scare by doctors. In reality, a tiny percentage of people with her intersex variation contract cancer from their gonads. If permitted to remain in the body, they produce testosterone that is naturally aromatized into estrogen. Removal demands a lifetime on hormone replacement therapy, which is medically contraindicated and may not be safe. Removal does not somehow make one “more feminine”.
  • If you wish to know more about being intersex, please get in touch with us via our Contact page.

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