DrAileen Kennedy

Dr Aileen Kennedy is a leading national and international scholar on Australian law relating to sex and gender, with a specific focus on research and advocacy on intersex human rights law. She joined the UTS Law Health Justice Research Centre in April 2023 as a Chancellor's Research Fellow. 

As a Director of Intersex Human Rights Australia (IHRA), a member of the LGBTIQ+ Committee of Australian Lawyers for Human Rights, and a national director of Pride in Law, Kennedy is at the forefront of developing and shaping policy and knowledge about social justice and human rights for people with intersex variations.

Following a Bachelor of Arts/Law (Honours) at Macquarie University (1989) and a Master of Law at the University of Sydney (2006), Aileen completed her PhD at UTS (2021). Her thesis considered the impact of neurological theories of binary gender on judicial decision-making for transgender and intersex minors in Australia. Previously, she has worked in the legal profession and held academic roles at University of New England, University of Western Sydney, UNSW Sydney and Macquarie University.

The focus of Aileen’s current research is to provide an analysis of Australian law as it impacts on the intersex population and develop a comprehensive suite of law reform proposals to promote the human rights of people with innate variations of sex characteristics (IVSC).
Her book 'Law, Gender Identity and the Brain' published by Routledge Press, sits at the cutting edge of law and medicine’s engagement with sex and gender to argue that law must develop greater acceptance of dynamic complexity and diversity in the domain of sex and gender. She believes that law must retreat from its determination to create, define, and regulate artificially bounded sex categories of male and female which can lead to violations of embodied integrity and a betrayal of autonomous rights of intersex minors.

With a focus on real-world outcomes, Aileen’s extensive research findings on legal regulation of body transforming medicine, including intersex medical interventions and female genital mutilation have contributed to the developing global debate on the cultural embeddedness of different forms of genital surgeries and medical modifications to the sexed body. Aileen was appointed to the Expert Reference Panel of the Australian Human Rights Commissions report 'Ensuring health and bodily integrity' (2021) on intersex human rights in medical settings. She has also worked with the ACT government in its law reform to regulate medical interventions on minors with intersex variations.