Letters: What about people who aren’t born a single sex?

As if the bill concerning bathroom use weren’t appalling enough based on its intent, it will also harm those with intersex conditions.

Approximately 1 in 1,000 children are born with a condition that makes some combination of the external genitalia, internal structures, hormones and genetics mismatch. Historically, doctors and parents picked a sex and tried to raise children that way, including possibly trying make them look “correct” with surgery. There is, of course, no reason to think the choice made for infants will match their natural development. Recognizing this, Germany and Oregon now allow birth certificates to list the sex as indeterminate.

When my son was born, I recall a group of doctors standing by a very premature baby’s incubator trying to determine what sex the baby was. Should that child forever be forced to use the bathroom based on the doctors’ educated guess at that early stage? What about children from a place enlightened enough not to force doctors to choose? Would they get no restroom access at all?

This story was originally published April 19, 2016 at 1:24 PM with the headline "Letters: What about people who aren’t born a single sex?."