Sorry if this is the wrong board - Sunday Times Magazine - 'I was born a boy. Why was I raised as a girl?'

[Another2Cats]

A very sad case of a boy born with DSD (is that the correct terminology?) raised as a girl.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/0211e79e-2a5c-4393-a871-f3e558120d48?shareToken=fe7eff9d6144ed47b4bcd1b07b08132f

Kristi Ambrose always wondered why her mum made her take tablets to be ‘like other girls’. It wasn’t until she was a student at university that she discovered the truth — and began her journey to becoming a man called Jim

[Content removed by MNHQ due to breach of copyright]

No argument there!

“A surgeon, Richard Carter, was called to speak to his parents and advised them they should put their newborn through the first of two operations to make him look like a girl, removing his testes and surgically cutting off his penis. When his mother asked for more information, Carter gave her an impenetrable medical journal supplement to read.”

If you take time to read the post it clearly states that his testes were removed at the initial surgery. If they hadn’t been removed, at puberty he would have started to develop the male secondary sexual characteristics.

I'm surprised there haven't been more lawsuits , it's such a litigious country. Not that any amount of money can really compensate for that butchery.

In the Riemer case I believe the healthy twin also took his own life. It's astonishing that John Moneys crackpot theory is still in medical textbooks. All caused by a botched circumcision....more insanity.

Yes, I see that.....but it appears the testes were undescended, and so the surgery must have been very invasive.

Also see my point that male characteristics are obviously not just down to the production of testosterone but also within the chromosomal make-up itself.

the only thing that made me pause in that article is Jim's insistance that his mum seemed to be forcing gendered playthings on him (dolls etc) and he wanted to be out climbing trees and playing soccer.

That seems to be hinting that the love of tree climbing and soccer is in a boy's dna.

But outside of that, it is an absolutely heartbreaking scandal. I feel sorry for his parents though, back when getting any information from outside to make informed medical choices was very very difficult, and as a first time parent it must have been incredibly stressful for them.

two operations to make him look like a girl, removing his testes and surgically cutting off his penis

from the article

Also see my point that male characteristics are obviously not just down to the production of testosterone but also within the chromosomal make-up itself.

(sorry to spam, thinking as i read/reply)

are you saying that playing outside, climbing trees and loving soccer (and possibly then liking guns and driving tanks...) means that i grew up a boy looking like a girl? What about my love of power tools and DIY? am i a man now not a woman?

That is dangerous thinking and i think it is misplaced here outside of one individual talking about their childhood (and possibly misremembering knowing what they now know about themself)

The thinking (all by male doctors I think) is quite revealing.
Botched circumcision destroys penis = not a real man therefore = female.

Born without typical penis and undescended testicles = not a real man therefore = female.

It seems to have a lot in common with the reasons often mentioned in articles about how a boy knew he was a girl.

Male child but does not meet or embrace whatever the expected physical, emotional or behavioural standards are = not male. Followed by well if not male enough = female.

Notably there is no measuring of does this meet the expected physical, emotional or behavioural standards of being a female child. Presumably because they don’t have one, or have a need for one beyond doesn’t fit the male one.

Then once the child is heading towards adulthood, the same people who had no female standard for children suddenly have a long defined list of physical standards for an adult “not man.”

If you look at the typical medical interventions they all seem to be a checklist of what does an unevolved heterosexual man require in a female partner. Feminine appearance, boobs, no body hair anywhere that doesn’t match the imaginary female standard (they don’t seem to know women have body hair), not too tall, and an opening that is additional to the anus between the legs that a penis can fit in.

They can’t see any distinction between female and the group defined by men as “not male enough to be a real man”

They don’t have any concept of woman beyond “not sufficiently manly” and if adult “fuckable”.

edited because I can’t spell

Gosh, what a case of medical malpractice! Poor man.

I don't think you can draw any conclusions about his feelings about his sex because the issue of his sex would always have been a fraught subject and there was so much secrecy about the treatment and surgery he was receiving and the reasons why there was something wrong with his 'vagina'.

I think the same is true of John Money's patients.

On further thought I think it can be simplified as their concept of what female is, is limited to the female relationship to male.

Women's reproductive organs are invisible, so we can pretend that a woman is just a 'non-man'.

Can we be assured that trying to make clearly male infants into some kind of 'female' (and vice versa?) no longer happens? At least in UK hospitals? I'm sure I remember reading on a thread here not long back that there is an established procedure in these rare cases.

https://archive.ph/1jnOb

I think that was Sophie who was born with 'Cloacal bladder exstrophy' which also involved part of the intestines in 1986.

There was also an article about a skier whose DSD was only revealed to him before the 1968 Winter Olympics. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6772989/Intersex-skiing-champion-say-transgender-women-NOT-compete-female-events.html

That poor man.

Wasn't it David Reimer, not Brian?

I think this would be strongly discouraged in any UK NHS hospital. But the two babies whose care I've been involved with who were born with ambiguous genitalia, the family were counselled very much against any hasty decisions to ascribe one sex or the other to the child until the clinical picture was clearer. It can take a week or two to establish the child's clinical sex - the investigations would usually include a physical examination (including ultrasound to assess the internal organs), bloods and assessment by an endocrinologist to assess for adrenal disorders, and karyotyping and qPCR (genetic testing to look at the baby's chromosomes).
Whilst these investigations are being carried out, staff should be careful to avoid referring to the baby as "he" or "she" or to use any sex-specific terms for the baby's anatomy.
In the 15 years I've worked clinically (not a huge amount of time I realise) I've never heard of a family being advised to have surgery on a baby's genitals due to them being atypical. I've only worked within the NHS though; I don't know whether practice might be different in the private sector.

Thanks, that's good to hear.

It reminds me of that book The Wasp Factory. I think that happened to the protagonist.

I taught a pair of twin girls born with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia which is a form of DSD. They didn't have any sex confirming surgery as babies but did have some visual differences that would be taken care of when older. They did need hormone therapy to delay early puberty.
It is definitely NHS policy now to wait and address any genital surgery much later.

That his maleness and 'otherness' to the girls was clearly always apparent...even without large doses of testosterone, was my point.

And this seems to be a pretty common story with boys in that situation, including the original research by Money, or people like Caster Semenya.

There was a kid in my community growing up who had a similar story, raised as a girl after being born with a DSD. He switched back to living as a boy in his early 20s, similarly was a "tomboy" as a kid.

I think a lot of the blame is really on that original fraud by Money. It was much, much later that the fraud was revealed, up until then, doctors were being taught that his experiment was a success, and that gender or sexual identity was completely socially conditioned.

If they weren't working from that false information, I don't think we can assume they would have chosen raising these boys as girls as the best way forward. Money himself had a completely differernt agenda that had nothing to do with helping the patients.

If I remember correctly, that was a child who was told that as a dog had bitten off their penis, they were being raised as a girl despite actually being a boy. However they were actually a girl all along. Or something.

The Wasp Factory was a girl being raised as a boy (Frank) by her father. He'd given her testosterone. Until close to the end of the book Frank had no idea she was actually female.

Whhhhattt?! Why would they do that? That's even weirder than forcing them to be a girl just because their d&b are the 'wrong' size/shape?!