Plenary 5: Sex & Gender Diversity

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Plenary Speaker

Mani Bruce Mitchell is an internationally respected Intersex activist. Mani’s childhood was a complex discordant disjunction of growing up with conservative, loving parents in remote rural New Zealand and the shrouded secret of a variant body and intersex reality. In 1996 an accident of history meant Mani was the only non-American to attend the world's first ever retreat for intersex people in California. Trained as a teacher, with a 14 year career in emergency services management, that year, Mani made a very considered decision to live openly, to work as an intersex activist, professional educator and counselor and to break the silence, secrecy and shame that has surrounded intersex reality. Mani established the Intersex Trust Aotearoa New Zealand in 1996 and has been involved in a wide range of activities in the US, Australia and New Zealand, always striving to work in coalition to contribute to the improved wellbeing of sex and gender diverse people.

Mani is a qualified counselor and clinical supervisor, working in private practice specialising in gender variance. This clinical practice has been informed and extended by Mani’s own journey and exploration as an intersex person and many years of work creating change for intersex and gender variant people around the world.

Mani is interested in the use of media to make sex and gender diversity visible and has, for example, featured in a number of award-winning documentaries, including Assume Nothing, which screened recently in Australia.

Click here to view the images Mani used to illustrate the presentation.

www.ianz.org.nz

Panel Discussants

Sally Goldner has been out of the gender closet for over thirteen years and an active participant in Melbourne's queer community for the last ten. This includes ongoing involvement with TransGender Victoria, especially participation in achieving trans EO law in Victoria, 3 CRs Out of the Pan, VGLRL, Zoe Belle Gender Centre and previous involvement with JOY, BENT TV, Melbourne Marching Girls, ALSO Foundation and Seahorse Club of Victoria. Outside of the community, she is an accountant specialising in the not-for-profit sector.

Katherine Cummings, born John Cummings in Scotland in 1935, grew up in Kiribati, Fiji, Scotland and Australia. She is a research librarian and a freelance writer. She transitioned male to female at the end of 1986, wrote and delivered radio talks on her transition for two years on the ABC “Health Report” then wrote her autobiography, Katherine’s Diary, which won the Australian Human Rights Award for Non-Fiction in 1992.  She works three days a week for the Gender Centre (Resources, Information and Library) and three days for the Social Policy Research Centre at UNSW.

Gina Wilson is Intersex and an activist for Intersex rights. Gina is a board member of Organisation Intersex International and its Australasian human rights spokesperson. She is president of Organisation Intersex International Australia.

Rusty Nannup is a Watjarri – Nyungar Women from the West Coast of Australia.
“I live in main stream Australian Society but have never forgotten my roots.
I have never allowed my sexuality or identity to be a handicap because it’s my personal strength.
Being able to maintain ones self in both worlds is something special and I’ve done it.
I believe we can make it if we take the time to look and listen too each other.
I left my home many years ago but I never left my country. Remember who you are. I am a proud Watjarri – Nyungar Woman”.

Peter Hyndal has been actively involved in the LGBT community in Canberra since the early 1990s (as a lesbian, as a gay man and also as a trans person!). He has been involved with a number of LGBT organisations that have lobbied for legislative reform. He is a founding member of A Gender Agenda, an ACT based organisation seeking to improve the health and wellbeing of sex and/or gender diverse people.