2022 Annual Zoom Event, Panel 2
Policies and psychosocial practices

This year’s annual zoom event in September 2022 will take the form of three themed panels, spread across dates and time zones.

Register here by 19th September 2022:

https://waikato.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0kCorzjdTx4AnLU

Panel 1: Details

Panel 2: Details below

Panel 3: Details

Panel 2 Overview

This panel looks into the role that psychology has or can have in the policymaking process, by informing clinical psychologists and psychosocial researchers on the latest (European) research, achievements, and discourses around I/VSC policies.

Mapping the Lived Experience of Intersex/Variations of Sex Characteristics in Ireland

Dr. Tanya Ní Mhuirthile, School of Law and Government, Dublin City University

Implementing Psychosocial Care for Intersex/VSC People in Malta

Dr Fae Garland, Centre for Social Ethics and Policy, University of Manchester, UK.

Dr Mitchell Travis, Centre for Law and Social Justice, University of Leeds, UK.

How can psychology and psychosocial wellbeing be informed by social policy and care that is developing to be inclusive and cognisant of I/VSC people and their experiences?

Sean Saifa Wall (INIA) and Rebecca Crowther Equality Network

Working towards Intersex rights: the Italian experience

Claudia Balsamo & Manuela Falzone (IntersexEsiste)

Please scroll down for abstracts and speaker bios

Panel 2 Abstracts

Mapping the Lived Experience of Intersex/Variations of Sex Characteristics in Ireland

Dr. Tanya Ní Mhuirthile, School of Law and Government, Dublin City University

This paper presents the results of the recently concluded Intersex Mapping Study in Ireland. Data about being intersex/having VSC is limited especially in the socio-legal and socio-medical space in Ireland. Heretofore, little was known about how being intersex/having VSC could affect one’s life in Ireland. Addressing this gap in knowledge was the primary aim of this research study.

Using hermeneutical phenomenology, we conducted interviews with intersex people/those with VSC in Ireland to understand their lived experience. Additionally, we interviewed the partner of one of our intersex participants who shared their story with us. We also interviewed healthcare professionals working in this field in Ireland to learn about how they care for this hidden and vulnerable population. We developed a self-administered questionnaire for people who wished to share their story without participating in an interview. We expected to form some baseline information about Ireland’s intersex population/those with VSC that would not only contribute to public knowledge about what being intersex means but also that it would help identify key areas where action is required to ensure this unique group are afforded the same benefits Irish society bestows on the broader, general public.

This paper will share the findings from the study and outline the recommendations we made in relation to law, policy, practices and guidelines to ensure that intersex people can actively enjoy, without discrimination based on their sex characteristics, the dignity and freedoms that are foundational to society.

Implementing Psychosocial Care for Intersex/VSC People in Malta

Dr Fae Garland, Centre for Social Ethics and Policy, University of Manchester, UK.

Dr Mitchell Travis, Centre for Law and Social Justice, University of Leeds, UK.

In 2015 Malta introduced a series of sweeping reforms around intersex/vsc healthcare including the prohibition of non-therapeutic surgical interventions and the introduction of psychosocial care. This led some intersex rights activists to see Malta as the ‘gold standard of care’ in Europe and, indeed across the world (Garland and Travis 2018). This paper explores these claims drawing upon research data from policy makers, healthcare professionals and activists in Malta. It outlines that in reality, progress has been limited and implementation of psychosocial care, in particular, has been problematic. In part, this is due to a continuing conflation of intersex and trans issues in healthcare provision. This research has been funded by a British Academy Small Grant SRG19\190990.

I/VSC in Social Policy and Social Care:

Q. How can psychology and psychosocial wellbeing be informed by social policy and care that is developing to be inclusive and cognisant of I/VSC people and their experiences?

Sean Saifa Wall (INIA) and Rebecca Crowther Equality Network

Whilst medical intervention on intersex children and young adults is so often based on societal expectations of gender and medical bias, historically, there has been a lack of willingness to acknowledge the social and cultural implications of being an intersex person in the world. Medics have and continue to assert that intersex bodies must be ‘fixed’ to avoid social stigma, violence and discrimination while refusing to acknowledge that medicine and other institutions are inherently prejudiced against intersex people. As a result, people with intersex/variations of sex characteristics (I/VSC) have been excluded from social policy and social care.

Working with professor of Psychology, Peter Hegarty, intersex advocates and Equality Network constructed a compelling argument for the inclusion of I/VSC as a protected characteristic within Scottish Hate Crime legislation. The inclusion of I/VSC within Scottish Hate Crime legislation acknowledges social inequality faced by intersex people for the first time in the UK.

This was done on the basis that to be intersex and/or have a VSC is not, contrary to previous (lack of) understanding, a purely pathological issue. By acknowledging that intersex people are part of society and not a pathology, this opens the way to designing comprehensive protections for intersex children and adults.

Working towards Intersex rights: the Italian experience

Claudia Balsamo & Manuela Falzone (IntersexEsiste)

IntersexEsiste (IE) was founded by Intersex activists and academics to bridge the knowledge gap around Intersex lives and rights in Italy. Although IE primary goal is to educate Italian stakeholders, professionals and the general population, the concerted efforts of Italian Intersex organisations and allied NGO in recent years, helped in making a few small openings for dialogue with national institutions. During our presentation, we will discuss the historical path of intersex rights in Italy, current developments and the role of psychologists in working towards the recognition of intersex rights in Italy.

Panel 2 Speakers

Dr Tanya Ní Mhuirthile, School of Law and Government, Dublin City University, Ireland.

