Cases of intersex children are not uncommon and these bring controversy regarding correction in order to attain gender identity. Surgical alteration of intersex infants is a common correction which requires the parent to consent on behalf of the infant upon consultation with professionals. In this paper, the power of the parent to consent on surgically altering intersex infants is contested since it is a disregard for the child’s rights and autonomy. Forced gender assignment has in the past resulted to gender confusion when the child grows up.
In addition, it is identified that parents mainly consent in order to escape from psychological distress and shame associated with bearing an intersex child. It is therefore viewed that intersex infants should be left to reach an age where they can identify a gender and then make an informed decision. While it may be generally accepted that intersexes should undergo surgical correction to acquire an identifiable sex, the contention remains on the autonomy of the individual.
This question lingers most when you consider surgical alteration of intersex infants where the parents are relied upon to make the decision on behalf of the infant. While exploring “normalizing” the sex of the intersex, it is important to consider that an early intervention during infanthood is necessary to shield the child from psychological trauma in case this persists to a later age (Dreger, 2008). This complicates the whole idea of parents taking the role of decision making on behalf of their infants as regards alteration of intersex infants.
There is need to safeguard the rights and needs for approximately one in 2000 intersex infants who are born in America (Intersex Initiative, 2008). Amidst all these debates, my position is that parents should not surgically alter intersex infants until the infants are older to identify with a gender/sex. An intersex is a person who has ambiguous genitalia in the sense that both female and male genitals are existent thus making it difficult to identify the child as either male or female. Intersexes are considered to have a biological abnormality with a surgical correction of genitalia being practiced.
Baur and Crooks (2007), mention that the surgical alteration of intersex infants requires parents to consult with professionals to decide which gender should be assigned to the infant. The process of surgical alteration may also involve hormonal treatments as a means of avoiding future problems related to gender adjustment. Gender identity of a child occurs when the child is about two years old and thus it is advisable to have surgical alteration and assignment of gender to an infant before this age. Failure to do so would result to gender confusion.
In view that surgical alteration of intersex infants occurs when the child is too young to make an informed decision; it is not good for parents to decide the child’s gender. The decision to alter the gender of the child is made by parents and doctors and the right of the child to informed consent is greatly altered. Instead, the child should be allowed to reach an age old enough to choose the preferred gender. Parents should not be allowed to surgically alter intersex infants since surgical genital alteration may require a reversal later after the child has fully developed.
Despite surgical alteration and gender assignment being the popular option for “normalizing” intersexes, Switzer (2005) points out that there exists no dependable empirical evidence to show that surgical alteration of intersex infants has plausible outcomes. Instead, there has been an outcry of psychological distress from some patients especially in cases where a child grows to identify with a different gender from which the parents and doctors assigned.
Children who are wrongly assigned to a certain gender may experience difficulties interacting with members of the opposite sex during adolescence and young adulthood in the process of dating. Instances of identity crisis have been cited to result from surgical alteration with most individuals failing to identify with the female gender which is commonly assigned (Switzer, 2005). Considering that surgical alteration and gender assignment may be irreversible, it is wise for parents to allow intersexes to grow up to a point where they can make a choice of preferred gender and action towards adjusting to the gender.