Chicago Hospital Vows to End Cosmetic Surgery on Intersex Infants
By: Catherine Caruso
Tags: LGBTQ, Society, Health, Equality, Justice

A children’s hospital in Chicago has apologized for performing cosmetic genital surgeries on intersex infants, vowing to put an end to the practice.

Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago released a statement last week apologizing for having previously performed such surgeries.

Signatories of the statement went on to condemn the practice, acknowledging the harm that these surgeries have caused.

“We recognize the painful history and complex emotions associated with intersex surgery and how, for many years, the medical field has failed these children,” the statement read.

“We empathize with intersex individuals who were harmed by the treatment that they received according to the historic standard of care, and we apologize and are truly sorry.”

This statement and apology comes after activists from the Intersex Justice Project called on the hospital to ban these harmful procedures nearly three years ago.

The organization held protests outside of the hospital, organized email campaigns, and encouraged activists to use the hashtag #EndIntersexSurgery on social media.

Intersex is a “general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male,” according to the Intersex Society of North America.

Around 1.7% of the global population is born intersex and 1 in 2,000 intersex babies will be recommended for cosmetic genital surgery by their doctors.

As such, the fight to end cosmetic surgeries on intersex infants has been years in the making.

Organizations like the ACLU and Human Rights Watch have long warned of the risks of such procedures, calling them unnecessary and claiming that they do nothing to help intersex individuals better adjust to society.

These surgeries, which misguidedly aim to help intersex children fit into outdated definitions of what it means to be male or female, date all the way back to the 1960s.

Many intersex people who have been forced to undergo cosmetic genital surgery as infants have since reported psychological trauma, loss of sexual sensation, and higher risks of scarring.

In 2017, three former US Surgeons-General asserted that there was little evidence to suggest that growing up with intersex genitalia causes psychological distress, but there was evidence to indicate that having irreversible surgery without consent can, in fact, cause emotional and physical harm.

As a result, around 40% of intersex people who undergo surgery as infants will grow up to reject the sex and imposed gender that has been surgically assigned to them.

While the number of infants who underwent cosmetic surgery at Lurie Children’s Hospital is unknown, the hospital has promised that no such surgeries will take place until intersex people are old enough to consent.

“Historically care for individuals with intersex traits included an emphasis on early genital surgery to make genitalia appear more typically male or female,” the statement continued.

“As the medical field has advanced, and understanding has grown, we now know this approach was harmful and wrong.”