Morgan Carpenter


Morgan Carpenter is a bioethicist, intersex activist and researcher. He became president of Intersex Human Rights 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:
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

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