Dr Tanya Ní Mhuirthile is an Assistant Professor in Law in the School of Law and Government in Dublin City University. Her research interrogates the interaction between the body and law and draws on human rights law, medical law, law and gender theory and feminist jurisprudence. She has advised Government ministers, public representatives, civil and public servants and many NGOs, nationally and internationally, on the drafting of legislation and the development of public policy in relation to her areas of interest. In November 2017, Tanya was appointed to the Gender Recognition Act Review Group by Minister Regina Doherty. She is the Principal Investigator on the IRC funded project Mapping the Lived Experience of Intersex/Variations of Sex Characteristics in Ireland: Contextualising Lay and Professional Knowledge to Enable Development of Appropriate Law and Policy and the DCU Lead on the MSCA ITN Intersex: New Interdisciplinary Approaches funded by the European Commission.

Dr Rebecca Crowther, Equality Network, Scotland.

Dr Rebecca Crowther is the Policy Coordinator at Equality Network, Scotland's leading LGBTI policy charity. She is also a social researcher. Her work at Equality Network covers (among other things) I/VSC specific policy and engagement, hate crime, mental health, women's health, ending conversion practices, gender recognition reform, human rights, and kinship in the LGBTI+ community.

The Equality Network works for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) equality and human rights in Scotland. They strive to be inclusive and open in their work, to challenge discrimination and to consult, involve and inform the individuals and the communities for which they work.

Sean Saifa Wall, University of Huddersfield, UK.

Sean Saifa Wall (he/him/his) is a Black queer intersex activist and rising scholar. He is a Marie Skłowdoska-Curie fellow examining the erasure of intersex people from social policy in Ireland and England at the University of Huddersfield in England (intersexnew.co.uk). Saifa is committed to racial equity and a radical vision of bodily autonomy for intersex folks. As co-founder of the Intersex Justice Project (intersexjusticeproject.org), a grassroots initiative by intersex people of color, he is determined to end harmful genital surgery on intersex children and advocate for affirming healthcare for all intersex people. Learn more about him at seansaifa.com!

Dr Fae Garland, Centre for Social Ethics and Policy, University of Manchester, UK.

Dr Fae Garland is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Manchester specialising in intersex rights and law. She has published widely on gender, sex and law in journals such as Medical Law International, The Journal of Medical Ethics, The American Journal of Bioethics, Edinburgh Law Review; Law and Society, Legal Studies; and New Zealand Law Review. She has also co-authored a number of national and international governmental reports that explore intersex rights and law and has been PI on a range of empirical projects which consider the impact of law reform on intersex lives. Most recently, she has been awarded funding by the British Academy (with Dr Travis) to examine the operation of Maltese legislation which prohibits unnecessary surgeries on intersex infants. She is currently co-authoring a book with Dr Travis, Intersex Embodiment, for Bristol University Press due for publication later this year.

Dr Mitchell Travis, Centre for Law and Social Justice, University of Leeds, UK.

Dr Mitchell Travis is an Associate Professor in Law and Social Justice and Director of the Centre for Law and Social Justice at the University of Leeds. Mitchell is the co-author of Intersex Embodiment: Legal Frameworks Beyond Identity and Disorder (Bristol University Press, 2023) and the co-editor of A Jurisprudence of the Body (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020). He had co-edited special issues for Law, Technology and Humans (2022) and Culture, Health and Sexuality (2021). Mitchell is a trustee of the Socio Legal Studies Association.

IntersexEsiste

IntersexEsiste was founded in 2016 to address the significant lack of non-medical information and training on intersex issues in Italy, while creating bridges between different intersex/patient associations, LGBT+ groups and human rights movements. Funded by Astrea Intersex Human Rights Fund and profitable activities, in the last 5 years IntersexEsiste developed a website conveying non-stigmatizing information on intersex lives and human rights in Italian and organised several informative workshops aimed at health professionals, educators, university students, LGBTQI+ allies and other professionals. Since 2019, IntersexEsiste expanded its action, creating bridges with political stakeholders and civil society organizations. The recent discussions between IntersexEsiste and Italian institutions and civil organizations, created the premises to raise awareness on the unknown existence of intersex people, helping Italy to become aware of the lack of intersex social recognition, social policies preventing intersex medicalization and, more broadly, of a national regulation where that protects LGBT + people.

Panel 2 Facilitators

Marta Prandelli

Postdoctoral Research Associate, The Open University, UK

Marta Prandelli joined the Open University in November 2021 as a Post Doctoral Associate at the School of Psychology & Counselling, working both on the development of the Open Psychology Research Centre research infrastructure and on Intersex Studies. Marta holds a PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Padova (Italy), and received a BSc and MSc in Psychology at the same university. Marta’s fully funded PhD explored the narratives of Italian parents of intersex children and health professionals, looking at the relationship between bodies, gender, sexuality and culture.

Daniela Crocetti (PhD) is social scientist who has collaborated with the Italian association IntersexEsiste since its founding in 2016, providing workshops and trainings regarding Intersex issues and rights. Crocetti was lead researcher for the EU funded MCSC research project Intersex/DSD Human Rights, Citizenship & Democracy [EUICIT] at the University of Huddersfield, UK until 2019. Since then they have collaborated as lecturer and/or researcher at the University of Bologna and Ca Foscari Venezia. They have produced numerous publications on Intersex, the gendered body, and social health movements.

David Griffiths (PhD) is interested in interdisciplinary sexualities research, particularly in historicising and contextualising scientific and medical ways of understanding bodies and practices related to sex, gender and sexuality. David is currently writing a social and medical history on intersex in Britain from the early 20th century in the Department of Sociology, working closely with colleagues in Psychology, at the University of Surrey. He also runs the FUTURESEX project. Find out more here.