Intersex Human Rights Australia

We are delighted to welcome Bonnie Hart to IHRA’s staff team, as our new Deputy Executive Director. Bonnie will lead work developing psychosocial support services by and for community. Like all our staff, Bonnie will work part-time.

Bonnie Hart is an intersex woman, peer worker and systemic advocate working with and within the intersex community to advocate for legislative protections and improved access to affirmative, rights-based health and mental health services. Bonnie nurtures intersex community connections and a burgeoning intersex peer workforce. She is the designer of InterLink, a peer-led and community-based intersex psychosocial support program and is an original signatory of the Darlington Statement, an Aotearoa/New Zealand and Australian intersex community consensus statement.

Bonnie has a long time relationship with Intersex Peer Support Australia, having held several leadership roles and drafted multiple submissions informing Australian legislative and human rights reform on behalf of the group. Bonnie has participated in expert multiple advisory groups informing government and NGOs on intersex issues and is an intersex educator, developing affirmative practice resources and regularly providing sector-specific training through the Yellow Tick initiative.

Bonnie Hart says:

After many years of working alongside IHRA to highlight intersex issues and improve conditions for our community in Australia, I’m delighted to now be working for IHRA in the role of Deputy Executive Director. I look forward to bringing my dedication to human rights to the team, along with my lived experience of being an intersex woman who has been privileged to work within the intersex community over the past decade.

Human rights and community wellbeing go hand-in-hand. I am ever conscious of the necessity for people with innate variations of sex characteristics, and their families, to access healthcare and community services that are affirmative, rights-based and focused on all-of-life wellbeing. This role is a fantastic opportunity to continue developing intersex-led psychosocial support through InterLink, our program of individual and group-based professional support services available to community-members living anywhere in Australia. InterLink will help address the existing gaps between specialist services and boosting referral pathways to community-based peer support and advocacy.

Morgan Carpenter said:

Bonnie and I have worked together for a decade to improve health and human rights outcomes for people with innate variations of sex characteristics, and we are so excited to now appoint Bonnie Hart to a leadership role that reflects her vast expertise and skills. She will develop the InterLink project into a program providing professional psychosocial support for individuals and families. Bonnie’s appointment marks a significant moment that both improves access to services for our community and population, and helps to construct a more resilient organisation.

IHRA values professional and academic achievement. In addition to Bonnie’s part-time role with IHRA she is an early career academic and PhD candidate at the University of Southern Queensland. Bonnie’s psychological research uses a critical intersex lens to address how people with intersex variations navigate complex psychological, social, legal, and medical issues to safely access affirmative healthcare and social services. Her publications already include:

• Intersex Lived Experience: Trauma and Posttraumatic Growth in Narratives
• Towards a whole-school approach for sexuality education in supporting and upholding the rights and health of students with intersex variations
• Intersex awareness and education: what part can health and physical education bodies of learning and teaching play?
• Health intervention experiences and associated mental health outcomes in a sample of LGBTQ people with intersex variations in Australia, and
• Intersex: Stories and Statistics from Australia