Call for action in WA on intersex rights and health issues

Intersex people have innate sex characteristics that don’t fit medical norms for female or male bodies. Because our bodies are seen as different, we experience discrimination and stigmatisation, including forced surgeries and other medical interventions – often in childhood or adolescence – to make our bodies appear or function more typically female or male.

IHRA and IPSA are national, charitable intersex-led organisations. We engage in systemic and individual advocacy and peer and family support. In 2017, we and other intersex advocates from around Australia and New Zealand collaborated to create the Darlington Statement, a statement of the needs and demands of the intersex population in our countries [1].

Our staff and directors are members of ministerial and/or health strategy advisory groups across the country, including to the ACT, NSW, South Australian, Tasmanian and Victorian governments, and reference or advisory groups for the Australian Human Rights Commission Inquiry and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The call for action is a single page overleaf. It contains the measures we seek during this Parliament. The call for action is kindly endorsed by the following organisations:
Bi+ Community Perth; City of Perth LGBTIQA+ Advisory Group; Centre for Human Rights Education, Curtin University; GLBTI Rights in Ageing; Homelessness We Care Perth; Living Proud; OUTMidWest; Perth Inner City Youth Service; Pride WA; Rainbow Futures WA; Transfolk of WA; WAAC; Youth Affairs Council of Western Australia; Youth Pride Network.

WA LABOR PLATFORM 2022 - Health Chapter (Policy 107):

WA Labor supports the rights of intersex people to have agency and autonomy, including in medical settings. WA Labor will ensure effective oversight of clinical practices, and end harmful practices that modify sex characteristics of people with intersex variations without personal informed consent.

Our call for action on intersex health and human rights in WA:

1. Legislative protections: Enact legislation to protect the human rights of people with innate variations of sex characteristics in medical settings, including the provision of effective rights-based oversight.
   

   End a Criminal Code exemption to a prohibition on female genital mutilation affecting children with intersex traits.

2. Mental health and psychosocial support: Provide resourcing for peer and family support and advocacy services for people with innate variations of sex characteristics and our families, including a dedicated helpline.
   

   Investigate the absence of people with innate variations of sex characteristics in mental health programs and settings, and ensure that these programs respond to the needs of our population.

3. Discrimination protections: Update equal opportunity legislation to implement protections for people with innate variations of sex characteristics on the ground of ‘sex characteristics’, and replacement of comparator tests.
   

   Ensure that both access to, and utilisation of, assisted reproductive technologies do not discriminate against people with innate variations of sex characteristics.

4. Statistics and norms: Update statistical standards in line with the Australian Bureau of Statistics standard on sex, gender, variations of sex characteristics and sexual orientation.
   
5. Birth records: Ensure that the subset of people with innate variations of sex characteristics who need to update the sex marker on their birth records are not required to undergo surgical and other medical interventions.
   

   Ensure that no legal category of sex is named for, or purported to be for, people with intersex traits.

6. Education: Ensure policies in relation to education provide protections for people with innate variations of sex characteristics, and are not inappropriately based on matters of identity.
   

   Update education curriculum reform to provide clear, accurate, human rights-affirming information about innate variations of sex characteristics.

7. Detention: Ensure policies in relation to detention provide protections for people with innate variations of sex characteristics, and are not inappropriately based on matters of identity.
   
8. Consultation: Establish a whole-of-government advisory group to advise in relation to policy and practice affecting people with innate variations of sex characteristics and LGBT people.

Further explanatory notes and supporting information available on request

1 Darlington Statement: https://darlington.org.au/statement