Morgan Carpenter
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Morgan Carpenter
@morgancarpenter.com
840 followers 350 following 130 posts
Associate Professor, Sydney Health Ethics @sydney.edu.au School of Public Health
Executive Director & lived experience human rights defender, @interaction.org.au
Intersex flag creator
Flashes: @morgancarpenter.bsky.social

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The InterLink website is relaunching as an information hub for people with innate variations of sex characteristics and our families. Check out the information and the posters!

@interaction.org.au

ilink.net.au
A colourful blocky image showing all kinds of bodies with the words "All bodies are beautiful" and "All bodies deserve respect" A colourful image with a body in the middle of a sunburst, with the words "Respect my body" and "Ask for consent"
May 21, 2025 at 8:57 AM
morgancarpenter.com
This is a fantastic PhD scholarship opportunity, working on psychosocial support for people with intersex variations (innate variations of sex characteristics/differences of sex development) with a great team at UniSQ and the MRFF Interconnect Health project

www.unisq.edu.au/scholarships...
Text slide reads: Scholarship Opportunity: PhD Scholarship evaluating psychosocial programs to improve the health of people born with innate variations of sex characteristic, University of Southern Queensland
December 9, 2024 at 9:57 PM
morgancarpenter.com
Oh! I thought you might mean the other Ursula…
Cover image of “The Dispossessed” paperback book by Ursula Le Guin
December 5, 2024 at 10:29 PM
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Me and my dog on a beach
Morgan and his dog Keeva. Keeva is on Morgan’s lap and her eyes are closed. They are on a beach. It’s a sunny day and Morgan is wearing a rashie and a wide brimmed hat
November 25, 2024 at 1:11 AM
morgancarpenter.com
Boss lady
A 14 year old Manchester Terrier dog standing on a deck and wagging her tail
November 17, 2024 at 8:57 PM
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Happy intersex awareness day!

Come and do a PhD on bioethics and the health of people with innate variations of sex characteristics (intersex variations/differences of sex development), with me and my colleagues at the University of Sydney:

www.sydney.edu.au/scholarships...
The golden sandstone building of the Faculty of Medicine and Health, with jacaranda trees blooming outside in a vivid purple. People are walking around underneath the trees
October 25, 2024 at 7:56 PM
morgancarpenter.com
The American Journal of Bioethics has just published my open access commentary on sport:

“Is It Ever OK to Reclassify Someone Out of Their Birth-Observed Sex Without Personal Consent? How Do We Manage Competing Methods of Classifying Sex?”

doi.org/10.1080/1526...
Events at the 2024 Paris Olympics sadly highlight the inability of a categorical system (weight), additional to sex, to allay concerns regarding participation by athletes purported to have innate variations of sex characteristics (intersex variations/differences of sex development). Instead, abusive campaigns demonised athletes with long, prior histories of competition – and sought to impose methods of sex determination and classification that are not directly tested or applied at birth, and which do not universally apply. I ask if it is ever acceptable to reclassify someone out of their sex determined and classified at birth without their consent. I propose that women athletes should always be able to compete, without preconditions, in their birth-observed, birth-assigned sex.
October 15, 2024 at 10:30 AM
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Prime: #265,567
September 17, 2024 at 1:47 AM
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Then on 30 August Middleton states that a question on "sex characteristics" enables intersex and transgender people to be counted

(gender identity is a subset of a question on innate variations)

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
Karen Middleton in Guardian Australia: "Once back, he spoke to ABC radio in Melbourne on Friday morning and executed a part reversal, declaring there would now be one extra question in the census – on sexuality. Without confirming directly, he made it clear that other proposed questions on sex characteristics – which would have quantified data on transgender and intersex people – were still not proceeding."
August 31, 2024 at 10:55 PM
morgancarpenter.com
Instead of informed, accurate reporting, we are getting journalists such as Karen Middleton here on 28 August in @guardianaustralia.bsky.social writing that gender is "including variations of sex characteristics"

(innate variations are a subset of a question on gender diversity)
Karen Middleton and Mostafa Rachwani in Guardian Australia: "Until this week, the government had been expected to add questions on whether respondents had changed living locations in the previous 12 months and why, plus questions on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural identity, gender – including variations of sex characteristics – and sexual orientation."
August 31, 2024 at 10:45 PM
morgancarpenter.com
Many clinical rationales for treatment used by biomedical clinicians are rejected by experts.

