Morgan Carpenter on medicalisation and genetics

Morgan Carpenter

Morgan Carpenter


Morgan Carpenter, president of OII Australia has an Intersex Awareness Day article in the Star Observer newspaper on the medicalisation of intersex bodies and the role of intersex-led organisations.

At a time when almost every Australian LGBT organisation has become an LGBTI one (the I represents intersex), and funders continue to fund the same work in the same organisations they supported when funding LGBT work, there remains little understanding of the medicalisation of intersex. In its place there is often a focus solely on identity, performativity, and legal classifications. But these have tightly-bound limits, and the decades since the Boston demonstration have seen increased disordering of intersex traits, what some call “exponentially accelerated bio-medicalisation”…

Intersex-led services are based on the simple principle of self-acceptance, and built upon shared experience. Intersex civil society organisations are the only organisations aware of our whole lifecycle — from conception through lived experience to end of life. They are also the only organisations capable of effective long term follow-up and support.

Australian intersex-led organisations are run entirely by volunteers, like most other intersex-led organisations around the world.

Read the full article
OII Australia
Star Observer

Morgan is speaking at an event at UTS in Sydney on Intersex Awareness Day