Cornell research on reducing clitoral size - v worrying

[Habbibu]

Came across this by accident the other day, via one of DH's fb friends - it's really worrrying and disconcerting. A team from Cornell university have been surgically reducing the size of girls' clitorises - perfectly healthy, but deemed "too large"; they produced a paper apparently showing retained feeling, and intend to follow-up by testing sensation over the years. I think this is quite horrible and disturbing on several levels - anyone else seen this?

That is evil and if it was in Europe you could make a case for breach of human rights.

I feel utterly sickened by that and extremely

Thank you Hab.

What can be done. These poor girls.

ok who is funding it

I can imagine some fucked up doctors thinking this was good practice...but parents are allowing this to happen to their little girls?

Very disturbing.

I have DD1 on my lap so don'#t really wan tot read this now, but am marking it so I cna look once she is in bed.

Well done Hab. Publicity and exposure.

is this him

Thia is fucking horrendous. it is abusing little girls, end of! Perverted bastard

excuse my language

if it is we can call him and tell him he is a bastard

I wonder why the journal of urology didn't question the ethics

"He was chosen as one of the "Top One Hundred Minimally Invasive Surgeons in New York" "

yuh huh

and
half way down -- "intersex"

I don't understand the intersex thing - or do they mean that the clitorises are so large they could be mistaken for penises?

Sorry to keep asking such graphic questions but I can't get my head around what would make a parent go ahead with surgery like this.

Dix Poppas? seriously? what a ridiculous name.

I would like to know who funds this 'research' as well.

I tried to call him. What's the US country code?

I just found 1* which I tried to use but it didn't work

Jesus. Just read the article and blog.

I get the impression from the blog that the surgery might be linked to hermaphroditic conditions, but still there shouldn't be this kind of of surgery so young. But even worse is the 'sensitivity testing'. Jesus bloody fuck. I'm remembering myself as a 6yo and how fucked up I would have felt about me and about doctors if I'd had to go through that every year...

Is it wise to call on spec when we are not entirely clear what he is doing or why?

You run the risk of getting their defences right up before we can actually do anything constructive.

This ought to be handled by someone with more clout than MN has collectively

also run the risk of being dismissed as a nutter

we need to find out what we are dealing with and get the proper bodies involved.

Flight I understand your caution, but it is clear what he is doing and that the vast majority of other physicians who've been asked, are shocked by it and deplore it.

What type of action could be taken?

withorwithoutyou , as I understand it (and I might be wrong) intersex conditions can involve a clitoris being large enough to be mistaken for a penis. So a genuine source of challenge for parents, and ultimately for the child. But (I would imagine) not something that is best tackled by simply legislating future gender identity through surgery, even if the procedure were flawless.

There needs to be an uproar.

A new thread to draw attention to it: entitled "Vibrators used on six year old girls by doctor in the US after cosmetic clitoral surgery."

(I don't think this guy is some kind of wacko who is just trying to make clitorises look prettier -- I think it is a questionable response to a medical condition.

I don't know Backto but someone here is likely to have the correct knowledge re how this kind of thing gets past an ethics committee.

You can't just ring people up accusing them of obscene motivation.

I think he's one of those doctors who is carried away with his own power and has forgotten what's right and wrong. Meadows etc.

I wouldn't. I would ask him if he was the doctor who used vibrators on six year old girls.

And he would call you a nutter.

It won't do any good.