Variations in Sex Characteristics Restricted Medical Treatment Assessment Board
This page introduces the members of the Variations in Sex Characteristics Restricted Medical Treatment Assessment Board.
How members are selected
Members of the Variations in Sex Characteristics Restricted Medical Treatment Assessment Board are appointed and endorsed by the ACT Minister for Health.
The board members bring a range of skills to the board’s decision-making processes. Members have experience in medicine, human rights, ethics, psychosocial care or lived experience of variations in sex characteristics.
The board’s oversight will give people with variations in sex characteristics and their families more confidence that they are agreeing to the best treatments for them. It offers a safeguard around care in a field that has a difficult history, including unnecessary surgeries.
Board members
Megan Mitchell AM—Board President
Ms Mithcell AM is the current Committee Chair of the ACT Children and Young People Death Review Committee, and former National Children’s Commissioner. She has practical expertise in child protection, foster and kinship care, juvenile justice, children’s services, childcare, disabilities, and early intervention and prevention services.
Amanda Turnill
Ms Turnill is a former lawyer with over two decades of board level and senior executive level experience. As a practice leader in life sciences, she has advised Australian and international clients on issues arising at the intersection of health, law and ethics. She has been ranked as a leading lawyer in legal directories for life sciences, product liability and regulatory law.
Kristiina Siiankoski
Ms Siiankoski is the co-founder and President of MRKH Australia. Kristiina is passionate about combining her professional expertise and her lived experience as a woman with MRKH to improve the health and wellbeing of the MRKH community. She is a member of the Global MRKH leadership team, which aims to improve the experience of those with MRKH on an international level.
Dr Michael Rosier
Dr Rosier is a paediatrician who has provided paediatric services to the Canberra community for over 34 years. He has worked both at Canberra and Calvary hospitals and continues to work in his private rooms at the Calvary Clinic. During this time, Dr Rosier has dealt with a broad-spectrum of paediatric issues with patients from birth through until 18 years of age.
Dr Leith Henry
Dr Henry is a registered psychologist with 25 years of experience in a variety of roles, including trauma counsellor, rehabilitation psychologist, health researcher, involuntary treatment decision maker, board member, and lecturer at The University of Queensland and Queensland University of Technology. With expertise in the application of legislation for health-related decision making, Dr Henry is passionate about human rights and identifies respect, integrity, fairness, and autonomy as critical professional values.
Dr Jacky Hewitt
Dr Hewitt is a paediatric endocrinologist and clinician-scientist with strong clinical and research expertise in the development of sex and gender. She has published original research, treatment guidelines, and has contributed to textbooks within the field. She consults for government bodies on issues regarding sex and gender. Dr Hewitt also performs humanitarian aid work and is a Director of Medecins Sans Frontieres Australia. She is a committed advocate for diverse and marginalised children.
Anna Brown OAM
Ms Brown OAM is a lawyer, human rights advocate, and founding CEO of Equality Australia, a national organisation dedicated to equality for LGBTIQ+ people. She was previously the Legal Director at the Human Rights Law Centre where she led the Centre's LGBTIQ rights work for several years. In these roles, Anna has worked extensively on the issue of intersex medical treatment, including as a member of the Expert Reference Group for the Australian Human Rights Commission’s 2021 Report ‘Ensuring Health and Bodily Integrity.’
Simone-lisa Anderson
Ms Anderson is the Tasmanian representative for IPSA (Intersex Peer Support Australia) she is also the secretary for IPSA and the IPSA Parent representative for Australia. IPSA is an intersex peer support, information, and advocacy group for people with innate variations in sex characteristics and their families. She is also the Project Officer for the Better Lives Project. Better Lives is a national first project that supports understanding of people with innate variations of sex characteristics in a wide range of professions within Health and Education.
Ghassan Kassisieh
Mr Kassisieh is the Legal Director at Equality Australia and contributed in that role to the legal policy development of the ACT Variations in Sex Characteristics (Restricted Medical Treatment) Act. He has significant legal expertise in LGBTIQ+ human rights issues, alongside commercial, public law and human rights litigation experience in Australia and overseas, and as a sessional tutor in public law.
Chloe Hanna
Ms Hanna is a clinical coordinator working in Melbourne, with a focus in supporting individuals (and their families) with variations in their reproductive development. She has a background genetic counselling. Chloe’s key interest is to enhance the multidisciplinary approach to care for these individuals, as well as developing links between individuals, peer support networks, health care groups and the broader community to enable a more holistic and transparent system.
Dr Michaela Okninski
Dr Okninski is an early career researcher at Adelaide Law School. Dr Okninski was awarded a PhD in 2022 after examining the statutory framework of consent in proposed voluntary assisted dying legislation in South Australia, focusing on protection against undue influence in the consent process. Michaela was appointed to the Voluntary Assisted Dying Implementation Taskforce, convened by SA Health, in December 2021, and the Education and Training Working Group in February 2022, who are responsible for overseeing the development of mandatory voluntary assisted dying training for medical practitioners.
Dr Morgan Carpenter
Dr Carpenter has lived experience of an innate variation of sex characteristics. He is Executive Director of Intersex Human Rights Australia, a national charity by and for people with innate variations of sex characteristics. He is also a Research Affiliate and bioethicist in the University of Sydney School of Public Health, where he fulfilled the requirements of his doctoral studies in bioethics in December 2023. In 2013, he designed and gave freely, the intersex flag.
Dr Susan Cochrane
Dr Cochrane is the National Policy Manager of Relationships Australia. Following admission to practice as a solicitor, she worked briefly in private legal practice in Brisbane before moving to Canberra to take up a role as a legislative drafter. She worked for almost two decades across a variety of legal policy roles in the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department, and then as senior ministerial advisor to the then Attorney-General, Senator the Hon George Brandis KC.