Gender's Up to Five-Year-Old Hermaphrodite, Not Parents

JeanneSager — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:35:00 GMT

Their child is a boy . . . and a girl. And as far as the Colombian courts are concerned, the 5-year-old hermaphrodite's parents do not have the right to sew the child's vagina shut and remove an ovary to allow for normal development of the penis and testicles.

Born with both female and male sexual organs, the youngster has been raised as a boy since birth. That's why his/her (I'm not being sarcastic, I really don't know quite which to say) father has been pressing for the right to schedule the surgery. But the court says at 5 it's too late for the parents to be making the decision - it's up to the child. I'd tend to agree - especially in light of the stories I've heard from the transgendered community over the years about the first time they remember feeling like they were in the "wrong" body. But what if the child chooses wrong?

Kids, by their nature, love to role play. Until adults start putting ideas in their head that somehow their behavior is abnormal (ugh), little boys will parade around in their sister's tutu or announce themselves as "Dora" today. The same goes for girls who might one day insist they're a boy, the next they're a girl, and back again. It can be a phase or it can be a sign of things to come. So how do you let a 5-year-old make this kind of decision?

The Intersex Society of North America, a non-profit advocacy group for the "intersex," actually advises against surgeries for children with both male and female reproductive organs - unless medical intervention is necessary for a child's health. Interestingly, they do advocate "gender assignment," essentially treating the child as one sex or the other from birth. In this case, the family has done that, choosing to treat their child as a son. But the ISNA says that has to be done after doctors do a complete evaluation to determine which gender the child is more likely to identify with as they grow up. Although it can't be 100 percent (think about the numbers of people seeking gender reassignment surgery), they say there are some markers within the body that give a general sense of how the rest of the body will develop.

Makes sense to me, and clears up a portion of the worry about letting a 5-year-old make such a huge decision. If doctors can say the body is developing one way or the other, and a child has significant support from the medical community (including counselors), this kind of decision should rest in the body of the person who will have to live with the results. Even if they're 5 years old.

Image: Mother Jones

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Gender's Up to Five-Year-Old Hermaphrodite, Not Parents