Timed to the celebration of Intersex Awareness Day earlier this week, an openly gay New York City councilmember has proposed a bill that would help protect intersex babies from genital surgeries conducted without their consent.
Queens councilmember Daniel Dromm introduced Intro 1478, which would mandate an intersex outreach and education campaign from the city’s health department. The campaign would teach parents and medical professionals about children who are born intersex, including information about the risks and harm caused by medically unnecessary surgeries intended to make their genitals appear “normal.” It would also teach them about inclusive medical practices and informed consent once the child is older.
Dromm initially proposed the legislation last year and had the support of 11 sponsors, but the proposal failed to make it out of committee.
“Parents of infants with intersex traits are often forced to rely on quackery masquerading as medical science, leading them to make decisions that inflict life long physical and psychological trauma on their children,” he said Monday in a series of tweets. “When enacted, my bill will provide these parents with the sound medical info they need to make healthy choices for their babies.”
Roughly 1.7 percent of the population is born with intersex characteristics, including genitals, gonads, hormones, chromosomes, and reproductive organs. The United Nations has condemned nonconsensual surgeries on intersex children, and groups such as Amnesty International have characterized it as a human rights violation.
According to a report from Human Rights Watch, performing genital or gonadal surgeries on children who are too young to declare their gender identity can carry the risk of surgically assigning the wrong sex and result in severe, lasting consequences.
“Removal of gonads can end options for fertility and will lead to lifelong need for hormone therapy,” the report states. “The genital surgeries done on intersex children can result in loss of sexual sensation and ongoing pain. The procedures are irreversible, in that tissue or organs that are removed cannot be replaced, nerves that are severed cannot be regrown, and scar tissue can limit options for future surgery.”
The movement to end these surgeries on minors too young to understand the ramifications has gained significant momentum within the past year.
This summer intersex rights activsits celebrated a huge win after the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago became the first hospital in the United States to publicly apologize for harm caused to intersex people, while pledging to stop performing some forms of intersex surgery.
