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Boys will be
boys--even if raised as girls
New research on boys who are born
without a penis suggests that the standard medical response - giving them estrogen and
raising them as girls - is unnecessary and in most cases harmful.
Boys born with an extremely rare pelvic
defect in which they have testicles but no penis are, in most cases, castrated and raised
as girls. Doctors have used this tactic since the 1960s, under the assumption that it
would allow the child to have a near-normal sexual life. But Dr. William G. Reiner calls
the procedure 'an experiment with no data.'
In a study of 25 boys who had been
're-assigned' as girls, and 2 children with the condition who were not, Reiner and
colleagues at Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore, Maryland, found that nature
was more powerful than nurture. All of the children displayed 'strong' male
characteristics, such as playing sports and being attracted to girls.
Moreover, their feelings of maleness
were so strong that two thirds of the children, who are now aged 5 to 16, had
're-assigned' themselves back to being boys. This sometimes occurred even before their
parents had revealed the truth to them.
Reiner, a child/adolescent psychiatrist
and urologist, recently reported the research findings in Boston at a meeting of the
Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society.
In an interview with Reuters Health,
Reiner said that sex re-assignment fails because these children are born 'hormonally
normal,' that is, they are exposed to male hormones from the developing testicles in the
womb. Even after losing male hormones to castration and being raised as girls, they know
instinctively that they are male. 'I think it's a terrible mistake,' he said, 'because
they can be raised as boys.'
The rationale behind 'molding' these
baby boys into girls rested on the belief that environment shapes a child's
self-perception, according to Reiner. However, that notion pre-dates the ascendancy of
genetics in medicine. About 10 boys are born in the US each year with this rare condition
and the infants have the sex chromosomes X and Y - they are genetically male.
Moreover, according to Reiner, it is
misguided to assume that allowing boys to be raised without a penis would be
psychologically overwhelming. Instead, he said in the interview, when these boys are
raised as girls they suffer high rates of depression and suicidal thoughts. Two of his
team's 27 study subjects were raised as boys. Both, according to Reiner, are better
adjusted psychologically than those initially raised as girls. Among the other 25
children, almost two-thirds have already chosen to live as boys.
In addition, Reiner noted, boys born
without a penis have the option of having an artificial, yet sexually functioning, one
implanted later in life. Environment, according to Reiner, cannot change one's perception
of being of male or female. 'These children,' he said, 'recognize themselves.' |
