Chapter 4 - Adult Outcome of Childhood Genital Surgery

Summary

In a gendered world, doctors and caretakers took for granted that making atypical bodies more typical was a humane way out of a difficult situation for child and family. Had the professionals carried out proper research, they would have learned from their young patients that the approach was physically and psychologically risky. But research on the long-term effects was not carried out, certainly not from the patients’ perspective. There was also no comparison group made up of people growing up with unaltered genital variations. Research with adults is the topic of Chapter 4 of this book. Since the 1990s, a number of outcome studies with adults have identified many problems of childhood surgery, such as multiple operations, scarring, shrinkage, sensitivity loss, unusual genital appearance and sexual difficulties.