Holistic Wisdom Corporation

Letting Children Choose Their Gender When Unclear

Hundreds of babies are born each year where the gender isn't clear. Prompt surgery to assign one was once the norm, but as doctors are getting a bit more sensitive to other factors than anatomy or hormones they are realizing that this may be a mistake.

Researchers are now urging doctors to hold off on the knife until children can determine their own sex. "To discover who or what a child is ... you have to ask them," Dr. William Reiner of the Oklahoma University Health Science Center told a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "There is no one biological parameter that clearly defines sex," added Dr. Eric Vilain of the University of California, Los Angeles, whose research suggests gender is genetically hard-wired into the brain before birth -- regardless of which genitalia develop.

Dealing with the social trauma of switching gender later is enough without the issue of surgery that can't be reversed. Aside from the emotional trauma of such a switch are legal issues.

Virginia Harmon of Chevy Chase, Md., was born with Klinefelter Syndrome, where instead of the X and Y chromosome of males, people have an extra X chromosome. She was raised as a boy, but at age 14 began developing breasts and "began negotiating with my parents" to transition to a girl. At 25, she had female sex-assignment surgery. But law in Texas, where she was born, doesn't allow her to change her birth certificate, which still states that she is male, so she couldn't marry a man there.

A recent survey of pediatric urologists found two-thirds would call genetically male babies boys even if they have no penis, while five years ago almost all would have recommended raising them as girls. Then if at age 12 they say, 'No, I'm a girl,' at least you haven't damaged anything.

Indeed, most US law assumes that everyone is clearly male or female, putting up hurdles for everything from name changes to marriage for intersex patients assigned the wrong gender.

So what should parents do? Get as much information as possible on the child's physical and genetic condition.

A good resource- Intersex Society of North America.