Another attempt to ensure conformity?

30 Aug

Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) is a genetic disorder of the adrenal glands. It inhibits the production of corticosteroids – hormones that are involved in such things as stress response and immune response. Specifically, people with CAH lack the enzyme needed to produce cortisol and aldosterone. The lack of these hormones can cause an early masculinizing effect on both female and male children. It is estimated that approximately 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 18,000 children are born with CAH. Females born with CAH have a higher likelihood of identifying as lesbian later in life. And in a small number of cases, females with CAH may be born with ambiguous genitalia – that is, born intersex.

For those not already familiar with the medical and psychological procedures being performed on intersex infants and children in an effort to ensure gender conformity, I invite you to read up about this topic the Intersex Society of North America’s site.

Dr. Maria New, a Mount Sinai School researcher, has been experimenting with prescribing dexamethasone – synthetic steroid, which has been used to treat adults with CAH – to pregnant women who have the possibility of carrying CAH babies. Let me emphasize this, the possibility. These are women who have been found to be carrying the gene for CAH. And that means they have a 12.5% chance of carrying a fetus with CAH.

Dexamethasone had not been FDA approved for use by those who are pregnant and it carries with it the risk of high blood pressure and glucose abnormalities. It suppresses the immune system and exposure to chicken pox or measles can be serious or even fatal.

And it does not specifically cure CAH. Dexamethasone simply treats it. What it does do is reduce the chance of a potential female CAH child being born with ambiguous genitalia, express masculine behavior, or adult lesbian identity later in life. Treated CAH girls were more likely to be more shy and less aggressive than untreated CAH girls. In addition, untreated girls were more likely to show masculine preferences in play, peer association, and choices in career and leisure.

Chemically engineering conformity in bodies, behavior and sexuality.

Now to be fair, CAH does carry with it other potential risks, such as dehydration, adrenal crisis and cardiac arrhythmia. However, Dr. New has been on the record for emphasizing the need to present CAH females as having a normal appearance, becoming a wife, having normal sexual development, and becoming a mother.

How stereotyping.

Over the years, with advances in the understanding of our own genetic structure, there has this rhetorical ethical thought experiment out there. If you know your child was going to be born intersex or trans or bisexual or lesbian or gay? And what if there are become methods to make that child “normal”? What would you do? What should we do or allow as a society if that point comes to pass?

Well, now it is not so rhetorical. Now it is here for real. So what do we do?

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