Before you read this post, let me warn you, I\u2019m probably not\ngoing to say what you think. Well, that\u2019s not quite true, there will be some\npeople who will know what I\u2019m gonna say and be annoyed by it. That\u2019s cool.\nPeople reading my blog and being so incensed by it that they feel the need to\nwrite angry comments, telling me no one is reading my blog is like catnip to\nme. Thanks for the feedback. Anyway, on to the matter in hand because this is\nactually really important and I don\u2019t feel like the damage done to advancements\nin intersex healthcare by trans activism is talked about enough\u2026I may come back\nto that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First of all, a story. A few years ago, my cousin had a\nbaby. A lovely baby boy. Like all babies, he was perfect in every way. In fact,\nhe was extra special because he had an extra thumb. Of course, an extra thumb\nis not a medical emergency, but like any difference that\u2019s evident at birth, it\u2019s\na pause for thought (extra digits can be a sign that parents are more closely\nrelated than they realise, for example, which can lead to many other complications),\nso it was investigated. This included x-rays, physical examinations and a family\nmedical history being taken along with genetic testing. Everything came back \u201cnormal\u201d\n(what is normal? Etc. etc), so there was no need for any additional worry or\ntests, but the questioned remained of what, if anything, should be done about\nthe thumb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, I should point out, my cousin was not phased by the\nthumb. They called it his lucky thumb and compared it to Nemo\u2019s lucky fin. They\ncelebrated the thumb as much as the rest of him. However, when they sought\nadvice and took into consideration possible future complications for fine motor\ndevelopment, alongside the understanding that sometimes surgery on birth\ndifferences such as these are better performed earlier in life, when recovery may\nbe quicker and less traumatic, it was decided to remove the thumb. And so they\ndid. He\u2019s now an older child, happy with two thumbs. The lucky thumb not forgotten,\nbut not there as something to worry about. The end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What I want people to notice is the lack of outside interference there. My cousin and her husband were free to seek advice, do their own research and arrive at a decision about the best treatment for their child, without anyone calling them a bigot or feeling their own non-related identity was somehow compromised by it. When they googled for information, they weren\u2019t bombarded with queer theory and internet quacks, talking about humans being a spectrum of thumb owners. No one was lobbying parliament to take away their right, and their child\u2019s right, to evidence based medical care and advice. People born with clubfoot, or cleft palates weren\u2019t involving themselves in the care of extra-thumbed children because they thought that had an impact on their own needs. Adults, who had found themselves unhappy with their own thumbs later in life, were not asked for, and did not feel the need to provide, their opinion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is not the case for parents of children born with\nambiguous genitalia, nor, indeed people born with ambiguous genitalia\nthemselves. Last week, I posted a blog by a dad of a child with MGD and his experiences<\/a>,\nI also linked to an article<\/a>\nby a urologist who works with patients with CAH. It\u2019s really CAH that I want to\nconcentrate on here, although I will touch on one or two other things as we go.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I\u2019ve explained<\/a>\nin the past, there is a form of CAH which can be fatal if left untreated, so\nwhen a child is born with ambiguous genitalia, this is the first diagnosis that\nwill be checked for. Once this is diagnosed, and appropriate treatment started,\nthen there are the decisions about surgery. Ambiguous genitalia in females can\npose problems for urination and menstruation, so functionality is the first\nquestion, not just in the immediate sense, but also future functionality. I can\nalready hear now \u201cbut the child can decide later in life\u201d. Yes, they can, but I\nrefer you back to the lucky thumb, did you feel the same about that when we\ntalked about it sometimes being better to perform surgeries at younger ages, or\nwas your feeling more neutral? Why is it different here? Would it make a difference\nto you to know that the overwhelming\nmajority<\/a> of CAH women favour surgery at as early an age as possible<\/a>?\nIn fact, regret about infant surgery is incredibly rare among this demographic\nand where they do exist, it tends to be because of archaic techniques that are no\nlonger used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or, let\u2019s take another, popular queer theory objection, \u201cbut,\nClaire, it\u2019s so heteronormative\u201d. To be honest, I only have one response to\nthat\u2026so what? What\u2019s wrong with being heteronormative? And, to be frank, I don\u2019t\nreally understand why it is \u201cheteronormative\u201d. Are queer activists not aware\nthat gay women urinate and menstruate conventionally, and many are mums too.\nAre they being heteronormative? Why is it a problem for you that intersex\npeople might also like typically functioning bodies?