Intersex people have been challenging 'gender-normalizing surgery.' Doctors are starting to listen.
Bria Brown-King, 29, a Pennsylvania native, was raised as a girl. As Brown-King got older, however, they realized they were developing differently.
“I didn’t have the feminizing puberty that the other girls in my class had,” said Brown-King, who was born with an enlarged clitoris and started to develop masculine traits during puberty, including facial hair and larger muscles.
Brown-King, who has since come out as nonbinary and uses gender-neutral pronouns, was born with congenital adrenal hyperplasia, or CAH, a rare condition in which the body produces high levels of androgens — hormones that influence masculine characteristics. Those with CAH are considered intersex, an umbrella term used to describe individuals whose sex characteristics do not match strictly binary definitions of male or female. While rare, at least 1 in 2,000 people are born with a genital difference caused by an intersex trait, according to Human Rights Watch, an international research and advocacy group.
Though many children with CAH undergo “gender-normalizing surgery” to make the genitals look more typically female in infancy, Brown-King’s parents decided to wait until Brown-King was old enough to choose. But Brown-King said severe bullying over their appearance drove them to get the surgery at 13. Looking back, Brown-King, who now works for InterAct, an intersex advocacy group, said they would have made a different choice “had I known that it was OK to have the body that I had.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-health-and-wellness/intersex-people-challenging-gender-normalizing-surgery-doctors-are-sta-rcna3815
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It's not as uncommon as you might think. I worked peds for a short time and neonatal for almost a year. During that time I saw 4 kiddies (in nearly 1000 births) who had genital differences making them likely intersex.