Couple sues over adopted son's sex-assignment surgery

WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina (Reuters) - A South Carolina couple sued doctors and state social workers on Tuesday for subjecting a 16-month-old child born with both male and female genitalia to what they say was medically unnecessary and irreversible sex-assignment surgery while the toddler was in foster care.

The state and federal lawsuits - believed by the couple's lawyers to be the first of their kind in the United States - argue that doctors should not have performed surgery to make the child's body appear to be female when they knew they could not predict how gender would develop.

The child, now 8, has shown strong signs of identifying as male and recently began living as a boy, according to Pam and Mark Crawford, who adopted him after the surgery.

The couple, a psychiatrist and stay-at-home dad, said they are taking legal action in the hopes of helping other children who face similar medical conditions.

Full article at the link

It is about friggin time! I hope they nail thee doctors and the hospital to the wall!

Doctors have been playing god for far too long and they feel totally moral and right in what they are doing. Recent court cases in Europe have significantly reduced the amount of medical mayhem inflicted on Intersex infants but in North American, doctors continue to mutilate babies. The success of this court case could be a godsend for children here.

Jamie, shouldn't this be in legal news? And how appropriate, doctors suing doctors for malpractice.

Doctors believe they truly have the best interest of the child at heart.   But why surgery when the person is an infant? Can someone please explain to me the rush to mutilate?   

They are so arrogant they don't believe they can make a mistake.  They are truly delusional.  In this case, the supposedly humorous statement "Knowledge is power, power corrupts, study hard and be evil" becomes true.   

Quote from: JLT1 on May 14, 2013, 10:21:28 PM
Doctors believe they truly have the best interest of the child at heart.   But why surgery when the person is an infant? Can someone please explain to me the rush to mutilate?   

Because they want the baby to have a normal life free of abnormal complications, and of course because they believe that a baby's gender will be whatever it's raised as. This kid isn't the first unfortunately, I remember there was a guy who went on Tyra Banks to talk about it happening to him.

Quote from: Devlyn Marie on May 14, 2013, 08:26:03 PM
Jamie, shouldn't this be in legal news? And how appropriate, doctors suing doctors for malpractice.

Flan moved it, and I considered putting it here first, however, the content of the article that I found to be newsworthy involved the medical and psychological aspects of the story.

I wonder if the adoptive parents have standing to bring suit?

Seems that we've been through this time and again, this story reads like the movie "Groundhog Day." What don't these butt holes not understand about this stuff. Common sense tells us to wait until the kid is at the age of informed consent to make that decision on their own.

Before we put too many nails in the M.D.'s here we also need to hit the state child welfare workers since the child was a ward of the court when this happened.  The state was "in Loco Parentis" <in the place of a parent> for the child and a judge needed to sign off on the order to do the surgery.  This does not absolve the M.D.'s but adds another layer of earth to the subject of where and how education and responsibility lie.  Our legal and medical systems need introduction and induction to the current century.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/15/health/child-sex-surgery-suit/index.html?hpt=hp_t2


Why does this still happen!?

It happens because doctors learn medicine from 60 year old text books and in the 1950s a doctor by the name of John Money advanced a theory that all children could be raised as either a boy or a girl. He backed his theory with a flawed study of less than 10 individuals and limited the study to a couple of years. Though the flaws in his study were later revealed, Dr. Money's never backed down from his position and his "Nurture Theory" is still taken as gospel today.

The society we live in holds doctors in high esteem so doctors aren't inclined to listen to non-doctors on medical matters and still believe they can deduce a child's eventual gender based on the degree of the body's masculinization.

I had a discussion with "an expert" in the field a couple of years ago and asked why infant 'gender assignment' surgery is still done. She said "We are right 60% of the time." I answered, "And the other 40% are unmitigated disasters!" She made no response.

Quote from: Northern Jane on May 15, 2013, 07:22:54 PM
It happens because doctors learn medicine from 60 year old text books and in the 1950s a doctor by the name of John Money advanced a theory that all children could be raised as either a boy or a girl. He backed his theory with a flawed study of less than 10 individuals and limited the study to a couple of years. Though the flaws in his study were later revealed, Dr. Money's never backed down from his position and his "Nurture Theory" is still taken as gospel today.

The society we live in holds doctors in high esteem so doctors aren't inclined to listen to non-doctors on medical matters and still believe they can deduce a child's eventual gender based on the degree of the body's masculinization.

I had a discussion with "an expert" in the field a couple of years ago and asked why infant 'gender assignment' surgery is still done. She said "We are right 60% of the time." I answered, "And the other 40% are unmitigated disasters!" She made no response.

And we know how Dr. Money's twin "experiment" ended. Sad and disgusting. This sort of thing should never happen.

Quote from: JennX on May 15, 2013, 09:43:43 PM
And we know how Dr. Money's twin "experiment" ended. Sad and disgusting. This sort of thing should never happen.

Ugh, I remember the Dr. Money experiment on that poor child who finally committed suicide. My heart broke for him and his family. His parents were unwittingly putting their full trust in Money's so called expertise. For his sake there must be a place called hell.

I had a discussion with "an expert" in the field a couple of years ago and asked why infant 'gender assignment' surgery is still done. She said "We are right 60% of the time." I answered, "And the other 40% are unmitigated disasters!" She made no response.
[/quote]

I would like to see the data that supports that 60% statement.  A study on X number r infants who were assigned sex while less than 2 years of age with a 10 and 20 year follow-up showing that 60% of X were fine would support that statement.  The only studies I've seen are often indicative rather than statistically definitive but never the less suggest slightly less than too far less than a 50% correct gender assignment. 

The rule is:  If the baby has what can become a reasonably functional penis, they become male, if not, they become female; "Easier a hole than a pole".   No genetic analysis, little if any thought of reproductive capability, very little thought on any type of future sexual enjoyment and no way to predict what the sex of the brain (hence identify).  It's not really based on what is surgically possible, it is what is easy.....

Quote from: JLT1 on May 16, 2013, 10:02:03 AMI would like to see the data that supports that 60% statement.

I have been active in the Intersex community and support groups for a bit over 10 years and, based on the statistical average for the occurrence of ambiguous genitalia versus the number of people we see (in support groups) with problems or who are dissatisfied, I wouldn't dispute the claim of 60%. Let's face it, the statistical average for male v.s. female is 50% to start with and the degree of virilization does have some effect on the chance of a child identifying as male so the doctor's claim is really only for 10% better than a wild guess!

Since there is no central reporting for ambiguous genitalia, a study of any significant number is not possible.

QuoteThe rule is:  If the baby has what can become a reasonably functional penis, they become male, if not, they become female......

The infamous "Peter Meter"! LOL! Functionality had little do with it - they simply measured a baby's phallus and if it was over 2 cm it became a male; less than 2 cm it became female.

QuoteNo genetic analysis, little if any thought of reproductive capability, very little thought on any type of future sexual enjoyment and no way to predict what the sex of the brain (hence identify).  It's not really based on what is surgically possible, it is what is easy.....

The doctor I had the discussion with was "the Intersex expert" at a major teaching hospital and, at least at  that location, your statement is inaccurate. They actually do a great deal of testing to try  to determine the child's physical state. If fertility is possible,  they will lean in that direction but, if not, they assess the  degree of virilization. My argument to the doctor is that there is no need to do ANYTHING to the infant at that point and they should just leave them alone until the child can express his/her desire! (Which is the formal position of the OII, Organization Intersex International.)