Reforms in the treatment of people with variants of sexual differentiation

Abstract

Individuals born with avariant of gender development still have aspecial status in our dyadic-oriented society that even nowadays impairs their life in many ways. Thus, physicians and parents regulated the life's journey of these children until less than 30 years ago by conducting agender assignment after birth and its implementation by surgical interventions. This approach was ensued in the hope that the child would develop the relevant gender identity, an assumption that did not hold true in many cases. Only during the last 20years, especially due to the public relations activities of associations of affected individuals, aprocess of rethinking has taken place that strives to focus on the child's right to self-determination. Reforms of the Personal Statute Act have already been accomplished. Apart from the entry "female" and "male" for newborn children, the categories "open" and "diverse" also now exist. This should exonerate the parents and enable affected persons to later register adistinct term. Adraft Act about the interdiction of gender-modifying interventions in the case of achild unable to consent already exists, but is controversially discussed, particularly among CAH associations that do not class themselves as variants of gender differentiation and still advocate early surgical operations. Furthermore, there is also an absolute necessity for structural reforms on the care level to ensure acompetent counselling, support and/or treatment for individuals born with avariant of gender differentiation.