Morgan Carpenter

Morgan Carpenter is a bioethicist, intersex activist and researcher. He became president of Intersex Human Rights Australia (formerly OII Australia) in September 2013, and is now a co-executive director. In 2013 he created the intersex flag, and in 2015, he cofounded a project to mark Intersex Awareness Day. Australia's Gay News Network included him in their "LGBTI people to watch in 2014".

Background

Carpenter is a graduate of bioethics at the University of Sydney and also holds qualifications from the University of Technology, Sydney, Dublin City University and Coventry University. His intersex status was diagnosed as an adult, described as including a diagnosis of "indeterminate sex", and a surgical history.

Activism

Morgan Carpenter helped found Intersex Human Rights Australia and became president of the organisation in September 2013. Carpenter wrote the organization's submissions to Senate inquiries, appearing before a Senate hearing on anti-discrimination legislation during activities that led to the adoption of an "intersex status" attribute in anti-discrimination law on 1 August 2013, and a Senate committee inquiry on the involuntary or coerced sterilisation of people with disabilities and intersex people. Carpenter has also authored critiques of eugenic selection against intersex traits, and clinical research priorities. Carpenter is named as a reviewer for a DSD Genetics website funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council, Australia, and contributes to work on reform of international medical classifications and medical practices within Australia.

Carpenter took part in the "first United Nations Human Rights Council side event on intersex issues" in March 2014, alongside Mauro Cabral and representatives of Intersex UK and Zwischengeschlecht, In 2015, Carpenter joined an international advisory board for a first philanthropic Intersex Human Rights Fund established by the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. In the same year, he founded a project to mark Intersex Awareness Day.

Carpenter has been published by The Guardian, SBS, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and other media. He speaks out against stigma, and has spoken out in national media on issues affecting women purported to have intersex traits in competitive sport.

Carpenter is also a drafting committee member and signatory of the Yogyakarta Principles plus 10, on the application of international human rights law in relation to sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics.

Intersex flag

The Intersex flag was created in July 2013 by Morgan Carpenter as a flag "that is not derivative, but is yet firmly grounded in meaning". The circle is described as "unbroken and unornamented, symbolising wholeness and completeness, and our potentialities. We are still fighting for bodily autonomy and genital integrity, and this symbolises the right to be who and how we want to be."

Academic work

With recognition of non-binary gender identities in Australian regulations, and German birth certificates, Carpenter expressed concern that such developments are "not a solution" to the needs of intersex people. In 2018, he wrote that:

In practice, intersex bodies remain "normalized" or eliminated by medicine, while society and the law "others" intersex identities. That is, medicine constructs intersex bodies as either female or male, while law and society construct intersex identities as neither female nor male.

Carpenter argues that claims that medicalization "saves intersex people" from being framed as the "other", while "legal othering saves intersex people from medicalization are contradictory and empty rhetoric".

Selected bibliography

Books and book chapters

• Carpenter, Morgan (January 2020). "Intersex". In Lynette Spillman (ed.). Oxford Bibliographies in Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/OBO/9780199756384-0232.
• Carpenter, Morgan (September 2018). "The 'normalisation' of intersex bodies and 'othering' of intersex identities". In Jens Scherpe; Anatol Dutta; Tobias Helms (eds.). The Legal Status of Intersex Persons. Cambridge, England: Intersentia. pp. 445–514.
• Jones, Tiffany; Hart, Bonnie; Carpenter, Morgan; Ansara, Gavi; Leonard, William; Lucke, Jayne (February 2016). Intersex: Stories and Statistics from Australia. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers. ISBN 978-1-78374-208-0. Retrieved 20 May 2016.
• Carpenter, Morgan; Hough, Dawn (2014). Employers' Guide to Intersex Inclusion. Sydney, Australia: Pride in Diversity and Organisation Intersex International Australia. ISBN 978-0-646-92905-7.
• Carpenter, Morgan; European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions; Nexus Research Co-operative (1998). The employment of people with disabilities in small and medium-sized enterprises (PDF). Dublin, Ireland: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. ISBN 978-92-828-2949-3.

Journal articles

• Carpenter, Morgan (2020). "The OHCHR background note on human rights violations against intersex people". Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters. 28 (1): 1–4. doi:10.1080/26410397.2020.1731298. ISSN 2641-0397.
• Karkazis, Katrina; Carpenter, Morgan (2018). "Impossible "choices": The inherent harms of regulating women's testosterone in sport". Journal of Bioethical Inquiry. 15 (4): 579–587. doi:10.1007/s11673-018-9876-3. ISSN 1872-4353. PMID 30117064.
• Carpenter, Morgan (2018). "Intersex variations, human rights, and the International Classification of Diseases". Health and Human Rights Journal. 20 (2). ISSN 2150-4113. PMC 6293350. PMID 30568414.
• Carpenter, Morgan (2018). "The 'normalization' of intersex bodies and 'othering' of intersex identities in Australia". Journal of Bioethical Inquiry. 15 (4): 487–495. doi:10.1007/s11673-018-9855-8. ISSN 1872-4353. PMID 29736897.
• Carpenter, Morgan (May 2016). "The human rights of intersex people: addressing harmful practices and rhetoric of change". Reproductive Health Matters. 24 (47): 74–84. doi:10.1016/j.rhm.2016.06.003. ISSN 0968-8080. PMID 27578341.

Recognition

In 2013, Australia's Gay News Network included Carpenter in their "LGBTI people to watch in 2014".