Tony Briffa
| Tony Briffa | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1971 Altona, Victoria, Australia |
| Residence | Altona |
| Known for | First known intersex mayor, intersex activist and educator |
| Television |
60 Minutes (2005) 7.30 Report (2013) |
| Website | www |
Tony Briffa born Antoinette Briffa in Altona, Victoria is an Australian, born to Maltese immigrants, who has Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. Tony Briffa is an independent councillor, and former mayor and deputy mayor in the City of Hobsons Bay, Victoria Briffa is considered the world's first openly intersex mayor and public office-bearer
Tony Briffa was raised as a girl, then lived for a time as a man, and now chooses to live as both female and male. Briffa is one of the first people to be public about a chosen blank, indeterminate, birth certificate.
Tony Briffa was born with Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, raised as a girl and castrated at age seven to impose that assigned sex of rearing. Speaking to a 2013 Senate of Australia inquiry into the Involuntary or coerced sterilisation of intersex people in Australia, Briffa describes how doctors "convinced my mother to approve me to be castrated":
"I have a few pages here from my medical records...It says: 'Mother now ready for gonadectomy.' ... The histology reports, which I will also tender, show that they were healthy testes. But there was no Family Court approval. If we are talking about coercion, doctors coerce families, parents, into believing by saying: 'We need to remove these testes because it will make your child normal'... Of course, part of the whole sterilisation thing is that you have pretty big surgery and scars, so they are making you different! ... [and surgery is] usually over the summer holidays, so your summers are spent in hospital"
Tony Briffa is the world's first openly intersex public mayor, and "the first known intersex public office-bearer in the Western world", serving as Deputy Mayor of the City of Hobsons Bay, Victoria, between 2009 and 2011, and Mayor between 2011–2012. Briffa resigned as a local councillor on 14 February 2014, effective on the appointment of a successor. In October 2016, Briffa was re-elected to Hobsons Bay City Council.
Tony Briffa has previously served as the President of the Genetic Support Network of Victoria. Briffa is now co-executive director of Organisation Intersex International Australia and vice-president of the Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group Australia; described as "the two leading groups advocating for the rights of intersex people in Australia".
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