Activism Will Help Intersex Youth
In “Risk and Vulnerable Medicalized Bodies,” published by Koerber et. al. in Poroi in 2015, the authors find that perceptions of risk shift medical discourse. For instance, media campaigns that vilify vaccinations reduce vaccine coverage. Parents are exposed to news that says vaccines are risky more than pediatricians who say they are necessary (p. 2). As a result, they are less likely to vaccinate their children, even when vaccines could protect them from harm.
Applying this conclusion to intersex individuals, I argue that there is currently an incorrect perception that it is risky to not perform surgeries on young intersex people. It is thought to be risky because the child’s future sex life could be less common than others or because the child will not have a clear “male” or “female” sex, and socially, these are the two generally accepted categories for sex. Therefore, many doctors recommend surgeries to intersex patients, even when patients are unable to consent, or the surgeries are unnecessary. However, by changing the narrative, medical discourse around intersex people can shift to be more affirming, too.
Medicine cannot be separated from the social perception of risk, specifically for intersex people. Oftentimes, normal differences among children are medicalized, or pathologized, because of “fears [that are] based in [a doctor’s] desire to control the human body.” In the case of intersex individuals, the fear is around intersex genitalia, as doctors want children to be “normal girls” or “normal boys” sexually. The YouTuber Pigeon describes this “paternalist culture” in medicine that occurs as a result. Doctors, not children or parents, are given the autonomy to determine the sex of intersex babies. Because the social categories of sex are so ingrained, society has medicalized intersex people and artificially created a need for surgeries at young ages.
Koerber et. al. also lay down a path for changing medical discourse regarding intersex individuals. Intersex people like Pigeon do not need surgeries at young ages but are often forced to undergo those operations. According to the Intersex Society of North America, “Genital ‘normalizing surgery does not create or cement a gender identity; it just takes tissue away that they patient may want later.” For instance, Pigeon did not need to have their clitoris removed, and they wanted the tissue later. Doctors had not asked for consent. However, Pigeon’s experience does not need to be repeated. If medicine responds to social perceptions of risk, then activism around intersex as a “normal condition” can reduce these surgeries that are performed without informed consent.
Similar to the way Dr. John Money created fears and the need for surgery on young people in the 1950s, activists can reverse the narrative by advocating that intersex individuals are not abnormal and should be able to make choices about their own bodies. The medicalization of intersex people has caused harm through early surgeries, but intersex people once had options about surgery (Mak, 2012, p. 169). Activists can reduce early surgeries and instead reinstate a standard for intersex people to make their own decisions.
While Koerber et. al. never explicitly mention intersex people in their paper, they cite the need to change the conversations about risk, particularly for marginalized people (p. 1). Intersex children are certainly at high risk for the medicalization of their bodies. Some intersex people do want surgeries later in life. Still, doctors should not project their fears about sex onto their patients, and they certainly should not lie to parents to “help” children. By increasing visibility, activists can hopefully work towards a world in which intersex genitalia is considered normal, and surgeries occur at the patient’s discretion alone.
