Intersex Human Rights Australia

Trans/Gender Diverse

Intersex

• Self-identified gender does not match sex assigned at birth.
• Unless born with an intersex variation, possess full and functional reproductive capacity, at least prior to any chosen transition process.

• Innate variations in biological sex characteristics do not fit medical and social expectations for female or male bodies.
• The concept of sex assigned at birth was developed to describe the assignment of intersex children as girls and boys.
• Most intersex people identify/live in line with sex assigned at birth, while a minority identify in other ways.

• Medicalised and pathologised as Gender Dysphoria, formerly Gender Identity Disorder.
• Able to participate fully and in an informed manner in their surgical and hormonal options.
• Subject to financial considerations and regulations affecting access to gender markers, will have a chosen experience of transition, whether surgical and/or hormonal, permanent or temporary, and may make arrangements for fertility preservation.
• Subject to financial considerations and regulations affecting access to gender markers, may choose the extent of any transition.
• Subject to financial considerations, the ability to choose the time of gender affirmation.
• Access to medication relating to diagnosis is subject to medical management, including psychological assessment.
• Sterilisation for gender recognition violates human rights.
• Irreversible surgical and/or hormonal intervention is prohibited at least until a person is old enough to consent with access to peer support.
• Effective medical protocols exist for binary gender affirmation by adults.
• An identical twin of a trans person may or may not be trans.

• Medicalised and pathologised as Disorders of Sex Development (DSD).
• Physical variations may affect the whole of the body including genetic, chromosomal and hormonal variations, and especially sex anatomy. May be accompanied in some cases by cognitive variations.
• May have limited or no fertility due to innate or iatrogenic factors.
• Early irreversible surgical and/or hormonal intervention is routine, prior to a person’s ability to personally consent, despite a lack of evidence of necessity and established adverse consequences for sexual function and sensation.
• Forced and coercive medical interventions violate human rights.
• Many diagnosis-specific medical protocols exist, with over sixty years of medical research, predominantly focusing on genitalia and “normalising” treatments.
• No long-term follow-up, and no clear evidence of good outcomes.
• Inappropriate and harmful medicalisation may occur if or when individuals do not conform with diagnostic or gender identity expectations.
• Often surgery is conducted without consent; often surgery is coerced with no peer support.
• Reparative surgery to deal with consequences of early interventions without consent may be regarded as elective or cosmetic, and not funded by Medicare.
• An identical twin of an intersex person will also be intersex, except in rare recorded cases of mosaicism that stretch the definition of ‘identical’.

• Basic public understanding recognises the existence of transgender people, often reduced to concepts such as being “born in the wrong body”
• Public conceptions and understandings do not reflect the diversity of transgender experiences, but do not adversely impact the goals of the transgender movement.
• The transgender movement is established and growing, with many people employed to work on systemic advocacy, campaigning, healthcare, and peer support.
• Misconceptions about being transgender have consequences for mental health, and for seeking help from peers.
• Can be subjected to stigmatisation and assumptions about personal identities, and subjected to body shaming.

• Public confusion about the nature of intersex is widespread, often conflating intersex with non-binary gender identities or a third sex classification.
• Public misunderstandings do not fit the reality and diversity of intersex lived experience, have no grounding in community declarations and the goals of the intersex movement, and adversely impact community organising.
• The intersex movement is smaller and poorly resourced, with few people employed to work on systemic advocacy and peer support.
• The intersex movement is well organised, with a regional declaration on intersex rights: the Darlington Statement.
• Misconceptions about being intersex have consequences for access to healthcare services, and for access to peer support by individuals, families and potential families.
• Read demographic data.
• Can be subjected to stigmatisation and assumptions about personal identities, and subjected to body shaming.

• As with same sex attracted people, physical differences may be apparent in a correlation with ‘brain sex’ differences (though we note that sex differences in the brain are vigorously contested as form of “neurosexism”).
• Ideas are widespread that the existence of a biological basis for being transgender can promote the human rights of transgender and gender diverse people.
• No prenatal testing or screening for ‘brain sex’ differences.
• No selective termination on grounds of trans gender identity.

• Prenatal testing available for many intersex traits, with selective termination possible on grounds that intersex traits are disorders of sex development.
• Administration of harmful drugs to pregnant women in an effort to prevent intersex births with a possible outcome of brain damage to the foetus.
• Intersex organisations contest discriminatory attitudes and practices in relation to the application of prenatal and preconception screening and genetic modification technologies.
• More information on eugenics and intersex.

• Participation of trans women in sport is complicated by a Court of Arbitration in Sport ruling that accepted a 10% performance difference between women and men in athletics, based on extensive data.
• May be required to undergo irreversible surgeries to compete in sport in self-identified gender; able to compete as originally assigned sex.

• Participation of women born with intersex variations in sport is problematised despite a marginal performance advantage, if any, and “sparse” supporting data.
• May be required to undergo irreversible medical interventions to compete in sport in line with sex assigned at birth (with examples of such interventions including gonadectomies and clitoral surgeries).