Surgical Sex Reassignment Should not be Done at Birth.
All around the country newborns are being bundled up and rushed from the delivery room with little or no explanation given to the parents. These parents are often given very little information about their baby's condition or the procedure known as surgical sex reassignment that will be done on their infant. Since 1910 doctors and parents have been reluctant to accept a child born with anything other than normal male or female genitals. Children born that do not fit the mold of normal are surgically altered to resemble the sex the doctor thinks the child should be. (Dreger) Most doctors practicing in the field of pediatric surgery and pediatric endocrinology feel that a child can not function in life without normally developed genitals. (Lehrman) This belief is based upon the 1955 theory of John Money of Johns Hopkins University that children are psychosexually neutral at birth. Money believed that differentiation occurred as a result of experiences growing up. (Hettena) As recently as 1998 research supported Money's theory that gender identity developed after birth. As a result doctors practicing in these fields have performed thousands of sex reassignment surgeries in the United States since the 1960's. An article written in 1997 by Dr. Milton Diamond from the University of Hawaii detailed the failure of a sex reassignment surgery performed by Dr. Money. (Kipnis) This, coupled with the recent establishment of a group called the Intersex Society of North America, has caused the medical community to question their practices regarding sex reassignment. As follow up is being done on patients who have undergone sex reassignment surgery, many tragic results are being uncovered. Although most of us think of sex in terms of male and female, the medical community has classified another group as intersexed. Intersexed people are all the people who don't quite fit the mold of male or female.