Psychology Intersexed individuals: surgery during childhood?

Here's a quick snip from an article to explain what intersexuality is, first off:

Just to clear up the first part about karyotypes other than XX (female) or XY (male), it's possible to have one (or more) extra chromosomes, so an intersexed individual could have a karyotype of XXY.

Another possibility is androgen insensitivity syndrome, or AIS, which basically means that a genetically male individual cannot respond to testosterone (which is what causes the development of male genitalia in a fetus), and therefor will have undescended, nonfunctional testes and an essentially female external appearance. However, they are not complete females physically in that they lack the actual reproductive organs, the ovaries and uterus. Partial AIS, however, will result in "ambiguous genitalia," as described above.

There are a number of other conditions which can produce an intersexed individual, and the source for the article quoted above is here:
http://www.healthyplace.com/Communities/Gender/intersexuals/intersexuality_faq.htm#anchor637790

Now... It used to be extremely common that a child born with genetalia that where neither totally male nor totally female would have a sex reassignment surgery, or a series of them, to "correct" the external ambiguity and make the child look as much like one gender or the other as possible. The gender they ended up resembling would not always be the one that they were genetically, or in the case of those with extra or missing chromosomes, they would have a gender chosen for them despite not actually being either. They would then be raised as that gender, and most of the time, the family would be advised not to tell the child there was anything amiss - even when they began to hit puberty and didn't develop breasts or body hair or a deeper voice.

It's less common now for a surgery to be done in an infant. Understand that these surgeries were not generally done for functionality - but rather to make the child look "normal," regardless of how it might affect them down the road. Obviously, surgery still occurs where there is some functional abnormality such as the absence or obstruction of a proper outlet for urine.

There are many, many cases where a child who effectively had their external sex characteristics chosen for them in infancy experience a lot of confusion later in life - even without knowing they are intersexed, they don't relate as the gender they're told they belong to. Some of them live perfectly healthy lives and never even have cause to wonder if something is "abnormal" about them, but others discover the "secret" on their own and have to cope with the utter confusion that brings (or, perhaps, they are relieved to know that there was a reason they didn't fit in). But many say that they would have wanted to choice of whether or not to have surgery left to them. It's often more the parents' anguish that motivates the choice for surgery, not a health concern.

So... Should doctors perform sex assignment surgeries on individuals born "in between" while they're still children? Or should the operation wait until the child can choose which gender they want to belong to?

 

Well.. over all, I think that it should be left until a point desired by the individual. Of course I'm not entirely educated on the process and possible outcomes and such; perhaps there's some chance of something going horribly wrong if not done at birth, or if not done in a certain time and what if for even one person they **** that up, would be rather depressing... of course there's no such thing as a utopia (opinion), so... yeah. But... overall I say leave it and let the kid decide when they get to that age (of course this could also be rather mentally wearing upon someone... so... yeah... there really isn't a win-win situation, more of a win-with-less-casualities or something... like I said, not entirely educated on the process and all that junk, just a bystanders input).

 

Well, obviously, if there's a medical reason to operate then the operation needs to happen. There's some debate about AIS children because undescended testes can become cancerous, but that usually doesn't happen before puberty so there isn't much of a justifiable reason for doing it at birth instead of waiting.

On the other hand, a sex assignment surgery is basically irreversible and there is a degree of failure in creating functional or even aesthetic sex organs.

A lot of people think that it's less traumatic for a child to have a defined gender from the start and not have that area of uncertainty about who they are, and so they favor early surgery. However, many intersexed kids notice differences during puberty, and so they worry that something is wrong with them then - and eventually find out that an important part of their identity was chosen for them, without their knowledge or consent.

There are going to be psychological issues either way.

 

I say afterwords as soon as they think that they can make a change for the rest of their life. I mean they might even not want a sex change. There are gong to be psychological effects either way, and your going to have to deal with them.

 

I think that the child should be given a choice, so that if for some reason they are unhappy with the gender they end up as they know that they chose it and don't harbor any hatred towards their parents if it had been otherwise. You'd have to ask them at an age that they could understand the different opportunities involved in that choice though.

I realize that most parents would have a hard time asking their child if they want to be a boy or a girl, and would opt with making their own choice for it.

Or the kid could just go on as he/she is, if they want to.

 

I beleive it should either be the childs decision later on in life or if it is a medical reason... cant trust parents really, too biased, it's like one wanted a girl & usually gets a boy... voila there choice is right in front of there faces in this case