The intersex pride flag.
MALTA has become the first country in the world to outlaw medical practitioners or other professionals from conducting any involuntary or coerced surgical intervention on minors with intersex variations.
The Gender Identity Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics Act was passed through Maltese Parliament with cross party support, without a vote, in the early of the morning in Australian time.
The new law officially recognises the right to bodily integrity and physical autonomy and protects intersex infants and children from non-necessary medical interventions. These sorts of medical procedures still take place in Australia and around the world, with parental distress or improving marriage prospects as common reasons for it.
Malta’s Gender Identity Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics Act also meets several other key demands of the intersex movement, including the 2013 recommendations of an Australian Senate committee report.
The relevant part of the act reads:
“It shall be unlawful for medical practitioners or other professionals to conduct any sex assignment treatment and/or surgical intervention on the sex characteristics of a minor which treatment and/or intervention can be deferred until the person to be treated can provide informed consent: Provided that such sex assignment treatment and/or surgical intervention on the sex characteristics of the minor shall be conducted if the minor gives informed consent through the person exercising parental authority or the tutor of the minor.
“In exceptional circumstances treatment may be effected once agreement is reached between the Interdisciplinary Team and the persons exercising parental authority or tutor of the minor who is still unable to provide consent: Provided that medical intervention which is driven by social factors without the consent of the minor, will be in violation of this act.”
The Interdisciplinary Team will be appointed by the government, alongside a larger working group that includes human rights experts, to establish improved treatment protocols “in line with current medical best practices and human rights standards”.
The new Maltese law also provides for an administrative mechanism for the recognition of gender identity, and protection from discrimination for intersex and trans* people.
While OII Australia president Morgan Carpenter said he “warmly” congratulated the Maltese government and parliament, he urged Australian parliamentarians to pass similar legislation, as well.
“This is legislation that Australian governments should be enacting, to implement the recommendations of the 2013 Senate committee report on the involuntary and coerced sterilisation of intersex people,” he said.
“Non-necessary medical interventions still take place on infants and children with intersex variations, across Australia, for rationales that include managing parental distress, social stigma and even ‘improving marriage prospects’.
“These violate international human rights standards and Australian governments must act.”
Intersex people are born with bodies that don’t meet stereotypical expectations for male and female, including a range of genetic, hormonal and anatomical differences in sex characteristics. People with intersex variations have as diverse a range of gender identities as non-intersex people.
Malta’s parliament just passed new legislation that allows self-determination of gender (with a simple process to legally change gender), and outlaws unnecessary surgery on intersex babies. This bill makes Malta the first country to ban unnecessary surgery on intersex infants.
via Shutterstock
Intersex is a term used to describe a variety of people who are born with reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t fall into society’s expectation of either male or female. Intersex babies around the world often undergo surgery, either at the request of the parent or the recommendation of the doctor, to remove parts of their genitalia. In almost every case, the procedure is completely medically unnecessary and denies the child the ability to make choices about their own body. Some people call the surgery “normalization” surgery, which is a term that falsely implies there is something wrong with being intersex.
“To say that this Act is a groundbreaking human rights milestone is almost an understatement,” said Paulo Corte-Real, co-chair of the European branch of the International Lesbian and Gay Association. “It provides an inspirational benchmark for other European countries that need to improve their own LGBTI equality standards.”
The new law also allows people to change their gender identity on documents by simply filing an affidavit with a notary, which ends the requirement for surgery in order to legally identify as a gender other than the one assigned at birth. The process of changing one’s gender in the system, under the new bill, won’t take more than 30 days.
“Demanding sterility, divorce, a mental health diagnosis in legal gender recognition or completely lacking procedures are more and more an inacceptable [sic] thing of the past,” said Arja Voipio, co-chair of Transgender Europe. “Lawmakers in the rest of Europe should take inspiration from this trail-blazer for swift action.”
“The GIGESC Act creates the conditions for an equal society as it recognises and protects trans and intersex persons in all spheres of life,” adds Alecs Recher, who is also co-chair of Transgender Europe.
In 2013, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture announced it condemns unnecessary surgery on intersex babies. “The Special Rapporteur calls upon all States to repeal any law allowing intrusive and irreversible treatments,” the UN statement reads, “including forced genital-normalizing surgery, involuntary sterilization, unethical experimentation, medical display, ‘reparative therapies’ or ‘conversion therapies,’ when enforced or administered without the free and informed consent of the person concerned.”
Maltese officials and medical professionals are now working to come up with guidelines to make sure all surgeries done on infants are medically necessary and not “driven by social factors without the consent of the minor.”
Media Resources: Pink News 4/2/2015; Gay News Network 4/2/2015; Ms. Blog 2/7/2013; UN Report of the Special Rapporteur 2/1/2013; Transgender Europe 4/1/2015
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