Category Archives: LGBT & Intersex issues

Lessons from Ruby: In Memoriam

Posted on by June 16, 2014
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May 27, 2013

Ruby’s passing immediately preceded the announcement of the suit filed against South Carolina on behalf of the eight-year-old who was, like Ruby’s daughters, subjected to surgeries to “normalize” atypical sex anatomy, or what is known as an “intersex” body.  I believe she would have celebrated the news of the lawsuit by Advocates for Informed Choice and the Southern Poverty Law Center. I thank her daughters for allowing me to share this essay.

May 9, 2013

The woman I called “Ruby” died this week. Her experiences and example have been central in my thinking about the ethical problems raised by the medical management of children and young adults with atypical sex anatomies over the last fifteen years.

Ruby was the mother of two children born in the 1960s, each of whom went into adrenal crisis shortly after she brought them home from the hospital.  Both had been announced boys when they were born, and both were reassigned as girls after doctors came to understand they were genetic females with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH).

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Lawsuit Filed Against South Carolina Alleging Violation of Child’s Rights

Posted on by June 16, 2014
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This week Advocates for Informed Choice and the Southern Poverty Law Center, with the help of two private law firms, filed what promises to be a groundbreaking lawsuit.  According to the press releases, “M.C.,” a child adopted as a toddler in South Carolina, had been born with atypical sex anatomy and assigned female.  Now eight years old, M.C. has rejected his assignment, and identifies as a boy.  Like a similar case of sex reassignment in Colombia that led that nation’s highest court to issue of the first of what would be, over 1999-2000, a series of decisions prohibiting unnecessary normalizing surgeries and specifying the limits of parental consent to such surgeries, the case could set a new precedent regarding the performance of normalizing surgeries in the US.

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Transitions in Law: What Struggles Over Policy Changes Affecting Transgender Persons Reveal

Posted on by May 19, 2017
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The State of California recently banned discrimination against transgender patients in the provision of health insurance.  It was only the third state to do so. Lack of access to health care is common for transgender persons.  Reasons include—but are not limited to—fear of encountering stigma, employment discrimination which limits access to health insurance, and insurance providers refusing to cover medically necessary care.

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In the state of Missouri, 5% of transgender adults report that they were refused EMT care, 13% report that they were refused Emergency Room care, and 24% report that they were refused care in a doctor’s office.  The context of California’s policy change is thus one of serious health disparities for transgender patients and constitutes a step forward in public policy including transgender folks in our moral community and giving credence to their health care needs.

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