Books, journals and reports (page 5 of 9)

Books and selected journal articles on intersex issues, including fiction, peer-reviewed papers, and biographies.

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WHO/UN interagency statement on involuntary or coerced sterilisation

The World Health Organization, together with OHCHR, UN Women, UNAIDS, UNDP, UNFPA and UNICEF, have issued an interagency statement on Eliminating forced, coercive and otherwise involuntary sterilization. The statement covers intersex people, trans people, women, women with HIV, indigenous and ethnic minority women, and people with disabilities. This is an important development, that recognises the…
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New publication: Torture in Healthcare Settings

The Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the Washington College of Law has just published an important new book, Torture in Healthcare Settings: Reflections on the Special Rapporteur on Torture’s 2013 Thematic Report. The book contains a chapter on intersex issues, beginning on page 91, authored by Anne Tamar-Mattis of Advocates for Informed…
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Alice Dreger: Do you have to pee standing up to be a real man?

Alice Dreger, professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at the Northwestern University, USA, writes on hypospadias in Pacific Standard, The Science of Society: the simple idea that a real man has to pee standing up “has put a surprising number of babies under the knife”. Hypospadias is likely more common than widely understood: In…
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High Court: NSW Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages v. Norrie

Update: We welcome the High Court judgement to recognise Norrie as having “non-specific” gender. We take no pleasure in having to comment on this case, currently before the High Court, Australia’s highest court, which has a hearing likely to be heard on 4 March 2014. However, the case raises the stakes for intersex people in…
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We welcome the VEOHRC Guidelines for General Practitioners

We welcome the publication of guidelines for general practitioners by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission. With our input, it includes a good statement about what constitutes discrimination by family doctors towards intersex people. The statement reads: Intersex people are a distinct group from transgender people and may experience different forms of discrimination….
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Human rights between the sexes, a study

In November 2013, Dr Dan Christian Ghattas of OII Germany, together with the Heinrich Böll Foundation, published a preliminary study on the human rights of intersex people in 12 countries around the world, including Australia, along with Belgium, France, Germany, New Zealand, Serbia, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, and Uruguay. While a preliminary study,…
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Funding for intersex human rights and community development work

In the second half of 2013, OII Australia participated in a ground-breaking study by GATE and American Jewish World Service (AJWS) on funding for trans* and intersex community and human rights work. The study, The State of Trans* and Intersex Organizing, was published in December 2013 and the results are somewhat challenging, particularly for intersex…
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“Alex as Well”, by Alyssa Brugman

We’ve recently seen a book by Alyssa Brugman, entitled “Alex as Well”. We believe that the author has confused intersex with non-binary identities, like genderqueer or bigender. This is often a sign of poor research, or the use of intersex as a mere plot device. Additionally, the depiction of cultural and linguistic minorities is a…
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On the number of intersex people: four calculator symbols

Intersex population figures

There are no firm population figures for people with intersex variations, due to stigma, misconceptions, lack of accurate recording of data, arbitrary definitions, and ideological values.

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…
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