Today we briefly touched upon the issues regarding intersex children. Sarah raised the question of whether or not the medical world should be sensitive to the issues and movement that the intersex community is involved in. I watched a documentary today in another class regarding intersex babies and whether or not surgery should be performed on them. The film featured a surgeon who performs sex reassignment surgeries on intersex infants. He took the position of the surgery being required for infants with ambiguous genitals before the age of 15 months. He reasoned that parents of intersex children without the "corrective" surgery have trouble bonding and caring for their baby when the genitalia are ambiguous. He said that it was for the sake of the comfort of the parents more or less. I know that I am not a parent, but I would not be so uncomfortable with my intersex baby that I would rush into life altering surgeries. More research has to be done (I am NOT blaming parents for this phenomenon) and doctors need to be less hasty about doing such operations. I also watched a documentary about a woman with CAH who never had the clitoris reducting surgery and was very happy with it, she never once has regretted it. She is a healthy, well rounded woman and very comfortable with her sexuality. This is almost never the case of infants who have had the surgery. Most grow up not comfortable in their own skin, especially their genitalia. The results vary, but almost all the intersex who had surgery grow up having very negative thoughts and what happened to them and their bodies. I think for this reason, if nothing else, these surgeries should be delayed until that intersex individual can make that decision for themselves.
Erin Pattridge
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