'It's medically sanctioned violence and torture': Intersex patients call for end to genital surgeries on children

CHICAGO - When Jennifer Pagonis was born in the winter of 1986, her parents brought her home to a wardrobe of pink and white, ruffles and frills.

But three months later, Jennifer's mother arrived at the pediatrician's office with what would turn out to be a life-changing question: Did her baby girl's genitals look swollen?

Jennifer was referred to Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, where doctors ran blood tests and quickly reached a conclusion: Jennifer was one of a tiny number of babies who are born intersex, or with bodies that don't fit standard anatomical definitions of male or female. She was genetically male - with XY chromosomes and internal testes, but she also had a small vagina and an enlarged clitoris. Doctors told her stunned parents that she could never have children, but with surgery, she could look entirely female.

And that was how, at age 4, Jennifer was admitted to what is now Lurie Children's Hospital for cosmetic surgery on her genitals. During a two-hour operation, to which her parents consented, a plastic surgeon cut into Jennifer's clitoris, removing about two centimeters of tissue. In a follow-up operation when Pagonis was 11, doctors enlarged her vagina.

The result of those two operations, according to Pagonis, now 32, was scarring, loss of sensation, emotional trauma and severe sexual impairment.

"No matter what they say, or how they sugarcoat it, it's medically sanctioned violence and torture," said Pagonis, who no longer identifies as female and now goes by the first name Pidgeon.

For more than two decades, intersex people have denounced the surgeries performed on their genitals during infancy or childhood as nonconsensual and damaging, citing consequences including pain, loss of sexual sensation and incorrect gender assignment.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, three former U.S. surgeons general and Human Rights Watch are among those who have recently called for the childhood surgeries to stop until research can show a clear benefit, or to end immediately. In August, California became the first state to pass a resolution discouraging the surgeries.

"We want to 'first do no harm,'" said former Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders, who last year