Star Observer: “Opposition to genital drugs”
The Star Observer reports on CAH and dexamethasone:
Bioethicists have criticised the use of an experimental drug to reduce the risk of girls with a congenital disease being born with an intersex condition and make them conform to sex and gender stereotypes.
Girls born with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) often have enlarged genitalia, and in extreme cases the labia fuses and the clitoris grows to such a size that they are mistaken for a scrotum and penis…
Organisation Intersex International (OII) Australia spokesperson Gina Wilson told Sydney Star Observer they strongly opposed any forced or unconsented normalisation of Intersex children.
“We hold that both surgery on intersex newborns and non-consenting children, forced gendering and the administration of drugs to reinforce gender and gender behaviour whether pre or post natal is essentially homophobic,” Wilson said.
OII Australia recommends any intervention should be left until an intersex child is old enough to express their own wishes regarding treatment.
Wilson said that as far as OII Australia was aware, all hospitals in Australia recommended the early sex assignment of children with intersex conditions to parents and it was possible that dexamethasone was being prescribed to women carrying CAH girls in Australia.
Wilson welcomed Dreger speaking out on the issue but noted that she and some colleagues had pushed for intersex conditions to be renamed “disorders of sex development” for clinical purposes – a term OII Australia feels to be stigmatising.
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