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There is a strange article in the September 19 edition of The Washington Times, in which the paper brings up the recent criticisms of unwanted genital surgeries on intersex children as an example of the "intense criticism" that the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) is supposedly facing for funding sex researches, as if cutting funds to NICHD would magically stop surgeries. The reality, of course, is the opposite: researches that investigate the long-term consequences of surgical treatments or that explores alternative treatment models can only help our cause. The only connection that the reporter seems to draw is that the surgical treatment was pioneered by John Money from Johns Hopkins University, who also happened to be a major recipient of NICHD grants.
We wrote a letter to the Washington Times defending the NICHD and its sex research funding, but we aren't completely happy either with the comments made by NICHD president Dr. Duane Alexander in the article. Asked about Money's failure in the David Reimer case, which is detailed in the book "As Nature Made Him," Alexander responds that this case was "one that did not turn out well," then blames parents for not making "the switch in their minds" and not being "consistent in raising him as a female instead of a male." Such explanation, of course, is purely speculative, and does not give the public the impression that NICHD knows what it's doing.
Of course, that may be how the reporter intended to present it. Counted among the "lying liars" in Al Franken's recent bestseller about the conservative media, the Washington Times is an ultra-conservative newspaper owned by a right-wing religious group, so its biases for a "small government" and against researches on sexuality are obvious. In part because of that, we chose to leave Dr. Alexander alone and focus on the main topic in the letter we wrote to the editors of the Washington Times:
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Dear Editor,
In your story about the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development's funding of sex research projects ("Sex and child health," September 19), you refer to the controversy surrounding the surgical sex-reassignment of children born with "ambiguous (intersex) genitalia" as an example of how NICHD "has been the subject of intense criticism." However, the fact that this "treatment" was initially promoted by a physician who happened to be a major NICHD grant recipient does not make this ongoing medical practice a NICHD-funded project. Nor are the critics of this particular "treatment" necessarily the critics of NICHD's funding of sex researches.
In fact, it is precisely these researches that, in recent years, provided evidences indicating that these surgeries performed without the child's knowledge or consent did indeed cause physical, psychological, and sexual damages. Cutting NICHD's research funds will not stop these surgeries; more researches that evaluate their long-term effects and explore less invasive alternatives will. As a patient advocate, I support NIH/NICHD's continued funding of researches of intersex conditions, which will help doctors provide better medical treatment for children born with intersex conditions.
Emi Koyama
Director, Intersex Initiative
www.intersexinitiative.org
Posted by Emi on Sep 20, 2003