For an introduction to these issues, see our page on identification documents
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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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.
Historically and currently, Births, Deaths and Marriages (BDM) legislation is used to make trans people undergo medical treatment in order to change the sex marker on their documentation. Despite this, the link between birth registrations and medical treatment on intersex people is not clearly understood. Indeed, this area of legislation is often seen as an…
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The third international intersex forum included a self-organising working group on identification documents. Given recent and proposed developments in Germany, Australia and Argentina, this seemed to be useful. 11 people from 8 organisations participated, and most of the text was included in the final forum statement. Our understanding is that the statement was shortened due…
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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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Blank or indeterminate classifications on infant’s birth certificates do not, alone, reduce the likelihood of surgical interventions. This might seem like a non sequitur, but it turns out to be fundamentally important because many people do argue that moves in Germany to establish similarly open sex assignment polices for some intersex infants at birth will…
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Morgan, OII Australia president, is quoted in this Deutsche Welle article by Natalie Muller about Germany’s problematic and mandatory new third option on birth certificates for some intersex infants.
Here are this year’s Intersex Awareness Day words, by Morgan Carpenter, OII Australia president.
On 18 June 2013, The Guardian newspaper kindly published an article by OII Australia president Morgan Carpenter on recent progress for intersex people in Australia.
This opinion piece on birth certificates was published overnight in Der Spiegel on 22 August. It’s a collaboration between Silvan Agius of ILGA Europe, Morgan Carpenter (OII Australia) and Dan Ghattas (OII Germany).
Over recent days, there have been a number of articles stating that the German federal government is proposing a “third gender” or blank sex designation on birth certificates for intersex people. As with recent federal Australian identity guidelines, the German proposals have generated enormous interest. From Der Spiegel: The option of selecting “blank”, in addition…
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We welcome the Health Minister’s announcement today that Medicare will be gender and sex neutral. For intersex people, the fact that our bodies do not conform to sex norms means that the healthcare issues we face sometimes do not conform to the way medical services and procedures have been defined, and made available, by Medicare….
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