Dr. Arlene M. Baratz is a breast radiologist, mother of two intersex daughters, co-ordinator of medical and research affairs for the AIS-DSD Support Group and chair, Medical and Research Policy Committee at interACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth.

When your child is born with a medical issue, you turn to doctors for help, advice and treatment – even when, like me, you’re a mother and a doctor.

When I went to medical school in the early 1980s I was trained to prescribe estrogen to postmenopausal women to prevent osteoporosis. And that babies born intersex – that is, with atypical chromosomes, gonads, or internal or external sex organs – should have these differences “corrected” by surgery that was kept secret.

As a breast radiologist, I was devastated to learn several years into my career that because prescribing estrogen can actually hurt women, encouraging breast cancer development and cardiovascular problems, I had unintentionally harmed my patients. It was hard to accept, but that’s evidence-based medicine, and that’s what I owe my patients.

In 1990, when my daughters’ intersex was discovered, parents were typically advised to let surgeons “fix” children by erasing their differences, and to keep intersex a secret. Otherwise, we were told, our kids would later commit suicide. Read more via Reuters