New guidelines for treating 'intersex' babies

MSNBC ^ | 2/18/2005 | Associated Press

[nyg4168]

Doctors urged not to operate on infants with unclear gender

It’s the first question new parents hear: girl or boy? But hundreds of babies are born each year where the gender isn’t clear. Prompt surgery to assign one was once the norm.

But gender depends on more than anatomy or hormones. It also seems to stem from the very earliest brain development, researchers said Friday in 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.

The issue is “intersex,” the name for numerous conditions that result in roughly one in 4,000 babies born with both male and female traits.

[stands2reason]

This is feminist sexual role politics. This has NOTHING to do with established science.

It's the feminists who believe that male and female brains are the same. Tell me, what's your scientific opinion on how to treat these children?

The story does not mention this is very very very very very rare.

70,000 cases in the US alone isn't that rare.

If a child is XX and born deformed (ala thalidimide babies) then the next steps are clear, same for XY children.

Okay...what about XXY or XXXY children? Or X children?

Any reporter reporting on this must be a homosexual.

That's just madness.

[Patti_ORiley]

"... hundreds of babies are born each year where the gender isn’t clear. Prompt surgery to assign one was once the norm."

The article is referring to a condition where the child is born with both male and female sexual organs. Surgery is done almost immediately to make the Child a male or a female.

Jamie Lee Curtis had this condition.

[LibFreeOrDie]

"The article is referring to a condition where the child is born with both male and female sexual organs. Surgery is done almost immediately to make the Child a male or a female."

You are thinking of hermaphrodites. However, there are a several other genetic abnormalities that affect sex differentiation, such as extra X or Y chromosomes (instead of the normal XX or XY). Levels of hormones in the blood of the mother may also affect sex differentiation in unborn babies. Children may be born genetically male, but not have external male genitalia. Children may be born genetically female, but have enlarged genitalia that looks male. For more info:

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/pediatricendocrinology/intersex/index.html


"Jamie Lee Curtis had this condition."

That's an unsubstantiated Internet rumor:

http://www.snopes.com/movies/actors/jamie.htm

[Rudder]

Jamie Lee Curtis would have made a terrible man. It looks like they guessed correctly.

There would be no "guessing" about cases like this. She is an XY individual with testicular feminizing syndrome. Such people are insensitive to male hormone and are completely feminized (externally) at birth, with normal female genitalia. The only treatment is removal of the undescended testes to prevent a risk for cancer.