THE intersex girls described in this article  – “children whose internal organs do not match their external genitalia” – will remain intersex for the rest of their lives despite masculinizing genitoplasty surgeries.

They claim a strict procedure is followed to determine the sex of the newborn, after which the external appearance of the child is changed to match the sex.

This is an untruth. There is no secret formula, no special knowledge or technique, no machine that goes ping. The only way they can determine the sex of the infant is to ask them when they are old enough to speak. All children, or almost all children, whether intersex or not, know what sex they are. Their brain tells them so. There is no special procedure or special evidence other than this.

When the child grows up, he or she would be confused about the gender he or she belongs to. …

The child knows what sex they are.

This raises a lot of questions about rights of these children, who might grow up to believe that they wanted to be the way they were born and not corrected surgically.

There have been cases abroad in which such people – who had undergone the procedures at the ages when their consent could not be sought – have grown up and sued the doctors.

Why should intersex children not grow up the way they are born, and make their own minds up about which gender they might be?

External links:

• hindustan times, haryana – Task force to check gender imbalance
• hindustan times, madhya pradesh – Call for checks on sex surgeries
• hindustan times, mumbai – Device to curb female foeticide
• The Telegraph – Indians pay surgeons to turn girls into boys