InterAction

We actively engage in work promoting recognition of the human rights and health needs of people with innate variations of sex characteristics in policy, law and regulation, with a particular focus on improving recognition of our health needs and human rights.

This program has been led by Dr Morgan Carpenter, Executive Director of InterAction, since September 2013.

Cumulatively, our staff and board team have many decades of experience in human rights advocacy, and peer and psychosocial support. We bring together qualifications and expertise in bioethics, psychology and allied health, law, history and public administration.

Our impact

We have made significant contributions to health and human rights policy and practice in Australia and internationally. Our contributions to public life in Australia include:

• We have made a strong contribution to the first ever resolution on intersex health and human rights by the United Nations Human Rights Council in April 2024. Work on the resolution was led by UN member states Australia, Chile, Finland and South Africa.
• Legislative protections from harmful practices in medical settings, and investment in hospital psychosocial support, in the Australian Capital Territory (2023). Under the name Intersex Human Rights Australia, our advocates were commended for our “diligent, passionate and highly intellectual work” and Executive Director Morgan Carpenter was specifically commended for his “tireless work” by Andrew Barr, ACT Chief Minister.
• Morgan Carpenter, Tony Briffa and Bonnie Hart played a key role in an Australian Human Rights Commission inquiry into the health and human rights of people born with variations of sex characteristics, reporting in 2021.
• We have contributed to improvements to research and data collection, including through the development and implementation of national statistical standards, in the 2020 Australian Bureau of Statistics standard on sex, gender, variations of sex characteristics and sexual orientation. Unlike previous standards, which failed to respect the observed/assigned sex of people with intersex variations, this new standard respects our population.
• Development of a national community consensus statement, the 2017 Darlington Statement, agreed by organisations and individuals involved in advocacy and peer support across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. This has been accompanied by work led by Bonnie Hart to design healthcare pathways consistent with the Statement.
• Inclusion of protections from discrimination on grounds of sex characteristics in jurisdictions across Australia. This has typically replaced language that predated intersex organising and that has not understood our population, such as protections of people with ‘indeterminate sex’ on grounds of gender identity.
• The introduction in 2017 by the National Health and Medical Research Council of a quality of life test, when IVF businesses consider genetic selection to eliminate embryos with “serious genetic conditions”. Some intersex variations are inappropriately described as serious genetic conditions, with evidence that family members of intersex people may be pressured to use IVF to avoid passing on relevant genes.
• In 2017, Morgan Carpenter, was a signatory and member of the drafting committee for the Yogyakarta Principles plus 10 on the application of international human rights law in relation to sex characteristics, gender expression, gender identity and sexual orientation.
• Engagement with international institutions including the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the World Health Organisation. Morgan Carpenter participated in the first UN expert meeting on ending human rights violations against intersex people. We engage in ongoing work to document human rights violations, contribute to human rights analysis on Australia and internationally, and reform medical protocols.
• Senate Committee recommendations for major changes to clinical and legal practice, with the development of national policy guidelines within in a human rights framework – see our article about the report Involuntary or coerced sterilisation of intersex people in Australia (October 2013) and cross-party Senate speeches on the issue (March 2014).
• We engage in academic research and engage in debate with bioethicists and surgeons including in this highly commended event for University of Melbourne medical students in June 2020.

Our principles and platform

Our work and values are grounded in fundamental and universal human rights norms. We apply these to the needs and circumstances of people with innate variations of sex characteristics.

In doing so, our work is guided by a common community platform for Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, known as the Darlington Statement.

It is also informed by the Yogyakarta Principles plus 10, on the application of international human rights law in relation to sex characteristics and other attributes.

These underpin our organisational Theory of Change. The Theory of Change is complemented by a peer-reviewed journal article on the context and goals of the intersex movement in Australia, also by Dr Morgan Carpenter, published in March 2024.

History and context

This program began with a volunteer-only teams in our founding organisations, when known as OII Australia and the AIS Support Group Australia. It has been led by Morgan Carpenter since he became president of OII Australia in September 2013.

In December 2016, Morgan Carpenter and Tony Briffa were appointed as paid part-time Co-executive Directors of Intersex Human Rights Australia to lead this work. From May 2021, this program has been run by Dr Morgan Carpenter, Executive Director of InterAction. We have set out a timeline of the history of our movement in Australia, and the legislative and policy context.

The context for our work is challenging, with different silos and professions understanding our population in often radically different ways – and these predate establishment of our community controlled organisations. These are articulated in a Ambivalent attention and indeterminate outcomes: constructing intersex and DSD in Australian data, a 2022 publication written to inform the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare by Dr Morgan Carpenter.

Dr Morgan Carpenter has also written a peer-reviewed paper, published open access in 2024, on the context and goals of the intersex movement in Australia. The paper is part of a special issue of Social Sciences journal, Centring intersex: global and local dimensions.