[Nikki+2]

Originally Posted by Nancy1999

This isn't really new at all, maybe more publicized. In the past, if a baby was born with uncertain genitalia, it was thought better to "decide" which sex it was, and this choice was always a girl because it's easier to reconstruct the feminine anatomy than the male. However, many of these "girls" were furious when they learned what happened to them. Parents have a difficult choice at birth, they have to decide if it's better to have the child have dubious genitalia throughout childhood, and let the child make the choice at the appropriate age or just make that choice for them. I find it difficult to believe that so many believe our genitalia is what determines our gender identity. We have several methods of identify sex, first our gender identity, that's our intuitive thoughts on what we are, then there is the physical attributes such as genitalia, and other body differences, and we also have chromosomes XX for male and XY for female. Someone could be born with the chromosomes XX for male, the physical attributes of a female, and the gender identity of either male or female, because gender identity is linked to what happening in the brain including how hormones affect the brain prenatally, as well as our personal experiences. Humans like things in nice neat little packages, male or female, but the world is much more complex than that.


I probably should add, there is also your sexual orientation, and that would be which sex you're attracted to.

Nancy I've also heard that some are born with XXY- do you know if that's true? I certainly hope it's a thing of the past for parents to decide for these children which sex they are to the point of irrevocable surgery. I was completely shocked to hear of the circumcision accident though. Oops... guess he's a girl now. I'm sure that worked out.