Medical Ethics

Ghost in the Machine

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Once you label me, you negate me Søren Kierkegaard We know nothing of Joseph Marzo in life, so it is impossible to know what they would have ever thought of the declaration made after their death that they were “una donna” – a woman. They died after another episode of the vomiting and diarrhea that…
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Should Doctors Operate on Intersex Babies?

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In a word, no.   However, that wouldn’t make for a very readable Buzzfeed article, so instead we have this.   This article is gaining some traction on fb. It’s easy to see why. It has an identifiable subject who has been subjected to appalling medicalised violence in the name of orthodox protocols. Protocols that…
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Hidden in Plain Sight

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The United States has been in the vanguard of writing and influencing intersex medical protocols since the 1950’s, and it has been so since J Money wrote his hypothesis that sought to justify non-consensual, pre-emptive surgical and other medical interventions on people born intersex.  The currently adopted protocols have only served to reify those orthodoxies. …
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This is what they do

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This is what they do

An intersex activist colleague, Dr Small Luk, was recently interviewed by Time Out in Hong Kong.  In the interview they speak with great candour and honesty about their experiences, and the effect medical interventions had on their life. http://www.timeout.com.hk/gay-lesbian/features/72091/interview-we-talk-to-intersex-individual-dr-small-luk-about-her-gender-struggles.html   “I really thought I was a monster […] It isn’t the intersex person that needs…
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Iatrogenic Trauma

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Medical authority deems interventions toward anyone born with an intersex variation as always benign, and a positive contribution to the future well-being of that individual. Intersex advocacy and activism has made it clear for over 20+ years that is untrue, yet clinicians still cling to that belief.  A superb critique of that cognitive dissonance can…
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