A request for your opinion...

[laura21]

Hi there,

My name is Laura and I'm from the bonnie city of Glasgow in Scotland. I realise this section is probably avoided by most, but I hope if you have a glance, you'll take the time to read. I am currently researching for my final year university dissertation and it is on intersex conditions and their treatments (well that's the title anyway). After reading many personal accounts I have decided that the main point of my project will be on the current issues surrounding early gender assignment and the treatments that come with it to enforce a clinically chosen sex on the child. I have access to a whole world of journals from the medical community, but I feel the only way to give a balanced (and therefore valid) presentation of this is to know the opinions of those who have lived through it. My intent is not a psychological experiment, or any kind of experiment, but merely to get a personal insight into the views of intersex adults on this matter in order to give the most balanced and fair report I can.

Therefore I am inviting any member of this forum to post their views, opinion or experiences of early gender assignment here, as I do not wish to use previous posts without permission. Or, if you wish to remain anonymous, feel free to email me at 0402322m@<hidden>

Full acknowledgments will be given

Thanks for reading,

Laura McGhee

[dkmn]

Ask a question and you shall receive:bat: .

[laura21]

Well, it's not so much that I have specific interview-type questions, I would just like to know your personal opinion on early gender assignment, mainly through surgery.

Some general questions I suppose would be along the lines of:

Do you think that decisions regarding an individual's treatment should be based on parental consent, or should it be delayed until the patient themself is old enough to consent?

Is gender identity the main issue to be considered when deciding on treatment, or is it more important to think about things like potential fertility and sexual function?

Is it more diffucult for a child to grow up fitting into neither a male or female category, or could raised awareness and public education help this?

Do you think changes in the law need to be made which are more accommodating for intersex individuals?


Well, that's the kind of things I hope to cover in my report, so any views you have about them, or anything else that's relevant would be of great help, and I'd be very grateful for your time.


I have posted something similar on the Organization Intersex International forum and the replies I have got have been of mixed opinion.

Hope that's of help, thanks for replying.

Laura.

[The Female Eunuch]

Hi Laura,

I think a child's gender assignment should be based on the child's own judgement - gender identity is much easier for a child to understand than the technical issues that medical consent usually involves are, so I think we could have a special age of medical consent of five for that purpose. Of course, any medical treatment to move the child's body closer to that ideal would also require the standard medical consent from a parent or guardian, because of the medical issues involved, but it could not be contrary to the child's wishes re gender assignment.

I child has to have a gender identity as one sex or the other, but I don't think that adapting the child's body to fit that as early as possible is necessary. My body wasn't until I was 14, because the surgery kept failing, and I suspect the biggest source of the sense that my body wasn't right was the fact that doctors felt the need to keep trying to change it, more so than actual deviation from the norm.

I'm inclined to think that gender identity is more important than sexual function. Yes, sexual function does kind-of matter, but I would question whether there's much value in having sexual function as a member of the worng sex.

cheers,
Caroline

[The Female Eunuch]

Hi Laura,

I think a child's gender assignment should be based on the child's own judgement - gender identity is much easier for a child to understand than the technical issues that medical consent usually involves are, so I think we could have a special age of medical consent of five for that purpose. Of course, any medical treatment to move the child's body closer to that ideal would also require the standard medical consent from a parent or guardian, because of the medical issues involved, but it could not be contrary to the child's wishes re gender assignment.

I child has to have a gender identity as one sex or the other, but I don't think that adapting the child's body to fit that as early as possible is necessary. My body wasn't until I was 14, because the surgery kept failing, and I suspect the biggest source of the sense that my body wasn't right was the fact that doctors felt the need to keep trying to change it, more so than actual deviation from the norm.

I'm inclined to think that gender identity is more important than sexual function. Yes, sexual function does kind-of matter, but I would question whether there's much value in having sexual function as a member of the wrong sex.

cheers,
Caroline

[swyergalpal]

I nor my parents had no clue about the XY chromosomes lurking on my DNA until I reach 14. I was safely a girl with no gender issues. When i was diagnoses with Gonadal Dysgensis- Swyer syndrome, i was so comfortably a girl i had no problem continueing like that! The main thing is that the parents have to be honest and open with the kid, let them feel in control of their life.

Last week I had a mom of an intersex child e-mail me to ask me some question, after answering her questions i added
" I know that at this point you look at it as,' he's my child' but rmember that it's his life" I think that is the main thing parents have to keep in mind when they are blessed with an intersexed child.

I can't answer you about a situation where no specific sex is apparent but I'm sure that all the wonderful people on this board can answer you
Sorry for rambling and good luck on your report!

[Kailana]

First I would like to repeat, its the childs body, not the parents that are most important. Every decision being made should be up to the child and i would further add, at least by early teens, we should be told, informed what has allready been done, the reasoning behind the decisions made, and if we arent happy as one and wish to reassign to our preferred gender then that option should be made available to us. We deffinately dont need to be further traumatized by doctors and family or friends questioning whats wrong, or people assuming were gay, or anything else, and the biggest thing assuming we are transsexual, we are intersexed, our thoughts and feeling are what are of the highest importance. Lastly we do not need to be of consenting age, when a person is capable of making there own decisions, when we understand everything thats involved, that is when we should be offered surgery or hormone therapy, counseling,whatever age we happen to be shouldnt matter.

