Intersex people are diverse: some of us are married, or able to marry legally in Australia, while others of us are not. OII Australia supports a YES vote. We encourage our members, supporters and broader constituency to vote YES for marriage equality, and we encourage you to talk with your family, friends and colleagues about…
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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.
In November 2016, a diverse group of people with intersex variations participated in a parliamentary briefing, including intersex women, intersex men and people with other gender identities, talking about the issues that concerned us: of isolation, unnecessary medicalisation, and lack of bodily autonomy. In March 2017, more than twenty current and future leaders of the…
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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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In mid 2016, OII Australia made a submission to the United Nations Committee against Torture documenting human rights violations against intersex people in Australia. Since around that date, the Department of Health and Human Services in Victoria has systematically removed evidence of human rights violations, including psychosocial justifications for surgeries such as “marriage” prospects, and…
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