Adolescents ought to have the right to make autonomous medical choices.

I value Morality, which requires analyzing the ontological state of being before analyzing the being. Ontology comes first for three reasons: 1. Before we can debate who or what individuals have moral obligations to we must analyze and understand what is an individual and where the identity of the individual comes from. 2. Ontology precludes epistemology since a) knowledge is itself something that must be in order to weigh into our actions and b) knowledge is irrelevant without a subject to apply it to.3. Any normative statement has to make an ontological assumption. Campbell[1]: “ontology … is fundamental and inescapable. For one cannot say anything about anything that is, without always already having made assumptions about the is … Any mode of thought, … always already carries an ontology sequested within it. What this ontological turn does to other – regional – modes of thought is to challenge the ontology within which they operate. …” And, in constructing ethical theories, the first evaluation of the self is to allow for the formation of the “I” through contesting stable gender identities. Butler[2]: ““effects” of gender hierarchy … are … foundations, … There is no ontology of gender on which we might construct a politics, for gender ontologies always operate within established political contexts as normative injunctions, … Ontology is, thus, … a normative injunction that operates insidiously by installing itself into political discourse … The deconstruction of identity … establishes as political the very terms through which identity is articulated. … If identities were no longer fixed as the premises of a political syllogism, … a new configuration of politics would … emerge … Cultural configurations of … gender might then … become articulable within the discourses that establish intelligible cultural life, …” Thus the standard is disrupting fixed gender identities. The affirmative burden is to show that permitting intersex adolescents to choose their own identities enables the disruption of fixed gender identities. Prefer this standard for 4 reasons:1. Absolutist identities preclude moral language because they’re grounded in universal images, which prevent different perspectives in discourse. Butler 2: “The … plasticity of language, … resists the fixing of the subject position as masculine. … A woman cannot use the first person “I” because as a woman, the speaker is “particular” … and the invocation of the “I” presumes the capacity to speak for and as the universal human: … the speaking subject … “reappropriates language as a whole, proceeding from oneself alone, with the power to use all language.” … This privilege to speak “I” establishes a sovereign self, … speaking establishes “the supreme act of subjectivity.” …” Therefore coherent moral statements require a dynamic self-identification. 2. Our view of the body must be contestable since a binary categorization precedes an accurate evaluation of epistemology. Butler 3: “Categories of … gender, … have constituted the stable point of reference for … politics. These constructs of identity serve as the points of epistemic departure from which theory emerges and politics itself is shaped. … the category of sex … presuppose[s] a generalization of “the body” that preexists the acquisition of its … significance. This “body” … [is] a passive medium that is signified by an inscription from a cultural source figured as “external” to that body. Any theory … ought to question “the body” as a construct of suspect generality when it is figured as passive and prior to discourse. …” 3. Disrupting gender identities is key to escaping an ontological essentialism grounded in pre-existing identities that function before our actual discourse which allows for ethical violence and exclusion. White[3]: “ontological essentialism [is] at work in … conceptualizations of … gender … ontological claims … [are] nothing more than dissimulation strategies of discursive regimes of power. There is no entity … behind its acts; rather such entities are always "produced …' in the very performance of linguistic actions. The continual reiteration of social scripts - and thus regimes of power - is what gives life and specific shape to what are then mistakenly identified as pre-existing entities with ontological status.” Thus, the plan: ADOLESCENTS WILL BE GIVEN MEDICAL AUTHORITY TO HAVE GENDER TRANSITION OPERATIONS PERFORMED ON THEMSELVES. A: INHERENCY- Many individuals are born as intersex, having both male and female parts. Most of these individuals do not know they have multi-genitals until they hit puberty, or the beginning of adolescence. Alice[4]: “Intersex, … is a variation in sex characteristics … that do not allow an individual to be distinctly identified as male or female. … Intersex … may be surgically … altered to create … acceptable sex characteristics. … Research in the late 20th century indicates … that diverse intersex bodies are normal … forms of human biology.” These surgeries can be done anywhere from birth to adolescence, but as of now, the status quo requires no form of consent from the individual being operate on. Instead, many are lied to and manipulated after surgeries. Intersex Society of North America[5]: “Though the Hopkins team wrote early on that children should be told … about their intersex … many medical care providers lied to patients … surgeons performed cosmetic genital surgeries on intersex children without their consent, …. Endocrinologists … manipulated patients’ hormones to try to get the bodies of patients to … look sexually “normal”” B: HARMS- the psychological effects of this unconsented surgery are substantial. Schober[6]: “intersex individuals become aware of their genitals as anomalous from an early age. … shame and isolation, may be provoked by the child’s realization … by ongoing attention to the child’s genitalia during … medical visits, or by parents’ and physicians’ silence … A feeling of having been betrayed often accompanies the discovery of an intersex condition … The damaged ability to trust may interfere with … families, and compromise … relationships with medical … professionals …” Furthermore, the standards for gender change are arbitrary and sexist. Intersex Society of North America 2: “The system … treats children thought to be girls differently than children thought to be boys. … doctors’ primary concern for children thought to be girls is preservation of fertility (not sexual sensation), and for children thought to be boys, size and function … the “standards” used for genital anatomy have been arbitrary and illogical. … boys … were made into girls—even though … doctors believed … they could be raised as boys without … surgery, …” C: SOLVENCY- In medical practice, adopt the Yogyakarta principles of intersex surgery. The principle statement defines gender identity. Yogyakarta[7]: “each person’s deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth, … (which may involve, if freely chosen, modification of bodily appearance or function by medical, … means) …” This definition protects the right of people who are intersex to choose freely their gender identity. In particular, Principle 18 of the Yogyakarta Principles outlines the right to be protected from medical abuses based on gender identity. Yogyakarta 2: “No person may be forced to undergo any form of medical or psychological treatment … based on … gender identity. … a person's … gender identity is not, … a medical condition and is not to be … suppressed.” The Yogyakarta Principles state that countries shall, among other things. Yogyakarta 3: “Take all necessary … measures to ensure that no child’s body is irreversibly altered by medical procedures in an attempt to impose a gender identity without the full, free and informed consent of the child …” Therefore, in order to preserve the gender identity of adolescents, the affirmative adopts these principles as a mindset in the biomedical community, ensuring that before any sort of intersex operation, adolescents are able to make completely free and informed decisions in regard to gender operations. Sources: [1] - (Michael, and Campbell, professor of International Relations at the University of Lancaster, Moral Spaces: Rethinking Ethics and World Politics, p. 97-8)[2] - Judith Butler [PhD, Yale, Maxine Elliot Professor of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature]. “Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity.” Routledge, 1999[3] - Stephen K. White. As the World Turns: Ontology and Politics in Judith Butler. Polity, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Winter, 1999), pp. 155-177[4] - Alice Domurat Dreger, "Ambiguous Sex"--or Ambivalent Medicine?",The Hastings Center Report May/June 1998, Volume 28, Issue 3, pp. 24–35.[5] - “What's Wrong with the Way Intersex Has Traditionally Been Treated?" What's Wrong with the Way Intersex Has Traditionally Been Treated? Intersex Society of North America, n.d. Web. 16 Aug. 2015.[6] - Schober JM. 1999. Quality-of life studies in patients with ambiguous genitalia. World J Urol 17:249-252.[7] - "Yogyakarta Principles: English." Yogyakarta Principles: English. Yogyakarta, n.d. Web. 16 Aug. 2015.