As for the thing of most importance, choosing between sexual function or gender identity, that decision should be left to the individual. Most of us allready know that , sexual function has not been a high priority with the corrective surgeries forced on us. history shows that the surgeries done to date have all been about gender assignment, regardless of gender identity, It is extremely rare to see an intersexed patient report there treatment, considered how they thought about themselves, most of us were infants. We were not able to express any thoughts or opinions.

I think your question about a child being raised as neither male or female is well nonapplicable, we were assigned a gender, either a male one or a female one. You see, for many of us, though not all, many of us as adults, feel genderless, not really male, not realy female due to the treatments we recieved. Yet as children we were constantly told reinforced, we were boys or girls. Alot of us are allready questioning what we are as teens, when we become really aware of being or feeling different, Alot of us allready know somethings wrong, its usually doctors that give the biggest clues, issues with fertility, sterility, the odd questions were asked. Family members mentioning things, or suddenly going silent when you enter a room. There is alot of little things that i remember that constantly made me doubt i was normal. I honestly feel that alot of the questions i was asking, with an honest answer, would of provided much needed information and stabiltity. And raise with improved public awareness and promoting acceptance would help alot.

Most of the laws in practice dont even consider that we exist. Its like we are one of the most medically documented variations of people on this planet and most countries deny our existance. Most shun and hide what we are out of ignorance and bigotry, yet we are born this way. We are one of the most neglected, mistreated, people on this planet, and so far, the medical community has done the most damage to us. We are the only human beings that the medical community believes needs to be surgically erased from society. Some of the more damaging medical views have been written about, recorded as saying or recommending termination of a fetus for the likelyhood of hermaphroditism. Its as if we are one of the few people who doctors say its ok to mutilate and cause permanent harm too, just cause we come into the world a looking a little different then the norms for male or female.

[uriela]

In most cases surgery should be delayed until the child can decide.

I still think - a doctor's opinion to the contrary, but he was quizzical when he gave the response to my question - that I had distal hypospadias and/or chordee at birth, waiving the added possibility of one or both testicles being undescended.

I don't have issues with being continually examined or later reconstructive surgery that some have. Functionally the solution is fairly simple. I would have been "normalized" so I did not spray all over the place when I peed and nothing further would have to be done. That is, if I had not been uncomfortable being considered male. Somehow I avoided being pointed out as weird in the locker room. (A friend was - his genitals never did develop - at least when I last saw him as a teenager and he never developed body hair. Mine sprouted out, much to my dismay - no, I was not relieved - at about the usual time.)

I wish I had been raised in a more unisex fashion and that they would not have referred to me as male or female growing up. A simple comment like "my little man" would make me emotionally shut down. I don't know why society seems to demand that you be treated as one or the other so young, because it just does not matter. Maybe it would be to ask too much.

I'm not eligible for your questionnaire. I would hope that you would get a representative response.

Nameste'
Uriela

[prince....ss?]

Kailana said it perfectly and I would not be able to improve on that last statement. So that is just how I feel also.

[uriela]

For me to hold my tongue any more would be unconscionable.

I am Pro-Choice. That means that I think that a woman should have the
choice of what to do with her body. If she wishes to terminate a pregnancy,
she should be allowed to do so. I know that there are those who would do
so just because they know the fetus would grow up to be trans or gay or
intersex. I don't really think that, in and of itself, is a reason to terminate a
pregnancy, but that is not my body and that is not my life. I did read one
story where the couple had already raised one child who was intersex of one
kind--I cannot remember which--and knew that the probability would be that
they would raise even more. They decided to have no more children because
of that. They said they did not want to put another child through what the first had gone through--maybe they did not want to go through it again
either. You give the child nine months in your body and then you have
another 18 years, sometimes a lifetime to care for it. A woman should have
control over whether she wants to go through with it or not.

It could be that the cost of rearing would be so prohibitive that it would
destroy the family's finances to go through that. Why would anyone want
to saddle other human beings with that?

Personally I have submitted myself to surgery to change my body in a little
bit so that I am more comfortable with myself. But that was my deliberate
choice. I cannot see why I should deny anyone that power over her own body too.

Uriela
Pro-Choice and Proud of it

[fraulein_Maria]

Kailana said it perfectly and I would not be able to improve on that last statement. So that is just how I feel also.

>>> i really can't improve upon it either, except perhaps to clarify...

we wish to be treated. some of us require drugs like cortisol just to stay alive. some of us will require hormone supplimentation to become adults.

But FEW of us REQUIRE surgery of any sort. Of those that do, most can be put off for years. My gender is NOT an emergency... having a common urethro-vaginal sinus might be.

your name is feminine, so i will assume your female... and ask you one simple Q.

If it was YOUR clitorus the doctors were talking about...

Would YOU want it chopped off?

Or would you ask yourself......

Just who the F@<hidden>#$% do those bastards think they are?

Isn't it up to you, NOT THEM, to judge your appearance?

If its not, shouldn't it be?

[Sunshine1]

Hi Maria-

I've don't post much if ever but I was wondering if I could quote your whole post somewhere else. This is the best.

Thanks,

Aimee

[fraulein_Maria]

Hi Maria-

I've don't post much if ever but I was wondering if I could quote your whole post somewhere else. This is the best.

Thanks,

Aimee

>>> you may :) <<<