About Us

OII membership, board members and visitors.

What is Intersex?

INTERSEX people are people who, as individuals, have genetic, hormonal and physical features that may be thought to be typical of both male and female at once. That is, we may be thought of as being male with female features, female with male features, or indeed we may have no clearly defined sexual features at all.

What is OII Australia?

WE are the Australian affiliate of Organisation Internationale des Intersexués – the only worldwide organization of intersex people.

What is OII – Organisation Internationale des Intersexués?

THE Organisation Intersex International (OII) is devoted to systemic change to end the fear, shame, secrecy and stigma experienced by children and adults through the practice of non-consensual normalization treatments for people born with atypical anatomy, and the arbitrary assignment of a particular gender without an informed consultation with the individual concerned.

What do Intersex People Want?

OII has learned from listening to intersex people and those who love intersex people that:

• Intersex is for many a problem of stigma and trauma; for some gender assignment; for some health; for some combinations of all of these.
• Parents’ desire for a perfect child must not be addressed by surgery on the child.
• The desire for a healthy child is understandable, but we recommend that parents not be counseled to terminate pregnancies because of the possibility that a child may be born intersex.
• Professional counseling and therapy may be beneficial to those trying to come to terms with their situation.
• Complete disclosure is a right, and a necessity, if the individual is to make the best possible choices for their future.
• Gender assignment should be arrived at through negotiation with the individual, in a process of free choice, which may include options not to commit to being either gender.
• Surgeries should not be performed on individuals to reproduce social norms of gender and genital correctness.
• Intersex is not the same issue as transsexuality, although the current medical approach to gender makes it so for some; discussions about transsexuality being a form of intersex are beyond the scope of this organization, but we acknowledge that assigning transsexuals as disordered is equally as problematic as assigning intersex children and adults as disordered.
• Intersex is not automatically a part of an LGBT agenda, although we acknowledge that intersex people are sexual or non-sexual, gendered or atypically gendered, beings in ways similar to other people, with human desires, wants and needs. Many intersex people identify as heterosexual, others identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual. Many intersex people are happy with their sex assignment, others reject that assignment and may or may not identify as transgendered or transsexual.
• Intersex is not an issue which lends itself to a religious or any other ideological agenda, whether LGBT, feminism, transsexualism, fundamentalism, liberalism, Marxism; however, intersex individuals may or may not have spiritual or ideological beliefs, needs and aspirations in the same way as anybody else. It is important that the spirituality inherent in each unique individual is respected and cherished, the insights that may come to those occupying a unique place in cultures listened to, and that doctrinal perspectives on sex and gender not be enforced on those for whom they are meaningless.