A very sad tale - infant gender reassignment

@AllTheChaos yes I also heard comments similar to those too

@Ellegeebee thanks for posting that interview.

Sophie comes across like such a lovely person with a really healthy attitude towards everything she has been through.

I remember studying this and other cases as an undergrad. I will never forget the lead surgeon’s quote (recorded at the time and then provided to us students): “It’s easier to poke a hole than build a pole”. There was also this sense from the (male) doctors that to be a teenage boy and then a man with a micro penis was the most dreadful thing that could happen, and that it was genuinely better for such boys to be reassigned as female at birth, rendered sterile, and have a lifetime of hormones, and a childhood and adolescence punctuated by surgery. Which I think says more about the doctors that it does about the chances of boys with micro penises growing up happy as boys.

So sad, what an amazingly strong person.
I grew up with someone who was born intersex as they call it now. That person was also evidentally wrongly 'reassigned' as a baby. So damaging to have to live with

You’re welcome, I will do.

@Ellegeebee thank you for this. Tell Sophie she is amazing for overcoming this and for being prepared to share her story.

What an amazing person. So articulate, so full of humour and empathy. Brilliant!

I am sure that on one level those influencing the decisions needed to save the baby's life were well intentioned.

But there is absolutely no doubt that many of these decisions were (and in some cases still are) influenced by the social attitudes of the lead surgeon. And at that time they were more than likely middle and upper class men.

And I thought it was common knowledged that the decisions weren't always purely medical but also what was deemed to be socially "better".

I can well remember hearing the phrase, better a woman without a womb that a man without a penis.

So we can only hope that with improved medical knowledge and treatment, and (possibly) more contemporary social attitudes, even if what might be an emergency situation treatment would be confined to saving life, but not making a life chaning decision.

It really is yet another malignant fall out from the "I" being appropriated by the rainbow soup brigade. Those with DSD / intersex conditions should be allowed to develop and and influence treatment and social attitudes and have it reflected in the medai.

My understanding is that today the standard protocol for DSD's (previously called intersex - differences in sex development) is to do as little as possible to enable the child to make their own choices as they get older.

In this case, Sophie had a lot of complications that absolutely needed interventions for her to survive re: her urinary and bowel function. However that did not need to involve removal of testes and penis and this would not occur today.

The thinking of these doctors is that absence of penis = female.

Better a non-man than a substandard man?

Grazia definition of 'intersex' is well out of date

@TheDogthatDug The article refers to a documentary about a social experiment on triplets. I saw the documentary and the impact on all 3 was horrific.

The problem is that doctors etc. see babies like Sophie as interesting and apply scientific research, ideas, theories and completely forget about the person who has to live with their batshit recommendations. I hope that these days babies like Sophie are treated far more conservatively so they have choices later in life.

That is a very sad story, rare, but not unknown.

https://graziadaily.co.uk/celebrity/news/im-celebritys-lady-colin-campbell-intersex-intersex/

I’m not so sure about the National Homicide Service. If the doctors had done nothing, the baby would probably have died quite nastily. His intestines and internal genitalia were on the outside of his body! The fact that he needed five follow up operations shows how serious the condition was.

I think the main problem was the secrecy and misinformation. I cannot believe that his parents went along with this for anything other than the best of motives.

I was at school with a ‘girl’ who had been born with ‘ambiguous genitalia’ ( that was the phrase used sixty years ago when this happened). When she was thirteen, she transferred to the boys school, I believe that she had an operation to ? Release? a previously internal testicle. He did quite well and I think lived a decent life.

How can the TRAs weaponise such distress?

@rightsraptor yes the urethra can be split all the way to the end

As I mentioned up thread, I know a man who was born with the same condition who is in his 40s and had to have everything reconstructed ( not back to fully normal appearance or function) so feminising boys with this condition was not universal even years ago.

Some of Sophie's surgery was essential. She couldn't be left with a urinary bladder, in two parts, on the outside of the body. Some of the intestine was also external.

The penis was described as small & split. Did this split involve the urethra? We don't know, though we do know Sophie continues to wears pads as she's incontinent. Could the penis have been reconstructed to make it whole, maybe hormones given at the appropriate time to encourage growth, the testes left in situ and perhaps give Sophie a chance at a normal male life?

I'd like to know how such a baby would be treated in the UK today.

I'm horried at pp's comment about doctors saying better to be an infertile woman than an impotent man. Just so revealing.

Shocking but we can all see that it was done with the best of intentions for her welfare based on the knowledge of the 80s. What excuse will society have in 20 years time for the irreversible mutilation and medication of children based on their feelings in the current regime.

That is why some people and groups representing those with DSDs have campaigned for this.

DSDs are hugely complicated and diverse, and so are the medical needs involved. Plenty of DSD organisations hence support people living with a DSD and their families to access treatment (incl. interventions of a hormonal treatment or surgical nature) or continue a wait-and-see approach, depending on what makes sense in their specific case. There are some interventions which are more effective earlier on. There really is no one size fits all approach.

Ensuring that parents are well informed, dare to ask questions, understand biases in their thinking, have access to psychological support, etc. is key. Ditto for health workers.

That is a heart breaking story. I don't think anyone acted maliciously though, medicine has moved on massively (I hope) and different decisions would be made today but it seemed like everyone thought they were doing what was in Sophie's best interests.

So sad.

I worked in a UK NICU in 2005. We had a baby with ambiguous genitalia and I thought they would do karotyping to determine the sex. The consultants said that the karotype didn't matter and the test was "Will this child be able to stand against a wall and pee." If yes, they would assign it male, if no, female. I was so shocked that the doctors would 'play God' and I left shortly after.

What a story. Sophie sounds like an amazing person, and her parents tried to deal with things the best they could, given very limited information and being rushed into a decision by the surgeon.

It’s utterly shocking this was still happening in the 80s.