'Everyone should have bodily autonomy': push for new laws to protect intersex children

A Tasmanian Law Reform Institute review of the state's new laws regarding sex and gender recommended adding the offence "performing unnecessary medical interventions to change the sex characteristics of a non-consenting child" to the Criminal Code.

Related: Review into Tasmania's birth certificate and gender laws finds positive results

The review also recommended allowing intersex people to pursue claims for compensation against doctors where these medical interventions resulted in physical or mental harm.

Tasmania representative for Intersex Peer Support Australia, Simone-lisa Anderson, said Tasmania was still behind other states in regards to legal protections for intersex children.

Watch: Recommendations for further law reform in Tasmania:

"Everyone should have bodily autonomy; everyone should get to choose what happens to their body," she said.

"Parents-to-be need education on what options they have if their child is born with variations and be able to speak to a wide variety of people in the community, care givers that have children with variations, advocates that have a wider knowledge of their child's variation, so they can understand the impacts of non-consensual surgery."

Procedures of concern on intersex children include labiaplasty, gonadectomy, vaginoplasty and clitorectomy.

Ms Anderson said these procedures resulted in high rates of long-term physical and emotional harm.

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"Generally, in infants and young children there is never just one surgery, it is always a series of surgeries over long periods of time with 'aftercare' and almost always complications from those surgeries due to the complex nature of genital surgery and the small parts they are working on," she said.

"Scar tissue doesn't stretch and proud tissue keeps growing hence 'aftercare'.

"These practices have been very widespread ... both clitorectomy and labiaplasty are widely reoccurring surgeries."

The TLRI report highlighted misconceptions in the broader community regarding intersex variations, and that resources should be developed to promote greater awareness "including the potential mental health effects of normalisation procedures".

The report also called on guidelines for these procedures to "focus exclusively on physical function" and to be developed in consultation with the intersex community.

Roen Meijers, of Equality Tasmania, said it was great that the report recognised the positive effect of the new laws, but there was still work to be done for the rights of LGBTIQ people.

"Trans issues and intersex issues are separate, but they're both really important and it's vital that we don't forget that there's still heaps of work to be done for people with variations in sex characteristics," they said.

"We need to listen to the voices of people from that community and respect their right to bodily autonomy."

Greens leader Cassy O'Connor moved a notice of motion calling on the government to enact all of the recommendations, including the changes to the Criminal Code. It will likely be debated in the second half of the year.

A government spokesperson said the recommendations from the report were being considered.