Key documents

• Australian Human Rights Commission, Ensuring health and bodily integrity: towards a human rights approach for people  born with variations in sex characteristics (October 2021)
• The Yogyakarta Principles Plus 10 (November 2017) 
• Tasmania Law Reform Institute, Non-therapeutic male circumcision: Final Report No 17 (August 2012)
• Queensland Law Reform Commission, Circumcision of infant males: Research paper (December 1993)

Conference presentations

18th Congress of the European Federation of Sexology

• Jonathan Meddings, Beyond “best interests”: Medical necessity and regulatory reform for protecting children from genital cutting in Australia (29 May 2026)

Articles

• Jonathan Meddings, World-leading intersex law passes in Australia (June 2023)
• Jonathan Meddings, Our FGM laws are broken (April 2023) 

Relevant statutes

• Variation in Sex Characteristics (Restricted Medical Treatment) Act 2023 (ACT)
• Health Safeguards for People Born with Variations in Sex Characteristics Act 2026 (Vic)

Case summaries

• R v Lightbody; R v Mohd 1133/2021 Perth District Court (unreported)
• The Queen v A2; The Queen v Magennis; The Queen v Vaziri [2019] HCA 35 (16 October 2019) 

Recommended reading

• Jonathan Meddings, The Final Cut: The truth about circumcision - See chapter 7 (human rights and the law)

Online learning

• The Darbon Institute's online course Male Genital Cutting 101 includes information on the physical, sexual, and mental harms of male genital cutting, which can inform legal arguments, and an overview of human rights and legal considerations.
• The Genital Autonomy Legal Defense and Education Fund, Vital information for circumcised plaintiffs wanting to file impact litigation and attorney training Circumcision of healthy unconsenting minors: Strategies for identifying and eliminating legal bias in impact litigation (April 2026) - Note: These resources are specific to the US legal context. If you would like to support The Darbon Institute to produce a similar resource for Australia and New Zealand, please contact [email protected]