‘I don’t want anyone to suffer like I did’: the intersex campaigners fighting to limit surgery on children

[IwantToRetire]

Shocking as this all now seems, Money’s offer of a straightforward “fix” to non-stereotypically sexed babies clearly had an appeal, and perhaps still does: we live in a world in which many parents want to know whether to put their newborn in a blue or a pink hat, and gender reconstruction surgery for babies born with differences in sex development (DSD) is still legal in most countries, including the UK and the US.

is ensuring that a child heals better and forgets the pain of the surgery more important than waiting for them to be old enough to give their own informed consent?

“The irony is that where a trans kid can’t access a hormone blocker, an intersex child is operated on,” Greenberry-Pullen says – she is of the school of thought that fighting for better rights for transgender people goes hand in hand with the lobby for intersex rights. There is a range of views on this point within the intersex community: some are happy to be included under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella, while others are not – and some prefer not to use the term “intersex” at all, opting for DSD instead.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/nov/12/intersex-campaigners-fighting-to-limit-surgery-on-children

NB My extracts from the article, which do not represent the article as a whole.

“The irony is that where a trans kid can’t access a hormone blocker, an intersex child is operated on,” Greenberry-Pullen says – she is of the school of thought that fighting for better rights for transgender people goes hand in hand with the lobby for intersex rights. There is a range of views on this point within the intersex community: some are happy to be included under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella, while others are not – and some prefer not to use the term “intersex” at all, opting for DSD instead.

and well gosh darn it wouldn't you know that The Guardian only chose to represent the views of someone who thinks 'intersex' and trans goes hand in hand and not the views of anyone who doesn't

what a surprise!

I did say my extracts do not represent the whole article.

Other views are expressed.

I read this. I don't know if they deliberately swap between 'sex' and 'gender', and 'intersex' and 'DSD', to muddy the waters, or if whoever wrote it just doesn't think very well.
It also gives the strong impression that people with DSDs are genuinely impossible to sex, which as far as I understand isn't true, at least not in the vast majority of cases.

I understand that the difficulty is in deciding whether to adopt feminising or virilising treatment - which was done too early in the cases featured, and turned out not to be what the patients wanted.

No, they’re not in the article. The article heavily indicates that doing procedures on children is a problem, then without irony, uses someone’s misunderstanding of irony to claim trans and DSD treatments for kids are somehow both being handled wrongly.

I don’t think there’s anyone at the Guardian who understands irony at all.

It's import to keep in mind that a large number of TIMs claim to be 'intersex'. Usually it's not confirmed that they possess any DSD whatsoever and we know that the vast majority of DSDs are extremely minor - not only is there no difficultly in identifying the sex at birth, but in fact there is no later impairment of sexual function or fertility.

This is avenue of activism has always been geared toward providing justification for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone treatment for trans minors. It's extremely harmful to vulnerable children who are bombarded with the idea they might have been meant to be the opposite sex and that puberty is a ticking time-bomb that will soon make passing as that imagine person impossible.