Skip to content

Republish This Story

* Please read before republishing *

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives Creative Commons license as long as you follow our republishing guidelines, which require that you credit The 19th and retain our pixel. See our full guidelines for more information.

To republish, simply copy the HTML at right, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to The 19th. Have questions? Please email [email protected].

— The Editors

Loading...

Modal Gallery

/

Menu

  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships
    • From the Collection

      Changing Child Care

      Illustration of a woman feeding a baby a bottle
      • As climate change worsens hurricane season in Louisiana, doulas are ensuring parents can safely feed their babies

        Jessica Kutz · May 5
      • Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito argued abortion isn’t an economic issue. But is that true?

        Chabeli Carrazana · May 4
      • Pregnant people are at 'greater risk' in states hit hard by wildfire smoke, air pollution, new report shows

        Jessica Kutz · April 20
    • From the Collection

      Next-Gen GOP

      Illustration of a woman riding an elephant
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • A banner year for Republican women

        Amanda Becker · November 11
      • Republican women could double representation in the U.S. House

        Amanda Becker · November 4
    • From the Collection

      On The Rise

      Illustration of three women marching
      • Biden’s new environmental justice office aims to tackle the health impacts disproportionately faced by people of color

        Jessica Kutz · June 2
      • Jessica Cisneros takes on the last anti-abortion U.S. House Democrat

        Amanda Becker · February 25
      • Meet J. Michelle Childs, South Carolina judge and possible Supreme Court contender

        Candice Norwood · February 18
    • From the Collection

      Pandemic Within a Pandemic

      Illustration of four people marching for Black Lives Matter with coronavirus as the backdrop
      • Some LGBTQ+ people worry that the COVID-19 vaccine will affect HIV medication. It won’t.

        Orion Rummler · November 23
      • Why are more men dying from COVID? It’s a complicated story of nature vs. nurture, researchers say

        Mariel Padilla · September 22
      • Few incarcerated women were released during COVID. The ones who remain have struggled.

        Candice Norwood · August 17
    • From the Collection

      Portraits of a Pandemic

      Illustration of a woman wearing a mask and holding up the coronavirus
      • For family caregivers, COVID is a mental health crisis in the making

        Shefali Luthra · October 8
      • A new database tracks COVID-19’s effects on sex and gender

        Shefali Luthra · September 15
      • Pregnant in a pandemic: The 'perfect storm for a crisis'

        Shefali Luthra · August 25
    • From the Collection

      The 19th Explains

      People walking from many articles to one article where they can get the context they need on an issue.
      • The 19th Explains: How pregnant people can prepare for a summer of heat waves

        Jessica Kutz · June 17
      • The 19th Explains: How new Title IX guidelines on sexual misconduct may give more help to survivors

        Nadra Nittle · June 14
      • The 19th Explains: How would overturning Roe v. Wade affect IVF?

        Jennifer Gerson · May 27
    • From the Collection

      The Electability Myth

      Illustration of three women speaking at podiums
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • Stepping in after tragedy: How political wives became widow lawmakers

        Mariel Padilla · May 24
      • Do term limits help women candidates? New York could be a new testing ground

        Barbara Rodriguez · January 11
    • From the Collection

      The Impact of Aging

      A number of older people walking down a path of information.
      • 'I'm planning on working until the day I die': Older women voters are worried about the future

        Mariel Padilla · June 3
      • Climate change is forcing care workers to act as first responders

        Jessica Kutz · May 31
      • Woman alleges that an assisted living facility denied her admission because she is transgender

        Sara Luterman · November 8
    • From the Collection

      Voting Rights

      A series of hands reaching for ballots.
      • Florida’s redistricting fight continues. The head of the state League of Women Voters talks about what’s at stake.

        Barbara Rodriguez · April 19
      • Women have been sounding the alarm ahead of Texas’ first-in-the-nation primary

        Barbara Rodriguez · February 28
      • LGBTQ+ people of color are at risk from rising voter restrictions as federal protections falter in the Senate, advocates say

        Orion Rummler · January 19

    View all collections

  • Explore by Topic

    • Abortion
    • Business & Economy
    • Caregiving
    • Coronavirus
    • Education
    • Election 2020
    • Elections 2022
    • Environment & Climate
    • Health
    • Immigration
    • Inside The 19th
    • Justice
    • LGBTQ+
    • Politics
    • Race
    • Sports
    • Technology

    View All Topics

Home
  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships

We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.

The 19th News(letter)

News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday.

You have been subscribed!