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I sometimes see, not unusually for queer activists, a stat being misused to justify them denying the right of CAH women to female body experiences. They will tell you 1 in 10 CAH women develop gender dysphoria later in life. What they fail to tell you is that there is some suggestion<\/a> that this may be down to a lack of medical interventions. Assuming we don\u2019t want people to feel dysphoric, before someone asks me what\u2019s wrong with being trans, why would we not take steps to help to avoid this additional psychological issue? What they also don\u2019t tell you is that rates of GD are higher<\/a> in females with CAH who are raised boys. So much so, that there actually is an overwhelming consensus that female is the right sex of rearing for CAH girls. You can click on any of the links I\u2019ve provided to check this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I want to be clear, I\u2019m not talking about clitorectomy (the complete removal of the clitoris). On any other girl, this would be considered FGM, intersex girls should have the same protections. Neither am I talking about the abhorrent practice of surgical sex assignment, among other DSDs, which involves removing boys\u2019 penises, for being in someway not adequate, lying to them and rearing them as girls \u2013 I think we can all agree this is wrong and should be stopped. I\u2019m specifically discussing surgeries that improve the lives of women with CAH. This is not something, if you don\u2019t have CAH, you\u2019ve probably really thought about. I hadn\u2019t until I started researching it. With that in mind, I\u2019d ask you listen to the short, but very informative and impassioned evidence, given by the second women in the video clip in this article<\/a>. I\u2019d also invite you to read this illuminating piece<\/a> about the law in California, where intersex protocols are being written into law by woke activists, not the actual intersex people themselves, nor the experts who work with them. I can\u2019t stress this enough, trans activism is directly harming the healthcare of these women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is where I\u2019m gonna get onto that thing that I wasn\u2019t\nsure if I was gonna get onto. Feminism is really letting intersex women down\nhere. Even if you\u2019re sadly of the sort who would exclude 46XY DSD women, CAH\nwomen have your XX chromosomes, and I\u2019ve yet to see any feminist site or\npublication come even close to addressing this issue, let alone really acknowledge\nwhat is happening to a vulnerable group of women who are currently everyone\u2019s\npolitical football. In fact, when talking about women\u2019s reproductive healthcare\nneeds, intersex women are often excluded from feminist discussion, but that\u2019s a\nrant for another day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, it\u2019s terrible that men are claiming to be lesbians and\nare creating a culture where lesbians don\u2019t feel safe expressing their sexuality.\nYes, it\u2019s awful that all women are being forced to redefine ourselves by\nregressive stereotypes and accept male bodied people into our spaces. But we\nare talking about these women\u2019s right to have a female, functioning body. Their\nactual physical and mental health. They are being spoken over by aggressive,\ndysphoric males and adults who are unhappy with their own lot in life. Their\nhealth and the health of all future girls born with CAH will be significantly\nimpacted if feminists and other GC people don\u2019t start hearing this and talking\nabout it too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In my dream world, intersex infants and their parents would have the same experience as my cousin, her son and the lucky thumb. They would be allowed to ponder the evidence and advice of experts. They would be able to do this in an environment where their unique healthcare decisions aren\u2019t considered the political property of others. They would be supported by the people around them and their needs and thoughts respected. DSD diagnosis and treatment is varied and complex, there is not a one size fits all answer to questions about surgeries and interventions. People trying to reduce us to such a simplistic worldview are not allies, neither are those who stay silent. Please share the stories of these CAH women and please stop sloganeering intersex people and our healthcare. We deserve and need better than that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Before you read this post, let me warn you, I\u2019m probably not going to say what you think. Well, that\u2019s not quite true, there will be some people who will know what I\u2019m gonna say and be annoyed by it. That\u2019s cool. People reading my blog and being so incensed by it that they feel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,5,4,58,48,43],"tags":[14,9,60,6,59,44],"class_list":["post-234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cah","category-gender","category-intersex","category-surgery","category-trans","category-womens-rights","tag-cah","tag-dsds","tag-healthcare","tag-intersex","tag-trans-activism","tag-womens-rights","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrkhvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrkhvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrkhvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrkhvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrkhvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mrkhvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":237,"href":"https:\/\/mrkhvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions\/237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrkhvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrkhvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrkhvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}