Author: Morgan Carpenter

Gina Wilson photographed by Dean Sewell

Medicare is now sex and gender neutral

We welcome the Health Minister’s announcement today that Medicare will be gender and sex neutral. For intersex people, the fact that our bodies do not conform to sex norms means that the healthcare issues we face sometimes do not conform to the way medical services and procedures have been defined, and made available, by Medicare….
Read more →

Parliament

Clinicians acknowledge lack of justification for surgeries on intersex infants in Australia

The Australian Senate is currently conducting an Inquiry into the involuntary or coerced sterilisation of people with disabilities and intersex people. Two recent submissions by the Australasian Paediatric Endocrine Group (APEG) and the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne (RCH) to the Inquiry offer some surprising admissions: medical interventions take place for social rationales, sometimes portrayed as…
Read more →

Parliament

Update on Senate Inquiry on involuntary and coerced sterilisation

The Senate’s Community Affairs Committee has announced that the final report of its inquiry on the involuntary and coerced sterilisation of people with disabilities will now be split into two reports. The first report, in relation to people with disabilities, will be released on the scheduled date of 17 July. A second report, focusing on…
Read more →

circle flag on a flagpole

An intersex flag

We have struggled with symbols used to denote intersex people, so Morgan created one that is free for the world to use.

Parliament: an icon showing an outline of the Australian Parliament

New, fourth, submission on involuntary sterilisation

We have made a fourth submission to the Senate Inquiry on involuntary or coerced sterilisation. It follows a submission by the Australasian Paediatric Endocrine Group, a feature article in The Age, and new developments in Europe and the US.

LGBTI groups welcome the passage of “historic” national discrimination laws

Download this press release as a PDF For immediate release: Wednesday 26th June 2013 Press Contacts: Gina Wilson, Organisation Intersex International (OII) Australia, 0418 290 336 Justin Koonin, NSW Gay & Lesbian Rights Lobby,0414 269 339 Sally Goldner, Transgender Victoria, 0407 946 242 Peter Hyndal, A Gender Agenda, 0408 111 410 Anna Brown, Victorian Gay…
Read more →

Parliament: an icon showing an outline of the Australian Parliament

Third submission to Senate Inquiry on involuntary sterilisation

OII Australia has made a third submission to the Senate Inquiry on involuntary and coerced sterilisation, focusing on female genital mutilation, the M.C. case in the US, and other investigations into the medical ‘normalisation’ of intersex people.

detail from the cover of Golden Boy

“Golden Boy”, by Abigail Tarttelin

I loved this book. It vividly captures the effects of secrecy and shame on an intersex adolescent, and a family in crisis. It’s compassionately and beautifully written, from the perspective of six key characters: Max the protagonist, his brother, parents, doctor and friend. Unlike Jeffrey Eugenides’s Middlesex, which manages to convey the impression that intersex…
Read more →