A bill in the California Legislature that would ban cosmetic surgeries on intersex children is facing pushback from the medical community and sparking intense debate over how old a person should be to consent to medically unnecessary procedures.
Filmmaker River Gallo supports a bill that would ban cosmetic surgeries on people with atypical genitals until the person is old enough to consent.
“The hypothesis is that these surgeries enhance the psychological well-being of children by ensuring they have genitals that are ‘normal,’” said Julie Greenberg, author of the book “Intersexuality and the Law.” “But there is no study that says this does help their psychological well-being, and there are plenty of people who say it caused them harm.”
The legislation would require doctors to wait until patients can give informed consent, meaning they are mature enough to understand the benefits and potential risks of surgery. Alvarez said she was born with external female genitalia and undescended testicles. As an infant, doctors removed her testes, telling her parents that it would reduce her likelihood of testicular cancer. Alvarez said she did not know about the surgery until she was 12, when, during a physical, she learned she was born without ovaries or a uterus. She said her parents, who did not speak English when she was born, did not understand the specifics of her surgery at the time.
Lerman said doctors, including himself, need to step up and recognize that such surgeries have previously had questionable outcomes and should be further studied. But, he disagrees with lumping into the bill straightforward cases of hypospadias, a birth defect in which the opening of the urethra is on the underside of the penis. He said those more common cases have had “good to outstanding results over the past 20 years.
As the bill moves through the Legislature, it is expected to bring large groups of intersex advocates with personal stories of surgeries they say were unwanted or unsuccessful as well as parent-rights groups that will argue the government should not interfere in the ability of parents to make medical decisions for their children.
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