For an introduction to these issues, see our page on discrimination
Last November/December, I was very kindly invited to Geneva for a meeting with Dainius Pūras, the UN Special Rapporteur on health, in connection with a report now published on sport and healthy lifestyles and the right to health. The report (A/HRC/32/33) is an important one, particularly given an exemption in federal Australian anti-discrimination law that…
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Congratulations to Esan Regmi, Parsu Ram Rai, and Jensen Byrne for the publication of Stories of Intersex people from Nepal, today. The stories in this book are based upon the writings of intersex participants at the First Intersex National Meeting in Nepal, held on 8-9 February 2016 in Kathmandu. The meeting took place with support…
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We announce that the 2015 survey of people born with atypical sex characteristics has now been published. This survey was an independent research project led by Dr Tiffany Jones. The book has been peer reviewed and published by an academic publisher, Open Book Publishers. The strong team of co-authors includes a reference group of community…
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Morgan Carpenter has been invited to speak on a panel on the international intersex human rights movement, presented at the conference Creating Change in Chicago, USA. Morgan spoke alongside Natasha Jímenez (Costa Rica), Julius Kaggwa (Uganda), Hiker Chiu (Taiwan), Silvan Agius (Malta) and Kimberly Zieselmen (US). Chicago, Illinois, USA. 22 January 2016. Invisible No More,…
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Jenny Leong, Greens MP for Newtown, New South Wales, has introduced a motion in the Legislative Assembly of the State Parliament.
On Friday, a side event was held at the UN Human Rights Council with intersex human rights defenders from five continents. Morgan Carpenter (OII Australia) moderated a panel featuring Julius Kaggwa (SIPD, Uganda), Hiker Chiu (Oii-Chinese, Taiwan), Kimberly Zieselman (AIC, US) and Dan Ghattas (OII Europe, Germany). The event was very kindly supported by ILGA and COC Netherlands.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein opened an expert meeting on intersex: “All human beings are born equal in dignity and rights. Those foundational, bedrock principles of universality and equality mean that all of us, without exception, and regardless of our sex characteristics, are equally entitled to the protections of international human rights law.”
In his opening address to the 30th Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, talked specifically about intersex people. Here’s his statement.
In 2014, OII Australia made a lengthy submission to the National Health and Medical Research Council calling for the prohibition of genetic testing to select against intersex traits. This submission responds to subsequent draft guidelines.
OII Australia has joined with 27 other community organisations, legal experts, unions and service providers to call for improvements to the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 in Victoria.
Overnight, the UN OHCHR released a long-awaited intersex fact sheet, as part of the Free&Equal campaign. Intersex people are born with sex characteristics that do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies. Being intersex is much more common than most people think – according to experts there are as many intersex people…
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Georgiann Davis’s first book, “Contesting Intersex, The Dubious Diagnosis” is hotly awaited, and the first chapter has just become available online, from the publisher. Here are a couple of quotes (references omitted): I show how contemporary U.S. medical experts on intersex, like much of society, tend to hold narrow, essentialist understandings of sex, gender, and…
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