File: The New York State Capitol is seen in Albany, N.Y., Tuesday, June 20, 2023. New York is requiring state health officials to develop an outreach program to educate parents and doctors on the harmful impacts of medically unnecessary treatments performed on infants born with physical traits that don’t fit typical definitions for male or female categories. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink, File) HANS PENNINK
State health officials in New York are required to create an outreach campaign to inform physicians and parents about the negative effects of medically unjustified therapies given to young intersex children.
Governor Kathy Hochul signed the bill into law on Wednesday. Its goal is to raise awareness among individuals who are born with genitalia, chromosomes, or reproductive systems that don’t conform to conventional ideas of what it means to be male or female. In 2021, the New York City Council put a similar policy into effect.
Proponents of the statewide law assert that there are several possible adverse effects of medically unnecessary procedures performed on newborns and young children born intersex, which parents and medical professionals should be informed of.
Laws that specifically target LGBTQ+ individuals are becoming more and more common in states controlled by the GOP, but policy choices frequently lack a clear knowledge of the number of people who will be directly impacted.
Relatively little information has been gathered about the number of LGBTQ+ persons living in the United States, especially intersex persons or individuals who are born with physical characteristics that defy conventional definitions of male or female. This implies that when drafting legislation, legislators frequently lack the baseline data that they could have for other demographic groups.
The legal director of the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute, Christy Mallory, stated, “We can’t study the impact without knowing the population.”
State Assemblymember Rebecca Seawright stated in a statement that “this education will be key to helping parents understand that surgery is permanent and can cause irreversible physical and psychological effects.”
In the past, a number of health and human rights groups have demanded a halt to medical procedures, including Physicians for Human Rights, a nonprofit organization with headquarters in the United States that fights for human rights violations worldwide.
Long before they were old enough to have a choice in the matter, children whose sexual features don’t neatly fit the mold have for decades faced surgery to reorganize their anatomy to match that of more conventional males and girls.
However, there is now more pressure than ever on the profession. A suggestion to discourage it is being considered by the American Medical Association. According to three previous US surgeon generals, it is not warranted. Additionally, a comprehensive study criticizing the procedure and pleading with Congress to outlaw it will be released on Tuesday by Human Rights Watch and InterACT, a nonprofit that supports intersex adolescents.
According to the research, “the results are often catastrophic” and the procedures “can inflict irreversible physical and psychological harm.”
Physicians for Human Rights called the operations performed on intersex babies “cruel” and “inhumane” in a 2017 memo, claiming that the procedures might lead to sterilization and reduced sexual function. They stated that the operations need to be performed only once a child reaches the legal age of consent for bodily modifications.
According to The Associated Press, most advocacy groups calculate that there are around 5.6 million intersex people in the United States at birth. This estimate is based on an assessment of forty years’ worth of medical literature, from 1955 to 1998, that was published in the American Journal of Human Biology.
According to the law, intersex individuals and medical experts with experience treating intersex patients must be on an advisory council that would assist in creating New York’s public outreach program.
A measure that would have prohibited some medically unnecessary procedures on intersex children until they were old enough to participate in the decision-making process was rejected by the majority of state lawmakers in California in 2020.
The effects on intersex pupils are frequently overlooked when making legislative decisions to prohibit transgender women and girls from participating in school sports.
A recent Kansas legislation ignores the reality of transgender and nonbinary Kansans and defines a person’s sex as male or female based on what it refers to as the “biological reproductive system” that is determined at birth. This leaves no place for intersex individuals.
Talks concerning care prohibitions that promote gender equality were occasionally tainted by a bogus 2018 study that said children may develop gender dysphoria due to peer pressure. This gave rise to false claims that the number of transgender people was overstated.
In Georgia, Idaho, and other places, gender-affirming care prohibitions were passed with the assistance of arguments based on the debunked study.
Sen. Doug Ricks, a Republican from Idaho, stated during a statehouse discussion earlier this year, “I do think that could play into this a little bit.” He was referring to social media and the pressures that our young face in society. “It is challenging. Additionally, there are strong reasons supporting and refuting the contradicting testimonies of the research.
Erika Lorshbough, executive director of InterACT, an advocacy group that works to advance the rights of children born with intersex traits, stated that even though most states’ bans on gender-affirming care have attempted to carve out exceptions for people who are born intersex, they could still make it more difficult for intersex people to receive medical care.
