South-Eastern Metropolitan MLC Rachel Payne has asked Equality Minister Harriet Shing in State Parliament about intersex people.
“People with intersex variations represent 1.7 per cent of all births,” Ms Payne said.
“As the minister is aware, intersex people are born with physical, hormonal or genetic features that are not considered typical male or female sex characteristics.
“Advocates have raised concerns that intersex children are often subject to invasive and irreversible medical procedures when too young to consent.
“The real-life experience of a number of intersex Victorians is that medical decisions have been made for them that do not reflect their identity later in life.
“Recently the ACT passed legislation that will stop deferable treatment on intersex people until they can participate in informed and collaborative decision-making about their own body.
“So my question is: will the minister commit to similar legislative rights to protect bodily autonomy here in Victoria?”
Ms Shing replied: “Thank you, Ms Payne, for that question and for the opportunity to talk about intersex variations and, as you have begun to do, to actually correct some of the mythology and misinformation that exist around intersex variations.
“As you have said, around 1.7 per cent of live births feature intersex variations.
“ They can be chromosomal; they can also be physical. In a chromosomal sense you might have Turner syndrome or Klinefelter syndrome, and in a physical sense there might be differing appearances of genitalia which require atbirth decisions to be considered and, in too many cases, taken.
“We know that that has been the source of an enormous amount of trauma, and that was borne out in the issuing of the (i) Am Equal report, which was developed and delivered following extensive discussion with Equality Australia.
“With that in mind I do want to foreshadow that this is a matter that sits within the Minister for Health’s portfolio, but I also want to confirm that there has been extensive community consultation on the way in which a reform system can be developed and the way in which consent sits at the heart of surgeries
and other medical interventions.
“We do have a key commitment to developing an intersex protection system.
“People have been providing information as part of a community consultation.
“That closed just recently. We are in the process of assessing and analysing what that community consultation has been, and we will be delivering on a set of reforms in 2024.
“We need to step through this carefully,” Ms Shing said, thanking many intersex folk, for their participation in reforms.