Intersex people neither woman nor man

Associations call for a ban on intersex children

10/31/2013

Many parents-to-be are excited when they first hear from a gynecologist about getting a boy or a girl. But not always that can be answered with certainty. About one in 4500 babies is born with ambiguous gender. These children are referred to as intersex children. With them there is a difference between the internal sex organs and the outer ones.

A human born with male XY chromosomes may be a woman on the outside, and one with female chromosome set XX may look more like a man. It can also come to a kind of mixed or intermediate form of testicles and ovaries or clitoris and penis.

intersexuality
The German Ethics Council defines the term as follows: Intersexuals are people who can not be clearly classified as male or female due to the physical characteristics of gender ".

From November, parents have the option of leaving the entry in the birth register open if their child was born intersexually. So far, a male or female assignment had to take place. "A step in the right direction," says Lucie Veith, chairwoman of the Federal Association of Intersex People. However, this can also be detrimental if the children are discriminated against at school. The intersex clubs even go one step further and demand a ban on surgery that removes a child's sex. Because this usually determine the parents or doctors. From a medical point of view, surgery is almost never necessary, says Veith. "The right to physical integrity is thereby violated“. Activists of Zwischengeschlecht.org even speak of "mutilating cosmetic genital surgeries on children", which is urgently to be prevented.

Stop unnecessary intervention
Many of today's intersex people have had painful and traumatic treatments while they were children and yet the controversial procedures are commonplace. Children who are to be made into a girl are put on a vaginal plastic. This is a surgically produced vagina. To prevent it from growing, a foreign body must be introduced regularly. In technical jargon that means „bougie“

"I have heard of many who experienced this as a regular sexual assault," says Veith. The aim is that the operated have vaginal intercourse with a man. It is also questionable why they should be adapted to a gender at all and why those affected ultimately can not determine this themselves when they have reached sexual maturity. "Medically unnecessary interventions are prohibited before the age of 16“, says Veith

"With the endeavor to produce clear bodies, the child may be given something that it does not want," says sexologist Hertha Richter-Appelt from the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf. It is fair to say that not all people who were operated on as children later become unhappy. But an operated child can later blame the parents, "Why did you just operate on me?“ and an unoperated "Why do not you have ...?" "When it comes to clearly identifying what's really better for the kids, we have to be honest and say we often do not know it exactly," says Richter-Appelt. She recommends waiting until puberty with sex-assignments.

There have to be new guidelines
Often, girls also have the so-called adrenogenital syndrome (AGS). As a result of a metabolic disorder, more male sex hormones develop during embryonic development. As a result, many girls are born with an enlarged clitoris that resembles a small penis. Reducing the size of the operation may reduce sexual sensitivity. However, this is rare with modern surgical methods, says Krege, a doctor at Maria-Hilf Hospital in Krefeld. She only performs interventions on babies if parents do not want to be dissuaded. She advises all concerned parents to wait and see how the child develops. The vaginal plastic offers girls only when they are mature enough to do so „bougie“ to perform yourself. In many intersex children, it used to be common to remove testicles in the body cavity. The children then have to make a lifetime hormone replacement therapy. Even so, one waits now rather off, says Krege, unless the risk of cancer is thereby greatly increased. The intersex associations are still operating too much and too early. For Lucie Veith it's not just about when, but also whether the surgery is really necessary. "Even as an intersexual you can be a happy person“. (Fr)

Picture: Lothar Wandtner