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Surgical Sex Reassignment Should Not Be Done At Birth


Their normal testes produce androgens but, because of a cellular abnormality that partially or completely inhibits response to the hormone, male development is unaffected and proceeds toward a female external development at birth. It has been found that chromosomes occur in several other combinations besides just XX (female) and XY (male) combination. Other chromotypes that have been found include XXX, XXY, XXYY, and XXXYY. (Lehrman) The additional chromosomes cause the female reproductive organs to be over masculinized or the male organs to be under masculinized. (Diamond) This can make it nearly impossible to determine the sex of a child. In rare cases a variation of the male XY chromosome produces hypospadias, where the penis is open at some location other than at the end. Some children are even found to have two different chromotypes in different cells of the body. In these cases the doctors must make a decision about how to label the gender of the child. This decision has to be made quickly before the birth is announced to family and friends. .
             The procedure of surgical reassignment of sex on infants has come under heavy scrutiny. Pediatricians caring for infants with ambiguous genitalia inferred that genetic makeup and prenatal endocrinology could largely be ignored in the assignment of sex. They reasoned that the penis had to be plainly absent or present from infancy on, and that these children had to be raised as girls or boys with no hint of ambiguity. Accordingly, pediatric surgeons strive to benefit these patients by "normalizing" ambiguous genitalia. This included reducing enlarged clitoris (eliminating visible penis-like structures in babies assigned as females) and, because of the technical difficulty creating functional and cosmetically believable male genitals, refashioning ambiguous male genitalia as female. It has been a standard pediatric practice to recommend surgery for infants with ambiguous genitalia.


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