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.
I find this series fascinating and educational
Oddly appropriate
Following along for kittygirl in the back
What is this a metaphor for specifically? People put actual prepubescent children on hormone therapy?
This is about two things: how society treats intersex people, and about how even trans people can struggle with arrogance and closed mindedness about what we think is our expertise.
People put actual prepubescent children on hormone therapy?
I don’t know about hormones, but people most assuredly give children genital surgery to “correct” intersex traits. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex_medical_interventions
This can also be connected with the chemical castration Alan Turing was forced into because he was gay. It was a thing society did to gay men back then.
Fox News: “Gender ideology leads to mutilating children!”
Meanwhile, in an effort to preserve the appearance of an immutable, assigned-at-birth gender binary…
I like when Jesse Waters interviewed Abdul El-Sayed. Jesse started asking Abdul if it’s okay to cut a kid’s “ding-a-ling” off. Abdul asked Jesse if he’s circumcised.
So gender ideology is leading to mutilating children! Just not in the way they mean.
The real gender ideology was the children we mutilated along the way.
Kyuubei from Gintama, recolored 2026
