RE: FW: Gender identity study

[Valerie White <valerie forevermail com>]

In my capacity as executive director of the Sexual Freedom Legal Defense 
and Education Fund, I have twice attended a conference (in order to present 
a workshop on sex and the law) called "Transcending Boundaries".  It is for 
the GLBT/Intersex community.  At the last one there was a workshop, in 
which two intersex panelists made a passionate and to me convincing plea 
that babies with intermediate genitals should be LEFT ALONE--that is, not 
made to undergo genital surgery to make them look "more normal".   This 
applied not only to a-penile boys such as those mentioned in the forwarded 
study, but also to any baby whose genitals were anomalous . . . girls with 
large clitorises for example.  Naturally enough, operated-on genitals don't 
function very well in adulthood.

I'm a bit of a radical in this area I imagine, and even oppose routine 
circumcision of boys, which I consider to be mutilation.

Valerie