An Emerging Ethical and Medical Dilemma: Should Physicians Perform Sex Assignment Surgery on Infants with Ambiguous Genitalia?

Authors

Hazel Glenn Beh, William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii
Milton Diamond, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii

Abstract

This article discusses the development of a surgical approach to treating intersex infants and others with genital anomalies that began in the late 1950s and 1960s and became standard in the 1970s. Although professional literature has recently questioned the surgical approach to the treatment of infants, controversy surrounding treatment persists and the medical community now is divided. How sex reassignment surgery for intersex infants became a routine recommendation of practitioners and how parents were persuaded to consent to such radical surgeries provide a cautionary tale that is relevant to both medicine and law.

Recommended Citation

Hazel G. Beh & Milton Diamond, An Emerging Ethical and Medical Dilemma: Should Physicians Perform Sex Assignment Surgery on Infants with Ambiguous Genitalia?, 7 Mich. J. Gender & L. 1 (2000).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjgl/vol7/iss1/1