For an introduction to these issues, see our page on bodily integrity
The 2006 Yogyakarta Principles on the application of international human rights law in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity are an important development, primarily furthering the rights of LGBT people, but with a crucial principle of particular interest to intersex people. Principle 1: The Right to the Universal Enjoyment of Human Rights All human…
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The rapid progression of intersex medicalization since the mid-1950s has directly influenced the development of intersex support and advocacy groups. These have a significant presence on the internet and many, such as OII also have a physical presence in countries that have set up affiliate organizations. Organisation Intersex International (OII) and other advocacy and support…
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The original article that the two Australian-published versions of this story is from the LA Times newspaper and was written by LA Times journalist Shari Roan. The article was titled Medical treatment carries possible side effect of limiting homosexuality and it was published on Sunday 15th August 2010. The original article quotes Alice Dreger, Ken…
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We encourage parents and society to appreciate intersex people, rather than treat us as problems to be fixed. We note that CARES denies the existence of male-identified CAH people, and plentiful statistics that show a low birth-rate, low marriage rate and high rates of “same sex attraction” among CAH “females.” So you have just been…
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In 2009 Dr Reis’s book, Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex, examined the cultural contexts that both inform and drive western medicine’s attitudes and responses to intersex bodies. Beginning with the profound homophobia of the 19th through to the 21st centuries, to the taboo topic of neo-vaginal dilation, Reis challenged standard medical practices…
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The Star Observer reports on CAH and dexamethasone: Bioethicists have criticised the use of an experimental drug to reduce the risk of girls with a congenital disease being born with an intersex condition and make them conform to sex and gender stereotypes. Girls born with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) often have enlarged genitalia, and in…
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Professor Alice Dreger writes in Psychology Today’s blog, “Fetishes I Don’t Get”: In a brief article entitled “Bad Vibrations” just posted at the Hastings Center’s Bioethics Forum, my colleague Ellen Feder and I express our shock over the follow-up techniques being used by pediatric urologist Dix Poppas at Weill Medical College of Cornell University on…
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From the ‘Response of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health to the Proposed DSM 5 Criteria for Gender Incongruence’: (4) Adding a specifier of “with or without a Disorder of Sex Development” is an improvement over the need to use the “Not Otherwise Specified” diagnosis because individuals with intersex conditions may have a similar…
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Intersex refers to atypical internal and/or external anatomical sexual characteristics, where features usually regarded as male or female may be mixed to some degree. This is a naturally occurring variation in humans.
Although OII Australia does not favour the use of “condition” in connection with intersex; this article encapsulates the problems of intersex ‘normalization’ and especially the chemical ‘normalization’ of unborn children. I fear that the campaign to hold the main propagator of the dexamethasone treatment accountable would, if not accompanied by sustained challenges to more fundamental…
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This is a policy statement by the global board of OII, and is endorsed by OII Australia.
Patient advocate Janet Green, a woman born with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH), voices concern about high risk in utero steroid treatment being given to pregnant women.
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