Submissions to government bodies and institutions.
Morgan Carpenter, for IHRA (then OIIAU), and Bonnie Hart, for the AISSGA, made a joint letter of submission in March to the Medical Board of Australia on proposed “Draft revised guidelines Sexual boundaries in the doctor-patient relationship”. Intersex variations (often contentiously termed “disorders of sex development” in clinical settings) relate to personal sex characteristics, and…
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IHRA has made a submission to the Australian Bureau of Statistics on the sex and gender standards in relation to the 2021 Census, and on collecting information on people with intersex variations.
IHRA has made a Shadow Report submission to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), on the situation of intersex people in Australia. This submission builds upon our recent submissions to the Australian Law Reform Commission and the UN Human Rights Committee, within parameters set by a much reduced word count. It…
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IHRA has made a formal submission to the Department of Justice and Attorney General of the Queensland Government on proposed amendments to legislation on birth certificates. The submission is grounded in the Darlington Statement of March 2017, and the Yogyakarta Principles plus 10.
OII Australia has made a formal submission to the Northern Territory Department of the Attorney General and Justice. It responds to a current consultation on law reform. The submission notes that the Department’s discussion paper conflates sex classifications and sex characteristics. In doing so, the Department is unfortunately not unique in Australia. We recommend that…
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OII Australia has submitted a shadow report to the UN Human Rights Committee, endorsed by the Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group Australia, Disabled People’s Organisations of Australia, National LGBTI Health Alliance, and People with Disability Australia. It provides evidence of continuing forced and coercive practices in Australian hospitals, with support from Australian governments and the Family Court, and makes a number of recommendations, based upon the 2017 Darlington Statement.
A UN Treaty Body, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, has issued a recommendation to Australia on intersex human rights for the first time. The recommendation expresses concern about involuntary or coerced medical interventions, interventions that we know to continue across the country, in the absence of medical necessity and without the child’s…
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OII Australia has submitted a shadow report to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, endorsed by the Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group Australia, Disabled People’s Organisations of Australia, National LGBTI Health Alliance, and People with Disability Australia. It provides evidence of continuing harmful practices in Australian hospitals, with support from Australian governments and the Family Court, and makes a number of recommendations, based upon the 2017 Darlington Statement.
OII Australia has participated in a joint NGO submission to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The resulting document marks the first time where a joint Australian NGO submission to a UN committee has called for the criminalisation of “non-medically necessary deferrable medical interventions that alter the sex characteristics of infants and…
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This submission to a Senate inquiry on an exposure draft marriage bill discusses the role of medical interventions in preparing intersex bodies for marriage, as well as issues accessing marriage. It analyses the implications of marriage laws in Australia before marriage equality.
OII Australia has submitted suggested issues for consideration by the UN Committee Against Torture, for its next review of Australia. A pattern of human rights abuses on infants, children and adolescents with intersex traits persists in Australia, including those that Juan E. Méndez, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or…
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OII Australia and many other stakeholders were recently invited to respond to draft proposals for sex and gender identity standards. The proposed sex standard includes purported biological definitions of male, female and other, and the proposed gender identity standard reproduces the same purported biological definitions. We have significant concerns about these: ABS Proposed Sex Standard…
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