As an Intersex person who has Kallmann's syndrome, I can understand why we intersex people do not like the idea of intersex people being lumped with the Gay, lesbian and transgender community. Intersex people are more of a biological and genetic sex, while gay, lesbian and trans are more of the classic two gender binary sex.

One thing I don't like about intersex being lumped with the Gay, lesbian or trans is that these people don't know what it fully means to be intersex and what intersex fully entails. They just don't understand that Intersex and trans are two totally separate and tow very different things that really need to be separated from each other and never lumped with one another.

I think it's very wrong if someone lumps the intersex people with the gay, lesbian or trans community. It puts intersex kids and babies lives in danger and it forces parents of intersex kids and babies into needless, unnecessary and very traumatic surgeries. All because the parents are very fearful of their kids future sexual orientation and gender Identity.

The most likely surgery is to go "male" to "female" by reducing the size of an enlarged clitoris/ambiguous small penis--and removing the nerve endings. Reducing parental discomfort is not an adequate reason for what is, in effect, female circumcision.

But then, I'm not a fan of involuntary circumcision in baby boys, either.

It's not usually necessary to wait all the way until 18 for an intersex individual to decide. Probably there are leanings in childhood and an "answer" in early adolescence--12 or 13 or 14. In the meantime, choose a gender and a bathroom and use them. If they switch later, fine. None of this requires surgery.

I'm left-handed, but use my right hand at least 40% of the time. Then I learned that most people are both; however, society encourages the use of the right hand, so most people end up solely using that hand. Only a few people are actually 100% left-handed or 100% right-handed; most of us are shades in between.

This is what I was thinking of as I read the article. I know, it doesn't fit perfectly. But isn't it nice to know that in your female body, there might be a lot of male characteristics going on and vice versa? Nature can be pretty nuanced.

Thank you for making me think!

This kind of extreme "liberalism" is an incredible gift to the wingnuts of the world. Saying that the difference between mental retardation and it's absence is just a matter of opinion makes it possible for to wingnuts to make at least an apparently somewhat credible case that "liberals" are so disconnected from reality that they can't be trusted with anything.

I'm not Catholic, but I seem to recall hearing about quite a few priests who don't always toe the Vatican line. It may be unlikely, but it's not impossible that a priest might counsel suicide.

However, for those who are saying the story is BS because how would the author know, you might have missed the fact that the person received the counsel in 1998, and committed suicide a decade later--in 2008. I assume this author was doing his research in 2008. It's certainly possible the young woman he mentioned is someone he interviewed, and she relayed the story to him. When he learned of her suicide, he would likely tie it back to what she said the priest said.

Two things.

One, I did get the sense that this article trivializes sexual/gender identity.

We have mutilated thousands of children a year [through genital surgery], and parents and physicians have felt the drive to do that because their No. 1 goal is to maintain reproductive function. If we think the sole function of genitalia is reproduction, then nonreproductive genitalia is, in some sense, a bad thing and something needs to be done about it. If we think that genitals serve a lot of functions beyond reproduction, maybe we wouldn't feel like it was so necessary to try to make people look alike.

This almost sounds as if Callahan is saying “Wouldn’t it be great if we had two penises and three breasts? Imagine the fun sex we could have – why would we want to get rid of that?”

Two, (with my apologies to Kamododragon, for I wrote this before your post, and I am lumping together), I detect a liberal agenda in this article. First of all with the apocryphal priest story, second with the “anything goes, it’s all good” mentality towards sexual and gender development.

Look, I completely accept that gender and sexual identity extends beyond the traditional male and female. I completely accept that there is homosexuality. But I also believe that many gays who say they are gay, are not gay; many lesbians who say they are lesbian, are not lesbian. I grew up knowing gay men, older and of my peer group. I know what they went through, and how difficult their lives were. But I also could see the truth in their lives. And they talked about “flamboyant fags,” and how annoying they were to them, and I also met gay men who were just confused, or scared, and instead of facing the harsh realities of life, chose to become a poofter.

When we develop and mature and start finding our sexual identities as adults, it is difficult. Courting and dating is hard, it is confusing, it is humiliating at times, and it is often painful. The sexual experience is not monolithic, and young men and women often find themselves scared and confused when their sex drives, their feelings, their desires, or their experiences, do not match those portrayed in the mass media. Not every 16-year old boy wants to hump everything; not every 16-year old girl wants to flash her breasts when she gets drunk. To go through this stage in one’s life is a crucible.

If we raise our children with the idea that any sex is O.K., that there is no such thing as gender, anything and everything you do is O.K., it’s all good, have a party in your pants, then they will seek it as an escape. They will escape finding themselves. They will escape the harsh relaities of life, which is what growing up is all about. To be at one with one’s sexual identity and gender is a part of self-actualization. It is self-affirming, and liberating. But like anything in life, it comes at a cost. And that cost is sacrifice, confusion, pain, heartbreak, humiliation.

Liberals just want everything to be easy, everything to be given to them, everything to be sun-shiny happy days of “whatever, man.” Life is not like that, reality is not like that. And to claim that it is, is to deny the beauty and wonder of life to your children. You want to erase pain, you want to erase confusion, you want to erase the journey. Life is difficult, and this you cannot accept. Life is painful, and this you cannot accept. Life is about choices, and this you cannot accept.

I don’t think I put it as eloquently as I would have liked, but I hope you get my point.

If priests can aid and abet Nazi war criminals and molest children, I'm sure they can also give really fucked up advice.

Enough with the Catholic-bashing, O.K.? I’m just sick of it. Many Jews aided and abetted Nazi war criminals, too, and many Rabbis molest children. Catholics died in concentration camps, too, ya know, and the Vatican helped Jews escape Nazi Germany. Enough with the fucking lies. One thing has nothing to do with the other. To say that a Priest would councel suicide, because “Priests are human,” is akin to saying that a car mechanic would put an air filter where the carbeurator goes, “because he’s only human.” It just doesn’t make fucking sense.