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Resources How to Be a Good Ally?

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Resources How to Be a Good Ally? How to be a good ally? Resources • Consider what you do to support intersex Books inclusion in health and human rights initiatives. • Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority and Lived • Change your language and frame of reference. Experience by Katrina Karkazis Intersex status is distinct from both sexual • Golden Boy: A Novel by Abigail Tarttelin orientation and gender identity. These are each recognised in the federal Sex Discrimination Act. Films • Put intersex people and intersex-led • Intersexion (2012) organisations front and centre when talking about • Orchids: My Intersex Adventure (2011) intersex. Speakers, articles, videos, information • Many medical studies of intersex people • Organisation Intersex International Australia explicitly identify gender identity issues and non- oii.org.au/allies heterosexual behaviours as reasons for medical treatment. Non-consensual genital surgery is an • Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group LGBTI issue as it shows what can happen when aissga.org.au non-heteronormative people are established to be “born this way”. Ally with the call to end normalising interventions on intersex children. • Adopt federal Guidelines on gender recognition, and offer everyone F, M and X options if you have to record gender in your workplace. Go further and support multiple options. Consider whether your workplace needs to record information on sex, gender and title. Can you offer an option to opt out? Organisation Intersex International Australia • Intersex people should be included in campaigns oii.org.au for marriage equality, but intersex people are facebook.com/oii.au not included in same-sex marriage. Marriages in twitter @oiiaustralia Australia have been annulled on the basis that one party was neither fully male nor fully female. • Include intersex in education, service access, and in employment and anti-bullying policies designed to prevent harassment and ACON is proud to support the discrimination. development and printing of this resource. acon.org.au • Follow and share intersex issues on social networks. Funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services © OII Australia 2014 (2014-03) What is intersex? Why are intersex individuals subjected Do all intersex individuals identify as Intersex is a term that relates to a range of physical to medical intervention? male or female, or between? traits or variations that lie between ideals of male Medical intervention attempts to make intersex Intersex is not about gender identity; it is a lived and female. Intersex people are born with physical, individuals’ bodies conform to ideals of male or experience of the body. Intersex people have a broad hormonal or genetic features that are neither wholly female. Current medical protocols are based on the range of gender identities, just like non-intersex female nor wholly male; or a combination of female ideas that infant genital surgery will “minimise family people. Our identities often do not match our and male; or neither female nor male. concern and distress” and “mitigate the risks of appearance. Many forms of intersex exist; it is a spectrum or stigmatisation and gender-identity confusion”. Surgical Having a non-binary gender identity does not umbrella term, rather than a single category. Intersex interventions intrinsically focus on appearance, and automatically make someone intersex. differences may be apparent at birth. Some common not sensation or sexual function. intersex variations are diagnosed prenatally. Some Childhood cosmetic genital surgeries are also intersex traits become apparent at puberty, or when problematic as children cannot consent to them. Are intersex people transgender? trying to conceive, or through random chance. Adolescents, and even adults, have also reported A minority of intersex people change gender, and some feeling pressured by doctors and family to conform of them may self-identify as transgender, but almost all to societal norms. Some doctors still believe that How many intersex people are there? intersex people have had medical treatment to confirm disclosure of a person’s intersex status would be too their sex. Often that intervention was something they had The lowest popular statistic is around 1 in 2,000 alarming. no choice about. Many will not fully identify with their people (.05% of births) but a more likely figure is closer Very many intersex people suffer the physical and assigned gender. This is part of the intersex experience, to 1.7%. This makes intersex differences about as emotional effects of surgery, and related shame but it doesn’t make intersex people transgender. common as red hair. and secrecy. At a fundamental level, homophobia, intolerance and ancient superstitions underpin contemporary mistreatment of intersex people. Are intersex people gay, lesbian, or queer? Are intersex individuals hermaphrodites? It depends on the individual, how they define their Biologically, no. Hermaphrodites (such as snails) gender and identity, how they present, and who possess fully functioning sets of both “male” and What is DSD? Is this the same as they form relationships with. Every intersex person is “female” sex organs. This is impossible in mammals. intersex? different. Linguistically, the word originates in the Greek myth In 2006, the medical community replaced the term of Hermaphroditus who was both male and female, Like all people, some intersex individuals are LGB or intersex with “Disorders of Sex Development” or having elements of both sexes. queer, and some are heterosexual. DSD. DSD reinforces the idea that intersex traits are In the recent past, some intersex diagnoses were termed However, LGBTI activism has fought for the rights of individual medical conditions or disorders that need to people who fall outside of expected binary sex and “pseudo-hermaphrodites” or “true- hermaphrodites”. be fixed. While some intersex people use the term, others find it gender norms. Today, some intersex people use the label – especially stigmatising due to that medical history. If in doubt, it is Intersex is part of LGBTI because of intersex status those who were taught DSD by their parents or best only used by intersex people. and a shared experience of homophobia, not because doctors since the term’s inception. Intersex people are of sexual orientation or gender identity. free to use any label, and the term intersex remains Are intersex individuals sick? widespread today. Intersex people, like all people, have health issues. In a We believe that stigmatising language leads to poor What are intersex activists’ goals? few diagnoses, immediate medical attention is needed mental health, marginalisation, and exclusion from The goals of the intersex movement are to raise from birth, but being intersex is not a health issue in and human rights and social institutions. The term intersex awareness, and achieve an equal place in society. of itself. Natural intersex bodies are most often healthy. promotes equality and human rights for people born Intersex people seek the right to bodily autonomy, Intersex people frequently need hormone replacement with atypical sex characteristics. the right to a life without stigma and discrimination, as a result of medical intervention. and the right to a life without shame and secrecy..
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