SOUTH CAROLINA: Parents Of Intersex Child Sue Over "Unnecessary Surgery"

The adoptive parents of an intersex child are suing the state of South Carolina for performing genital removal surgery in violation of the child's constitutional rights.

Mark and Pam Crawford say that their child, identified as M.C., is now 8 years old and chooses to identify as a boy, despite doctors deciding that M.C. should be a girl at 16 months old. The couple say that they chose to adopt M.C., who was in state custody at the time of adoption, knowing about the intersex condition. "The first thought that I had was, lets make sure they don't do the surgery," Pam Crawford said in an audio recording posted to YouTube. Crawford said the surgery happened about three months before the adoption.

The lawsuit was filed by the SPLC. An intersex support group has issued a statement.

Although long-term outcomes of today's genital surgeries in children have not been well-studied, many doctors and advocates recommend that children with intersex conditions be assigned a gender at birth, but postpone any unnecessary surgery until they are old enough to self-identify with a gender and make their own decisions about their bodies.

Intersex conditions can occur across a broad spectrum. The Intersex Society of North America has posted a listing of categories and how frequently they are believed to occur.

Gene Discovery May Aid Transgender And Intersex Therapies

Scientists have discovered a genetic "on-off" switch that tells the body what gender it is.

An international team found that the action of a single gene is all that stops females from developing male physical traits, including testes and facial hair. When this gene was artificially “switched off” in adult female mice their ovaries began to turn into testes and they started to produce a level of testosterone found in healthy male mice. The discovery could eventually revolutionise gender reassignment therapy and improve treatments for babies who are born with a mixed gender. The research, published today in the journal Cell, challenges a common perception that gender is determined purely by the X-chromosomes and Y-chromosomes. The gene that was switched off, known as FOXL2, lies on a non-sex chromosome that is shared by males and females.

Researchers had merely expected the female mice to stop producing eggs. Other than the change in gender characteristics, the test animals appeared to experience no other physical changes and lived a normal lifespan.

Caster Semanya To Keep Gold Medal

South African champion sprinter Caster Semanya, who rocked the sports world this summer when she was revealed to be intersex, will be allowed to keep the gold medal she earned at the world championships. Semanya is waiting for a further decision on whether she may continue to compete as a woman.

India: "O" Is For "Other"

Voters in India will now have the option of identifying themselves as male, female, or "other" on ballot forms.

Indian election authorities Thursday granted what they called an independent identity to intersex and transsexuals in the country's voter lists. Before, members of these groups -- loosely called eunuchs in Indian English -- were referred to as male or female in the voter rolls. But now, they will have the choice to tick "O" -- for others -- when indicating their gender in voter forms, the Indian election commission said in a statement. "Enumerators and booth-level officers (BLOs) shall be instructed to indicate the sex of eunuchs/transsexuals etc as 'O' if they so desire, while undertaking any house-to-house enumeration/verification of any application," a statement from election authorities said. India, home to more than 1 billion people, has 714 million registered voters.

This summer India legalized gay sex between consenting adult partners.

South African Strip Club Billboard Mocks Champion Sprinter Caster Semanya

This cruel billboard mocking Caster Semanya was posted by a South African strip club chain. Ad Week reports:

Not surprisingly, the billboard drew complaints, at which Teazers owner Lolly Jackson scoffed at length. He first said the Semenya situation was "the furthest thing from my mind" when he made the ad. Then he added: "I do not want anyone coming here [to Teazers] with the idea that we do not have women. We have women, 100 percent women here. I did a test on them, I am a professional, and they are 100 percent women." If that didn't turn people off enough, he then insulted both the advertising watchdog ("a bunch of idiots doing a worthless job") and the original complainant ("maybe she is fat and ugly"). The watchdog hasn't acted yet, but I hope they rule against him just to hear his response.

100 Greatest Hits Of YouTube In 4 Minutes

This has been bouncing around the interwebs over the last couple of days. I'm ashamed of how many of the clips I recognized within the first second or two.

Caster Semenya On Suicide Watch

Days after being outed worldwide as being intersex, South African world champion sprinter Caster Semenya has been placed on a suicide watch.

The Daily Star quoted officials as saying that psychologists are caring the 18-year-old round-the- clock after it was claimed tests had proved she was a hermaphrodite. Leaked details of the probe by the ­International Association of ­Athletics Federations showed the 800m starlet had male and female sex organs - but no womb. Lawmaker Butana Komphela, chair of South Africa's sports committee, was quoted as saying: "She is like a raped person. She is afraid of herself and does not want anyone near her. If she commits suicide, it will be on all our heads. The best we can do is protect her and look out for her during this trying time." South African athletics officials confirmed Semenya is now receiving trauma counselling at the University of Pretoria.

Report: Castor Semenya Is Intersex

Gender tests of world champion South African sprinter Caster Semenya reveal that she is intersex. According to the results of tests ordered by the International Amateur Athletics Foundation, Semenya has no uterus, no ovaries, and internal male testes producing high levels of testosterone.

The IAAF says, "This is a medical issue and not a doping issue where she was deliberately cheating," and that there will be no automatic disqualification on these grounds. Semenya will probably be allowed to keep her gold medal, but a second gold may be awarded to the second-place winner from Kenya. No discussions have yet been had over whether Semenya will be allowed to continue to compete in women's events.

RELATED: The Intersex Society of North America notes that although the term "hermaphrodite" is commonly used to describe intersex people (and this is already happening with Semenya), hermaphrodite literally means "fully male and fully female," which is a physical impossibility. "Intersex" is the proper way to describe a person who may have one or several of a very broad range of atypical gender characteristics, ranging from ambiguous or mixed external genitalia, internal conditions (as in Semanya's case), or an atypical chromosonal makeup. Some intersex characteristics are extremely rare, others occur much more frequently, and studies indicate that some aspect of being intersex occurs in about 1 out of 100 people.