For an introduction to these issues, see our page on discrimination
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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The visibility of the intersex movement is hampered by our worldwide lack of resourcing. It’s also notable that intersex and LGBT movements can often diverge: while most intersex people know a lot about issues affecting same sex attracted and transgender people, this is frequently not reciprocal. There are few intersex voices in LGBTI spaces, our…
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The Australian Human Rights Commissioner launched the Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Intersex Rights report today, “Resilient Individuals”. It notes continuing forced surgical interventions on intersex people, and calls for implementation of the Senate committee report, Involuntary or coerced sterilisation of intersex people in Australia.
Overnight, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has issued a new report, “Discrimination and violence against individuals based on their sexual orientation and gender identity”, A/HRC/29/23, which includes detailed reference to intersex and other LGBTI persons. OII Australia warmly welcomes this report, which for the first time calls for an…
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We warmly congratulate the Council of Europe, Commissioner for Human Rights Nils Muižnieks, and report author Silvan Agius for a landmark report on the human rights of people with intersex variations. The report contains 8 clear and simple recommendations, and strong analysis. Binary classifications of sex and gender are omnipresent in our society and inform…
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OII Australia joins with our European intersex and trans partner organisations in celebrating the passage of the Gender Identity Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics Act. The Act passed with cross party support, without a vote, in the small hours of this morning. This is an historic moment.
Tony Briffa has been interviewed by Claudia Calleja of the Times of Malta, while a Gender Identity Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics Bill proceeds through that nation’s parliament.
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