The Joys and Traumas of Intersex Childhood
Newborns have roughly the same chance of being born intersex as they do of having red hair. But for decades, doctors have surgically chosen a gender for thousands of intersex people, without their consent. As a reporter, I met up with two people who don’t fit the average definition of “male” or “female” for a searing analysis of forced surgeries on intersex youth at birth.
See the full project here.
“It wasn’t until I got my actual medical records in my hands that I read that I had the gonadectomy, in which is when they took my testes out, my undescended testes, and then I had a cliterectomy and clitoraplasty,” they said. “I found that when I was 11, when I thought I was having a bladder surgery, that they actually did a vaginoplasty on me.”
— Pidgeon Pagonis, Intersex Activist
