A very sad tale - infant gender reassignment

[TheDogthatDug]

A sad tale of infant gender reassignment

I wish her all the best.

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.

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.

Sophie was on Times Radio this morning for anyone who is interested in her story. She is a personal friend of mine and an amazing human being.

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

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

You’re welcome, I will do.

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

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.

@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.

@AllTheChaos yes I also heard comments similar to those too

another great interview by Sophie for those of you who might be following her story.