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