Books and selected journal articles on intersex issues, including fiction, peer-reviewed papers, and biographies.
Our friends at Reach Out Australia and Kids Helpline are updating their resources for intersex youth and parents of intersex youth. We have assisted in the creation of these resources and we strongly commend them.
Our societies have accepted a binary construct between male and female which does not reflect Nature and the enormous variety of possible sexes which overlap one another in various gradations on a spectrum.
Steph Lum has won a prize for the poem “Intersex self-love”, in the Canberra SpringOut essay competition. Congratulations, Steph! Here’s the poem in its entirety.
O&G Magazine, the magazine of the Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG) published a special issue on LGBTQIA people for December 2018. It contains articles on intersex people by Morgan Carpenter and Dr Jenny Beale, and relevant content by Dr Kimberley Ivory, Dr Elizabeth Kerekere and others.
On invitation, Morgan Carpenter has written a blog post for the journal Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters: “Intersex human rights: clinical self-regulation has failed”. Here’s an extract: There is neither clinical consensus nor clinical evidence to support current coercive practices [8]. Clinical bodies face multiple challenges in constructing evidence to support these clinical practices….
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Tony Briffa has written on being intersex and Maltese Australian in the book Living and Loving in Diversity: An anthology of Australian multicultural queer adventures (chief editor Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli, Wakefield Press). The book was launched at the 2018 Australian GLBTIQ Multicultural Council conference, “Living Loving Diversity”, and an edited extract has been published by Archer…
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Update: The book chapter is now available freely via the author’s website We are pleased to share a current and recent peer-reviewed journal article by co-executive director Morgan Carpenter, on intersex health and human rights, and an associated book chapter. In an open access peer-reviewed journal article and a book chapter, Morgan describes contradictions where…
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In a new joint paper in the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, Katrina Karkazis and Morgan Carpenter detail the choices and harms involved in unnecessary regulations affecting the participation of some women with intersex variations in elite sport. In April 2018, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) released new regulations placing a ceiling on women…
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This open access paper published by Harvard’s Health and Human Rights Journal highlights how international clinical classifications facilitate or specify practices that violate the human rights of intersex people. It also provides some analysis of a recent Family Court case, analysed from a slightly different perspective to recent papers in Bioethical Inquiry.
An important and long-awaited supplement to the Yogyakarta Principles is published today. The Principles apply international human rights law in relation to sexual orientation, gender identity, and now also gender expression and sex characteristics.
The UN Human Rights Committee has made a powerful call to recognise the human rights of intersex people, including through ending irreversible medical treatment that is not absolutely medically necessary, and that takes place before a child can comprehend and provide informed consent.
We announce publication of a joint consensus statement, the “Darlington Statement”, by Australian and Aotearoa/New Zealand intersex organisations and independent advocates, in March 2017. It sets out common priorities and calls to action by the intersex human rights movement in our countries.
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