A few days ago my sister (and her colleagues) turned a kid’s penis into a vagina. She’s a pediatric urologist, and apparently, quite a lot of girls (as in “with XX chromosomes”) are born with penises in various development stages.
She has XX chromosomes, but due to hormonal problems during the pregnancy, she was born with a full penis and scrotum, but no testes, and in her body was a full uterus and ovaries, but no vagina.
She says that nowadays, it’s much more common to not do this kind of operation, and let the kid decide once grown up. But in this case, because it was so developed, they operated it. Of course, it’s not something the surgeons decide. The parents have a counselor help them decide what to do.
To me this sounds backwards. Especially because it was so developed I would have left it as is. But I guess it’s not an easy choice for the parents. I keep thinking that one day she may become trans and learn they used to have a penis.
I keep wondering what happens to intersex kids who have that choice taken away from them. Do they regret the choice adults made on their behalf? Did they have a chance to speak up and ask for the change, or ask to wait? Did they understand what was happening, or was this just a personal secret they were told to keep for the rest of their lives?
That has to be such a hard talk to have. It’s not like a cleft palate or a club foot where the choice is obvious because it remedies a disability. How do they handle the consequences of that as adults?
Every intersex person I know advocates against these unnecessary cosmetic genital surgeries. A lot of them are in a situation like Purple here. Their body is taken away from them without asking, and they have to pay and face barriers and experience trauma to get it back. And it’s never quite the same as it was.
A few days ago my sister (and her colleagues) turned a kid’s penis into a vagina. She’s a pediatric urologist, and apparently, quite a lot of girls (as in “with XX chromosomes”) are born with penises in various development stages.
She has XX chromosomes, but due to hormonal problems during the pregnancy, she was born with a full penis and scrotum, but no testes, and in her body was a full uterus and ovaries, but no vagina.
She says that nowadays, it’s much more common to not do this kind of operation, and let the kid decide once grown up. But in this case, because it was so developed, they operated it. Of course, it’s not something the surgeons decide. The parents have a counselor help them decide what to do.
To me this sounds backwards. Especially because it was so developed I would have left it as is. But I guess it’s not an easy choice for the parents. I keep thinking that one day she may become trans and learn they used to have a penis.
Anyway, this post made me think of that.
I keep wondering what happens to intersex kids who have that choice taken away from them. Do they regret the choice adults made on their behalf? Did they have a chance to speak up and ask for the change, or ask to wait? Did they understand what was happening, or was this just a personal secret they were told to keep for the rest of their lives?
That has to be such a hard talk to have. It’s not like a cleft palate or a club foot where the choice is obvious because it remedies a disability. How do they handle the consequences of that as adults?
Every intersex person I know advocates against these unnecessary cosmetic genital surgeries. A lot of them are in a situation like Purple here. Their body is taken away from them without asking, and they have to pay and face barriers and experience trauma to get it back. And it’s never quite the same as it was.