visibly different anatomy can not grow up to be healthy adults.
This is then justification to assign a sex to the child and perform
genital reconstructive surgery. This surgery always results in
partial or complete loss of sensation that is necessary for sexual
pleasure. In about 90% of cases of sexual reconstructive surgery,
where the resultant sex could go either way, surgeons opt for
female. Why? Because it's easier. If a child is born with a penis
(normal and fully functional) that is considered to be too small, it
is thought to be better to change it to a clitoris and construct a
fake vagina, leaving that person with no reproductive ability and
little or no sense of sexual stimulation. Similarly, if a child is born
with a clitoris that is thought to be too big, it is snipped, trimmed
and possibly relocated, once again leaving the person with little
or no sexual sensation. Then, that person is supposed to be
forced into whatever gender role was decided, and live a happy,
heterosexual life.
Even though I was born gay, I have a typical set of sex
organs that would seem to be the right ones for my brain; and
though I may have traveled a hard road to find my sexual identity,
I did have one to find. Can you imagine the anguish that a person
must feel when one looks down at one's mid section and sees
the wrong gender; a gender that was decided and imposed upon
that person as an infant who may have had adequately functional
genitals that were not quite typical and were therefore surgically
mutilated to look right, and now have no sensation for sexual
pleasure? That is the very sad issue that faces many people in
this country.
Adult intersexuals are coming together to share their life
stories and insight into the effects of intersexuality and infant
genital plastic surgery. They wish to change the current ideas
that the American Academy of Pediatrics now impose onto the
parents of children born as intersexuals. Why do they have to
organize themselves? Because, there has never been any real
attempt by the medical community to follow the lives of these
people since their births. The standard seems to be: do the
surgery, impose the gender, and forget it ever happened. It has
only been since the laws were changed regarding the release of
medical documents that many intersexual adults were able to find
out that they had, in fact, been changed shortly after they were
born.
ISNA, The Intersex Society of North America is a peer
support, education, and advocacy group founded and operated
by and for intersexuals. Who else could give any insight on the
issues of intersex births and what to do? They advocate that
situations that do not present a health risk to the child should be
left alone! They feel that intersex children should be allowed to go
through puberty, develop their own sense of sexuality, and then
[they, themselves] decide if genital reconstructive surgery or
hormone treatment should be performed --after being told of all of
the potential risks. This only seems like common sense! It is also
true that after puberty, the genitals are fully formed organs that
are easier to operate on, with more predictable results.
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