If it can pee...

...let it be.

This is the rallying cry of intersex activists everywhere: “If it can pee, let it be.”

Why is this? Because all around the world, intersex babies and toddlers are still being subjected to medically unnecessary surgeries. It has always been this way and shockingly, it still is.

I often talk about the issues of erasure facing intersex, transgender, and nonbinary people in the face of the current US administration. However, this issue of medically unnecessary surgeries has been going on a lot longer, and it’s another front that intersex people are regularly fighting.

This can sound terrifying and confusing without context. I’m going to provide some context. That’ll help with the confusion, though the terror won’t go anywhere.

Alicia

The first example I’ll mention is Alicia Roth Weigel, activist and author of Inverse Cowgirl. She was born with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome. She came out of the womb with a vagina and clitoris, sure. She also had no uterus and undescended testes. Her parents were told that since she was obviously a girl, those were unnecessary and would become cancerous later in life. Both of these statements were untrue, but the parents, in fear, agreed to a surgery to remove both of these testes from her infant body.

When Alicia came to the time she should have hit puberty, nothing happened. Without those testes to create testosterone (which her body would have converted to estrogen), she didn’t start puberty. Eventually, they started her on hormone replacement therapy, which she will need for her entire life. Oh, and she developed osteoporosis before age 30 due to the delay in hormones.

David

Even more tragic and more famous is the story of David Reimer.

David was born Bruce Reimer. While still a baby, he was treated for phimosis (an inability of the foreskin to stretch for urination) and subjected to circumcision by electrocauterization. However, the procedure resulted in David’s penis being burned beyond repair. David’s parents took him to Dr. John Money, who’d made a name for himself by ruining intersex children with his “theory of gender neutrality.”

Money believed that because David was a baby and it was easier to construct a vagina than a penis, the child would be happier as a girl and could be raised as such. At only 22 months old, David underwent sex reassignment surgery and given the name Brenda.

David has become the tragic poster child for unnecessary medical procedures conducted on intersex children. As David grew up, his parents raising him as Brenda, he never felt like a girl. His childhood was torturous as he was forced to pretend to be a girl, even being forced to take estrogen during adolescence. Finally, at at 13, David had enough. He told his parents that he would take his own life if forced to see Dr. Money again. Finally, his parents told him the truth of his gender and sex. He started calling himself David and underwent surgeries to reverse the atrocities done to his body.

Despite marriage and adopting children, David was never truly happy. His own body along with other issues led him to completing suicide when he was only 38 years old.

A Pattern of Mutilation

These are only two examples in a seemingly unending chain of mutilations all happening under the guise of “gender-affirming care,” and these surgeries are still happening in some places today. We’ve made some strides to reduce these surgeries. In 2024, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed an intersex rights bill. Some states and municipalities have proposed and a few have even passed laws limiting surgeries on intersex children. Not enough. Not nearly enough.

It’s difficult living in Missouri as I do. The state has been dominated by a Republican supermajority for more than two decades. These politicians are so backward, they’re currently working to overturn the will of their own people regarding minimum wage and abortion rights. I can call my state senator or representative, but I know that their hands are tied. What’s worse, since intersex people are only 1.7% of the population (and many intersex conditions are more chromosomal or hormonal than physical), it’s hard for us to be a priority.

Nevertheless, we call. We write letters. We protest.

When I speak about my own intersex conditions, I’ll often mention that I was lucky. How so? Because all of the surgeries I endured were medically necessary. When I was born, I could not pee. Doctors during my birth and toddler years were methodical, doing plenty of tests before even thinking about taking a knife to me. They made informed decisions that weren’t guided by prejudice toward the sex or gender binaries.

But when I join the chant of “If it can pee, let it be,” I do so for my fellow intersex people that aren’t so lucky. I do it for the future intersex children born different, but whole. They can decide for themselves what surgeries they need, if any, once they’re old enough. Just let them be.