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There is an article about intersexuality in the new issue of Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, an Australian medical journal. Written by Low and Hutson of the Centre for Early Sexual Development at Royal Children's Hospital in Parkville, Australia, the article gives a basic technical overview of understanding and diagnosing several intersex conditions. While the article does not address any particular treatment for these conditions, authors' biases are obvious in the first line of the article: "Next to perinatal death, genital ambiguity is likely the most devastating condition to face any parent of a newborn."
But what exactly is it that's making the birth of a child with "ambiguous genitalia" so devastating, considering the fact that genital ambiguity generally does not itself cause any pain, illness, or death (although it may be a sign that the child might be experiencing some underlying endocrine problem)? Obviously, the author's illogical insistence that "'clitromegaly' in an otherwise phenotypic female is always abnormal," (p. 409) for example, does not help remove the devastating shame and stigma associated with intersex births, and helps to justify cosmetic surgeries that many intersex adults feel are damaging.
Source:
Low Y, Hutson JM, Murdoch Children's Research Institute Sex Study Group (2003). "Rules for clinical diagnosis in babies with ambiguous genitalia." Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health. 39(6): 406-413.
Posted by Emi on Aug 19, 2003