The National Health and Medical Research Council and DoHDA have issued a joint statement urging researchers to consider sex, gender and sexual orientation at all stages of every project.
Federally funded Australian researchers and research organisations are being “strongly encouraged” to ensure that study populations more accurately represent the breadth of sex, gender, variations of sex characteristics and sexual orientations present in Australian society.
The joint statement from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, which was published last week, seeks to improve “knowledge of research gaps related to historical underrepresentation of sex, gender, variations of sex characteristics and sexual orientation in various research fields and topics”.
“Historically, the limited consideration of sex, gender, variations of sex characteristics and sexual orientation in health and medical research has led to many population groups being excluded or discouraged from research participation, or made invisible in research findings, or has led to inappropriate and/or harmful health care, lack of consideration in health and public policy, and/or continued discrimination,” the statement read.
“The populations who have been, and still are, impacted by these practices vary based on the research area, and include women and men, both cisgender and trans, non-binary people, people with variations of sex characteristics and people with diverse sexual orientation.”
Both the NHMRC and DoHDA, which administers the Medical Research Future Fund, have committed to working with the sector over time to establish improved consideration and increased inclusion of sex and gender diverse Australians.
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The joint statement acknowledged that the extensive diversity of research projects means that not all projects will necessarily need to consider all variables.
It also urged researchers to use consistent definitions and classifications as set out in the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2020 Standard.
The 2020 standard advised that a person’s sex is based upon their sex characteristics, including chromosomes, hormones and reproductive organs.
“While typically based upon the sex characteristics observed and recorded at birth or infancy, a person’s reported sex can change over the course of their lifetime and may differ from their sex recorded at birth,” the ABS standard read.
The joint statement warns that data on sex may not always provide useful information on a person’s biological sex characteristics.
Gender, meanwhile, is classified as a social and cultural concept based on who a person feels themselves to be and how they express their gender.
