# New guidelines for treating 'intersex' babies
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-guidelines-for-treating-intersex-babies/293225
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [March 6, 2005, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-guidelines-for-treating-intersex-babies/293225 "2005-03-06T18:42:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2005, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-guidelines-for-treating-intersex-babies/293225/1 "2005-03-06T18:42:04Z")
Interesting FYI
[New guidelines for treating ‘intersex’ babies
Doctors urged not to operate on infants with unclear gender](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6994580/)
> [@](#):
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> But Vilain’s research suggests there are factors at work that can’t be measured. The scientific dogma used to be that hormones alone could “masculinize” the brain, he said. But he identified 54 genes that work differently in the brains of male and female mouse embryos just 10 days after conception — before sex hormones are ever produced.
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> Doctors also once thought that how people were raised and their genitalia were enough to determine gender, said Reiner, who as a urologist performed sex-assignment surgeries on babies.
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> But Reiner began seeing children who had been assigned to one sex as babies and a few years later began identifying themselves as the other. He re-trained as a psychiatrist to study these children.
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> His latest review of 94 intersex children found over half of the genetic males “transitioned” to become boys despite being raised as girls and undergoing female surgical sex assignment.
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> How? As early as age 4½, the children would suddenly say, “I’m a boy,” or pick a boy’s name, Reiner said.
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> Hence his advice to parents to think hard before agreeing to surgery for an intersex baby: Dealing with the social trauma of switching gender later is enough without the issue of surgery that can’t be reversed.
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### Author:  [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2005, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-guidelines-for-treating-intersex-babies/293225/2 "2005-03-06T23:11:05Z")
Personally, if I had an intersex sprout, no way in hell would the doc do any operation [including a circumcision, i like uncut men=) and figure they can always get it done if they want to=)] I would probably use a neutral name, and not direct the kid to either male or female until they were at least housebroken and relatively coherent, say 4 years old - just before starting any sort of schooling. I figure there would be some clues around then hinting they want to be a boy or girl, or we could then go to a kidshrink. Personally, I dont care if the other parents are wierded out, my kids physical and mental health is more important…and besides, there are a LOT of kids I have seen that all dress identically, jeans and tshirts that you really cant tell which gender they are, and so taking them into the bathroom with me unti lthe age of 5 or 6 is not a big deal, or we will simply be careful to go to places that have only a unisex bathroom. I can remember hearing about that poor kid they did the change operation to that decided they were the _other_ gender and IIRC they killed themself over it at the end. now that sucks!
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### Author:  [@Queen\_Tonya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Tonya)
#### Post date: [March 7, 2005, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-guidelines-for-treating-intersex-babies/293225/3 "2005-03-07T01:45:17Z")
Good news, indeed.
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### Author:  [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)
#### Post date: [March 7, 2005, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-guidelines-for-treating-intersex-babies/293225/4 "2005-03-07T01:46:07Z")
Why intersex instead of hermaphrodite these days?
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### Author:  [@Apricot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apricot)
#### Post date: [March 7, 2005, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-guidelines-for-treating-intersex-babies/293225/5 "2005-03-07T02:00:41Z")
“hermaphrodite” refers to people that have both male and female genitalia. Intersex usually refers to having genitalia that don’t visually conform to either male or female.
A baby with a very large clitoris and swollen labia looks vey much like a baby with a small penis and undescended testicles.