Unnecessary early interventions are harmful practices
Biomedical clinical rationales are rejected by experts “Psychosocial rationales do not rise to the standard of medical necessity to avoid serious harm, given that less intrusive options exist that should be preferred, and that psychological and psychiatric experts do not believe that there is any robust scientific evidence to support the assertion that interventions in the circumstances are in the individual’s best interests.” Australian Human Rights Commission. 2021. Ensuring Health and Bodily Integrity: Towards a Human Rights Approach for People Born with Variations in Sex Characteristics. Sydney, Australia: Australian Human Rights Commission. https://humanrights.gov.au/intersex-report-2021
August 31, 2024 at 9:51 PM
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Clinical research is low quality, with no standardised methodologies, and no consensus about indications and timing of treatment.

Clinical practices are still grounded in subjective (and often prejudicial) beliefs
Clinical research is low quality Practices are grounded in subjective beliefs “This review has identified a heterogenous literature reporting the surgical outcomes, rationales, and controversies of surgical interventions, with notably inconsistent study designs, methods, and outcome reporting. Assessment of surgical rationale and outcomes has revealed that medical teams continue to conduct these interventions in the face of controversy due to desires to mitigate parental distress surrounding the perceived difficulties of raising a child with a congenital variation in sex characteristics, as well as a variety of under-researched or outdated beliefs” Muschialli, Luke, Connor Luke Allen, Evelyn Boy-Mena, Aiysha Malik, Christina Pallitto, Åsa Nihlén, and Lianne Gonsalves. 2024. ‘Perspectives on Conducting “Sex-Normalising” Intersex Surgeries Conducted in Infancy: A Systematic Review’. PLOS Global Public Health 4 (8): e0003568. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0003568
August 31, 2024 at 9:47 PM
morgancarpenter.com
Decision-making heuristics for early (and unnecessary) feminising or masculinising surgery can be seen in this statement, in a resource currently online and published by the World Health Organization - this trait is 'of interest' to World Athletics and anti-trans folks

icd.who.int/dev11/f/en#/...
International Classification of Diseases 11 (ICD-11) Foundation “If the diagnosis is made at birth, gender assignment must be discussed, depending on the expected results of masculinizing genitoplasty. If female assignment is selected, feminizing genitoplasty and gonadectomy must be performed. Prenatal diagnosis is available for the kindred of affected patients if the causal mutations have been characterized.” World Health Organization. 2018. 46,XY disorder of sex development due to 17-beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase 3 deficiency. In: ICD-11 Foundation. https://icd.who.int/dev11/f/en#/http%3a%2f%2fid.who.int%2ficd%2fentity%2f887793448 Carpenter, Morgan. 2018. ‘Intersex Variations, Human Rights, and the International Classification of Diseases’. Health and Human Rights 20 (2): 205–14. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6293350/
August 31, 2024 at 9:39 PM
morgancarpenter.com
Sex observation/assignment is a medicalised process

Here's what Australian and UK paediatric endocrinologists say about sex assignment of infants with diagnosed variations/dsds.

Note the use of subjective measures, including reference to "surgical options" (i.e. feminising/masculinising surgeries)
Clinical approaches to sex assignment in “DSDs” “Factors that influence sex assignment include the diagnosis, genital appearance, surgical options, need for lifelong replacement therapy, the potential for fertility, views of the family and sometimes, circumstances relating to cultural practices” Ahmed, S. Faisal, and Salma R. Ali. 2022. ‘Disorders of Sex Development (DSD) in the Newborn’. https://doi.org/10.1093/med/9780198870197.003.0186 “Sex assignment is a dilemma in a small percentage of patients with DSD and requires an individualised approach taking into consideration prenatal androgen exposure, fertility potential, quality of sexual function, surgical options, gonadal pathology/malignancy risk and potential adult gender identity” Vora, Komal A, and Shubha Srinivasan. 2020. ‘A Guide to Differences/Disorders of Sex Development/Intersex in Children and Adolescents'. https://doi.org/10.31128/AJGP-03-20-5266
August 31, 2024 at 9:36 PM