For an introduction to these issues, see our media and style guide
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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I’ve been intending to provide my thoughts on the issue of the use of the term “Disorders of Sex Development” (“DSD”), and here they are.
Important note: this paper should not be regarded as a guide to our current policy on identification documents. Our approaches have been informed by community-building and evidence-building, and are defined (as of March 2017) in the Darlington Statement.
Read about bodily integrity, and eliminating harmful practices Read about eugenics, prenatal screening and elimination Read about discrimination, and stigma Read about identification documents, sex and gender Important note: this paper should not be regarded as a guide to our current policy on identification documents. Our approaches have been informed by community-building and evidence-building, and…
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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.
A briefing on working, Australian and international definitions of intersex.
This paper was updated in September 2013, with a new final “impact” section that reflects the discontinuation of “SGD” and “DSG” terminology by the National LGBTI Health Alliance and many other organisations. We recommend browsing the Videos, Audio and Personal Stories sections of this website to gain familiarity with the diversity of intersex identities, genders,…
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Sociologist and intersex person Cary Costello has just published a great blog post at the Intersex Roadshow on how educational and scientific texts about a hermaphrodite fish are affected by the world view and beliefs of the writer. A central issue that makes life hard for intersex people is invisibility. Most people are unaware of…
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Sociologist Georgiann Davis Ph.D. recently had published her paper on DSD in Sociology of Diagnosis, Advances in Medical Sociology, Volume 12, 155–182. The paper, “DSD is a perfectly fine term”: Reasserting Medical Authority Through a Shift in Intersex Terminology is a hugely important critique and highly recommended reading. The context Even though the diagnosis carried…
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People born with intersex variations have many different gender identities; what we share in common is being born with atypical and stigmatised sex characteristics that do not meet stereotypical expectations for men or women.
“I’ve been waiting for years for you to show up. It’s clear that transsexuals are not going to get our rights until intersexuals do.” (quoted by Suzanne Kessler, 1998) “Intersex is not one but many sites of contested being, [with] temporally sutured biomedical, political and social imperatives… ‘Intersex’ is a sign constantly under erasure, whose…
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If you are writing about intersex people, our bodies, identities and human rights concerns, this page outlines why we use words the way we do.
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