Bonnie Hart is an Australian artist, film maker, and

intersex human rights Intersex people are born with sex characteristics, such as chromosomes, gonads, or genitals, that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies." Intersex peo ...

activist, born with

androgen insensitivity syndrome Androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS) is a difference in sex development involving hormonal resistance due to androgen receptor dysfunction. It affects 1 in 20,000 to 64,000 XY ( karyotypically male) births. The condition results in the partial ...

and president of Intersex Peer Support Australia. Hart performs nationally and internationally, and speaks on intersex issues nationally and internationally. In 2016, Australia's '' Gay News Network'' included her in their "25 LGBTI people to watch in 2017".

Early life

Hart describes how she was told she experienced "heteronormative sexual training from a really early age", through multiple

intersex medical interventions Intersex medical interventions, also known as intersex genital mutilations (IGM), are surgical, hormonal and other medical interventions performed to modify atypical or ambiguous genitalia and other sex characteristics, primarily for the purposes ...

. Despite giving consent as a child, she felt unaware of the lifelong implications. Hart describes how stigma "sets the scene" for such interventions, "There’s a fear that people will be maladjusted because their bodies are different, and that fear teamed with the ignorance of the realities of what it’s like to live as an adult with those bodies without surgery, kind of perpetuates a surgical intervention process". Growing up, Hart did not know that her sister,

Phoebe Hart Phoebe Hart is an Australian filmmaker, lecturer and intersex rights activist, born with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. Hart lectures in film, television and digital media at the Queensland University of Technology, and is principal of Hartflic ...

, also had androgen insensitivity syndrome.

Career

Hart is a "high-energy avant-garde performer" and multidisciplinary artist, assembling digital and analog filmmaking, music, and visual art. She is a cofounder of Venting Gallery and the Foundation for Contemporary Music and Culture in Brisbane, Queensland, and performs with bands including X-wave and the Unaustralians. In the autobiographical documentary ''

Orchids, My Intersex Adventure ''Orchids, My Intersex Adventure'' is an auto-biographicalATOM Award descriptio"First Hand Films" ''Interview with Phoebe Hart'', Melbourne, Australia. Retrieved 26 October 2010 2010 documentary about one woman's struggle to understand her own in ...

'', Hart and her sister face the traumatic emotional scars from early operations and the secrecy associated with them.

Activism

Hart is president of Intersex Peer Support Australia. She has appeared in numerous short videos, including for QLife and the

National LGBTI Health Alliance LGBTIQ+ Health Australia (formerly the National LGBTI Health Alliance) is a peak health organisation for LGBT and intersex organisations in Australia. A not-for-profit company, it was established in August 2007. Key areas of activity Key foc ...

, and SBS. and is widely interviewed, including on national television.

Selected bibliography

Recognition

In 2016, Australia's '' Gay News Network'' included Hart in their "LGBTI people to watch in 2017".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hart, Bonnie Living people Intersex women Intersex rights activists Australian artists Intersex rights in Australia Year of birth missing (living people)