Article about access to sport, and competing in sporting activities. Read our briefing page.
OII Australia and eight partner organisations collaborated in Rainbow Votes, coordinated by Corey Irlam. The Rainbow Votes coalition appreciates the comprehensive responses by the Australian Greens, Australian Labor Party and Liberal National Coalition to our 2016 LGBTI election survey. Members of the Rainbow Votes coalition of LGBTI rights and health organisations have assessed the content…
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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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In the past few weeks, new IOC policy positions on both gender identity and sex characteristics have been published. The statements have received widespread media coverage, focused mostly on improved (albeit imperfect) access to competition for trans athletes. The IOC “consensus meeting” policy paper is dated November 2015, and it contains two statements, one entitled…
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Big congratulations to Dutee Chand, and to Payoshni Mitra and Katrina Karkazis, for winning a case against the IAAF before the Court of Arbitration for Sport, Lausanne.
We invite you to consider signing this petition on the exclusion of women with high natural levels of testosterone from participating in competitive sport. OII Australia has previously reported how several elite women athletes have been subjected to “partial clitoridectomies” and sterilisation in order to compete, in a process that is clearly coercive. We urge…
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The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism this month contains a report on research by the International Association of Athletics Federations’ Medical and Anti-Doping Department and Commission, and others. It states that there is “no clear scientific evidence” for current policies excluding elite intersex women athletes from competitive sport on the basis of high androgen…
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We are disturbed by reports that Indian woman athlete Dutee Chand has been denied a position in the Indian Commonwealth Games team, on the basis of a test result showing elevated natural levels of blood testosterone. It also appears that Chand discovered the news via press reports, and not directly from sports or medical authorities….
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The British Medical Journal has today published an article on the current policies of the IOC, IAAF and FIFA, reporting that several women have recently been coerced into “partial clitoridectomies” and gonadectomies (removal of gonads) in order to compete. Partial clitoridectomies/clitorectomies are understood to be a form of Female Genital Mutilation. The authors note that…
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Joint statement by Transgender Victoria and OII Australia on the new Anti-Homphobia & Inclusion Framework for Australian Sports. We welcome Wednesday’s publication of the anti-homophobia policy, “Anti-Homophobia & Inclusion Framework For Australian Sports”. We welcome the intention to address issues facing trans and gender diverse people due to their gender identity, and intersex people due…
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We don’t know if Caster Semenya is an intersex woman or not. Despite numerous statements in the local press, we are not aware of any official public disclosure regarding her status. Nevertheless, she has faced salacious enquiry and humiliation as if she is. We salute her strength in the face of adversity, and congratulate her…
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Maxx Ginnane’s documentary on Caster Semenya aired on SBS Australia this evening, and is still available on demand for 15 days.
Katrina Karkazis and Rebecca Jordan-Young talk in an important Stanford School of Medicine podcast on the testing of female athletes to identify – and compel treatment of – those with intersex traits.
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