Intersex Human Rights Australia

Professor Alice Dreger writes in Psychology Today’s blog, “Fetishes I Don’t Get”:

In a brief article entitled “Bad Vibrations” just posted at the Hastings Center’s Bioethics Forum, my colleague Ellen Feder and I express our shock over the follow-up techniques being used by pediatric urologist Dix Poppas at Weill Medical College of Cornell University on girls whose clitorises Poppas has cut down in size. …

Poppas says he’s using a “nerve-sparing” technique. How confident are we this will make a difference in terms of saving these girls from the sexual dysfunction (and pain) that many in previous generations have suffered following childhood surgeries designed to make their clits look more petite? Not that confident, frankly. …

More information

• Read the full article
• Bioethics Forum: Bad Vibrations – Alice Dreger and Ellen K. Feder
• bird of paradox – We need to talk about IGM…
• Pharyngula – What is the right size for a clitoris?
• The Guardian – Comment is Free – Normality under the knife – Jane Fae
• The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism – Consensus Statement on 21-Hydroxylase Deficiency from The Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society and The European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology – Writing Committee: Peter E. Clayton, Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, Manchester, United Kingdom; Walter L. Miller*, University of California, San Francisco, California; Sharon E. Oberfield, Columbia University, New York, New York; E. Martin Ritzén, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden; Wolfgang G. Sippell*, University Children’s Hospital, Kiel, Germany; Phyllis W. Speiser, New York University, New York, New York (*co-chairs)
• The Journal of Urology – Nerve Sparing Ventral Clitoroplasty: Analysis of Clitoral Sensitivity and Viability – Jennifer Yang, Diane Felsen and Dix P. Poppas
• The Lancet – The effect of clitoral surgery on sexual outcome in individuals
  who have intersex conditions with ambiguous genitalia: a cross-sectional study – Catherine L Minto, Lih-Mei Liao, Christopher R J Woodhouse, Phillip G Ransley, Sarah M Creighton
• The Stranger – Female Genital Mutilation at Cornell University