Earlier this year, South African track athlete Caster Semenya was vilified in the international media for allegedly having both male and female biological characteristics. People with such characteristics are known as "intersex". 91̳ Weekly's Farida Iqbal spoke to Gina Wilson from the Organisation Intersex International (OII) about Semenya and intersex politics.
How has the OII responded to the vilification of Caster Semenya?
OII Australia has attempted to respond with educational information every time we become aware of an article that is factually incorrect. We have attempted to raise awareness of appropriate language when referring to intersex individuals.
OII Australia is contemplating legal action against the Sydney Daily Telegraph for revealing personal medical information about Semenya. We are taking advice on our ability to act for her.
We are aware Semenya has been suicidal and is chronically depressed as a result of this exposure of her supposed differences.
What are the issues with intersex marriage rights in Australia?
Intersex challenges the notion of what is a man and what is a woman. The marriage act defines marriage as a relationship "between a man and a woman". We say the act should therefore define "man" and "woman", and we also maintain that this is impossible to say with any precision.
OII Australia's position is that the current marriage act excludes intersex individuals from marriage, and that any intersex person who is currently married is only able to be so because of a pretence that they are wholly man or woman.
We believe that if same-sex marriages are allowed, we will be no better off because even that relies on a male/female gender binary.
OII Australia works for the right of all to marry, irrespective of difference — sex or otherwise.
Some intersex babies are surgically altered to make their bodies conform to one sex or another. What is the situation with in Australia?
OII Australia believes genital surgery should only happen with the informed consent of the person, or in life-threatening situations. We do not refer to intersex genital surgery as mutilation.
Many intersex people choose to have such surgery. But many would have preferred not to, and most would have taken very different approaches to those forced on them by doctors and parents.
Surgeons claim that techniques are constantly improving. This underlines the lie that the surgery has ever been what it claimed. If surgery is constantly improving, then it must always be at least problematic and in need of improvement and more likely inadequate.
Do you see the intersex movement as part of a broader lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) umbrella?
We are a mostly silent and unheard minority and we seek allies in all quarters. We have received the most support, and the most public exposure, because of our alliances with LGBT organisations.
Intersex is not about sexuality. However many of the issues that bedevil intersex people and intersex rights are the same as those that have caused LGBT individuals so much distress — access to appropriate medical help; marriage; human rights; discrimination and vilification; violence; rejection by family and society.
We have experienced rejection from some LGBT organisations that occasionally show great reluctance to including us, despite receiving government funding in our name.
What is the Organisation Intersex International? How did it come about?
OII is the largest intersex organisation in the world. OII membership is mostly made up of intersex people.
OII was formed in 1997 by Curtis Hinkle, with the support of some intersex friends, in reaction to the limited voice intersex people had. OII has few policies (opposition to non-consensual infant surgery are among those we do have) and is an affiliation of intersex people (95%) and their friends.
Curtis established OII after fighting a discrimination case in the US and finding little support for intersex rights there.
Those organisations that did exist were either ineffective or selective. Some had a policy of discrimination, considering some differences not intersex or not intersex enough. Others required proof, such as a letter from a doctor or some other kind of medical record to establish intersex credentials.
OII decided that anyone who was "game" enough to call themself intersex was most likely intersex.
There are those that claim some transsexual and transgender individuals claim intersex as a way of excusing their apparent change of sex.
OII considers this a ludicrous notion given the far greater disrespect, ignorance, and lack of appropriate medical services intersex people have, and that is not to diminish the enormous discrimination against transsexuals.
OII Australia considers the idea of intersex "privilege" as fundamentally transphobic.
OII provides support for intersex people through the provision of information, advocating for intersex rights, attempting to change medical paradigms so that appropriate medical services are available for our diverse needs.
OII Australia was established with Hinkle's encouragement, with the aim of providing support for Intersex in Australasia, and specifically to bring about legislative change that would see intersex people given the same rights and freedoms that are enjoyed by most other Australians.
OII Australia's specific objectives are in Australian federal and state laws. However, we support OII international affiliates in efforts to have intersex rights recognised worldwide.
OII would rather fight for equal treatment of all human beings so that intersex difference was insignificant in terms of human rights. Because of the gender binary structure within western social paradigms, we have to struggle against basic ideas of what constitutes a human being before we even begin to explain our predicament.
There should be no need for women to have to fight for equality, just as there should be no need for a person of any race or religion to have to fight for it.
If all people were guaranteed equal rights, OII would be a social group and little else.
Unfortunately we are constrained to work with what we have, so salami tactics are the only option: that is to fight for each right law by law, one at a time. A tedious and exhausting process, as I am sure it is meant to be.
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