A Changing Paradigm : US Medical Provider Discomfort with Intersex Care Practices

K. Knight, G. Reid

Since the 1960s, doctors in the United States have routinely performed surgeries on intersex infants and children - or those born with chromosomes, gonads, or genitalia that do not correspond to traditional notions of "male" or "female" - to make their bodies conform to conventional gender presentation. But the surgeries are medically unnecessary, irreversible, often traumatizing, and carry a risk of lifelong harm. They can also be safely deferred until the person concerned is old enough to decide for themselves whether they want the procedures. Despite increasing controversy within the medical community and condemnation from human rights organizations, however, some specialist doctors continue to recommend and carry out the operations on children too young to consent. In this document, Human Rights Watch and interACT Advocates for Intersex Youth document the increasing discomfort healthcare providers feel with the default-to-surgery paradigm, and the growing momentum to support care standards like those for all other patients and to respect rights to informed consent and bodily autonomy.