“Humiliated and Ashamed, Again and Again”: Regulating Genital Examinations of Children with Innate Variations of Sex Characteristics

Past and current medical practices of early invasive medical interventions on people with innate variations of sex characteristics (IVSC or intersex variations) include repeated genital examinations. Research on people with IVSC has long shown high levels of anxiety, depression, and suicidality. Increasingly, researchers are looking to medicalization processes themselves, including genital examinations, to explain poor mental health outcomes. The emerging evidence confirms what intersex people have been saying for decades—that these experiences provoke deep, lifelong trauma, shame, and humiliation—often linked to anxiety and depression. This article offers a set of recommendations for effective regulation.