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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 17, 2003)
22 J" ** * January 17.2003 An intersex child being held down for the camera. The Intersex Society of North America and Bodies Like Ours are working to stop unnecessary genital surgeries on babies like this one. or a by underdeveloped penis, the penis is removed, n the documentary Hermaphrodites a vagina is fashioned, and the child is raised Speak! Angela Moreno describes an as a girl. A large clitoris on a female child is operation she had at age 12. This either reduced or removed. intervention was treated as an “emer gency” but with a twist: It was essen While the term “hermaphrodite” has been tially to correct a cosmetic condition. While denounced by, among others, activist and professor Alice Dregcr, who “emergency” and “cosmetic” would seem to K' mutually calls it “a nasty Victorian term exclusive terms, in one partic invented in an effort to make ular area the medical establish intersexuality go away,” ment has for decades recon Moreno is clear about what ciled them in a radical— and was lost in her operation and that of others who have under largely destructive— way. gone the same treatment: “a Moreno’s surgery was a clitorectomy (also called hermaphroditic eroticism,” a — Sensitive clitoridectomy), performed “sacred sexuality” that was Harvard doctor “ripped from us.” because it was determined that about surgery her clitoris was “too large." O f course, by age 12 choices for the This was not a life-threatening Moreno had some conception condition, nor did it indicate of what this meant. She had a intersexed illness or disease. Still, conscious previous life, an “experts” determined that identity determined in part by surgery was essential. her physical self and her sensations as a post surgery basis for comparison. Children oper As it turns out, Moreno’s story is one of ated on within the first two years of life (the many variations on a theme. Since at least the 1920s, but more popularly from the usual time) have no way to judge whether 1950s to today, genital ambiguities— most the prcKedure makes sense and no way to protest or stop it if it doesn’t. typically a micropenis on a male or an over size clitoris on a female— are considered so Moreno’s loss of a kind of erotic feeling problematic they require “corrective” is echoed in the stories of many intersex surgery. Typically, in the presence of an people, but in some cases all physical sensa- I “It's easier to dig a hole than to build a pole" 0 ■ Intersex activists think we should decide for ourselves and work to stop the mutilation of children tion is lost (hence a mild to extreme lack of sexual satisfaction) as well as a firm sense of identity that allows the person to exist rea sonably in the world. For activists like Emi Koyama, writing on her Intersex Initia tive Portland Web site, the trauma is not only physical. “Many inter sex adults report that it was not necessarily the surgery that was most devastating for their self-esteem: For many, it is the repeated expo sure to what we call ‘medical display’ or the rampant practice where a child is stripped down to nude and placed tin the bed while many doctors, nurses, medical stu dents and others come in and out of the rtxim, touching and prtxlding and laughing to each other. Children who experi ence this get the distinct sense that there is something terribly wrong with who they are and are deeply traumatized.” In the past 10 years, perhaps influenced by A C T UP and the wave of psychiatric and queer- tinged patient adv(Kacy groups, the protests against radical surgery as a blanket response to genital ambiguity have become increasingly vocal— and surpris Koyama ingly successful. “It's easy to shout something at the medical community, but it's really difficult to get them to listen" — Intersex activist Emi W H A T D O ES “IN T E R S E X ” M EAN ? ■* ntersex is an elusive concept, hut Kith the medical establishment and the activist community agree that the start ing point for definition is “atypical geni talia." This can take many forms: having Kith ovarian and testicular tissue in one individual; the commonly remarked I G a r y M o r r is micropenis/ hypoclitoris phenomenon; and varying kinds of discrepancies between chromosomal identi- 5 ty and the external 2 genitals, where, for instance, the chro mosomes indicate 2 male hut the genitals | appear to indicate 1 female. ’ While increasingly replacing loaded words like “hermaph rodite,” the term “intersex" is still so misunderstood in the popular mind-set that the most famous “intersex” story is not really about intersex at all. This is the widely reported case of David Rcimer, horn Bruce, a twin whose circumcision was Kitched. Reimers doctor, acting according to accepted protocol, amputated the rest of his penis and convinced the family to raise the chromo somal Kiy as a girl, with the identity rein forced by therapy and hormones. Baby Boy Bruce became Baby Girl Brenda, just like that. The case was frequently cited to prove Johns Flopkins University psychologist John Moneys theory that gender could he “assigned” for up to two years after birth, being the product of nurture rather than nature. Reimer s twin, Brian, whose circum cision was successful, was used as a “control” in the experiment. The only problem was that at age 14, after a very difficult childhood, Reimer’s parents told him aKiut his medical history, and he immediately renounced his female identity, changed his name to David, underwent phal loplasty and eventually got married and became father to his wife’s children from a previous marriage. Money’s theories have been cmcial in sup porting the medical establishment’s widespread