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

Donate to get our member newsletter

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

A photo of Scott Wiener.
California state Sen. Scott Wiener has introduced a bill that would ban doctors from performing intersex surgeries on children. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

Health

New bill could make California the first state to ban intersex surgeries for young children

If passed, California would become the first state in the nation to bar the surgeries for kids under age 6.

Kate Sosin

LGBTQ+ reporter

Kate Sosin portrait

Published

2021-01-19 17:14
5:14
January 19, 2021
pm

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

Steve and Deborah named their baby by plucking tiles from a game of travel Scrabble and rearranging them: Jarys. 

Giving their baby a gender-neutral name was one of the only things they did against doctors’ advice. But they consented to the surgeries — four of them before Jarys was 5 — they at the suggestion of medical professionals. The doctors at UCLA Medical Center told the couple that their child had been born without “an essentialized gender.” 

“I grew up believing that if I needed these surgeries to be like everyone else, then I obviously was not already good enough to be like everyone else,” said Jarys Maragopoulos, now 36. “And every time I did not feel manly enough, or like I was living out whatever I thought my parents imagined for me, I felt as if I was showing or proving that I was not human.”

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

Maragopoulos is among an estimated 1.7 percent of people born intersex, an umbrella term for people with variations in sex characteristics outside the binary of male and female.  Since the 1960s, doctors have attempted to “correct” intersex conditions with surgeries, often assigning children a sex without their knowledge or consent.

Last Thursday, California state Sen. Scott Wiener introduced a bill that would ban those surgeries on kids under the age of 6. If passed, California would become the first state in the nation to ban pediatric intersex surgeries. 

Wiener said the bill aims to prevent the surgeries until kids are at least old enough to be able to have conversations with their parents, instead of allowing doctors to assign a sex to children should a question arise about a baby’s sex. 

A newsletter you can relate to

Storytelling that represents you, delivered to your inbox.

You have been subscribed!

Submitting…

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

“This is really about bodily autonomy,” Wiener said. “This is about people being able to make life-altering decisions about their own bodies and not having those decisions made for them when they’re babies, and simply can’t have the slightest participation in that decision.” 

Pediatric intersex surgeries have come under intense scrutiny in recent years. Intersex adults report that such surgeries are often intensely painful and can cause a lifetime physical and physiological trauma. 

In cases like Maragopoulos’, it can mean invasive non-consensual probing by multiple doctors. 

For some, surgery means forfeiting sexual sensation, something that doctors have not always told parents or patients before procedures. For those reasons, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations have come out against the surgeries in recent years.

Last year, Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago became the first U.S. hospital to announce it would end the practice after a three-year campaign by the Intersex Justice Project. Following that, Boston Children’s Hospital said it would also end clitoral and vaginal intersex surgeries on children too young to consent.  

However, no other hospitals have announced they would end the surgeries. Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles and University of California San Francisco, both known to perform intersex surgeries, did not respond to requests for comment on whether they were reevaluating their procedures. Intersex activists say they are done waiting. 

“Now it’s California’s time to shine,” said Kimberly Zieselman, executive director of interACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth, in a statement. “SB 225 builds on SCR 110, California’s 2018 resolution that established the state’s commitments to equality and autonomy for people born with variations in their sex anatomy.”

The 2018 resolution is not the only other attempt California has made at securing intersex rights. Wiener introduced a similar measure last year. The bill died in committee. 

However, the San Francisco senator, who has often led California and, by extension, the nation on LGBTQ+ legislation, is more hopeful about the bill’s chances this year. 

“It’s still a hard bill,” he said. “ But this is a civil rights bill, and sometimes with hard civil rights bills, you have to introduce them multiple times before you get traction. And we’re committed to the issue.” 

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

2022 Hybrid Summit: 50 Years of Title IX

In case you missed it, watch our biggest event of the year

Watch Now

Donate to support our mission

Up Next

LGBT members and their supporters take part in an Equality March for Unity.

LGBTQ+

‘Today, many of us feel valued:’ North Carolina cities pass LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination bills as ban expires

In 2016, the state banned LGBTQ+ protections in a compromise repeal of its anti-trans bathroom bill. Now, the ban is expiring.

Read the Story

The 19th
The 19th is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Our stories are free to republish in accordance with these guidelines.

  • Donate
  • Subscribe to the Newsletter
  • Attend an Event
  • Jobs
  • Fellowships
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Community Guidelines
  • Membership
  • Membership FAQ
  • Major Gifts
  • Sponsorship
  • Privacy
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram