Abstract
The clinical management of intersex conditions, as well as related conditions that are not, strictly speaking intersex conditions, has become a matter of considerable controversy within the medical profession and in the lay public (Diamond and Sigmundsen, 1997; Colapinto, 1997; Diamond, 1999). This controversy has a number of origins, including complaints from patients who have been assigned what they experience as discordant gender identity, coverage in the lay press of individual cases (such as John/Joan) (Colapinto, 1997) and activism on the part of organizations such as Intersex Society of North America. It is worth noting that a recent number of theJournal of Clinical Ethicswas devoted to consideration of intersex conditions, in response to the public controversy and to different views and approaches that have been expressed in the medical literature (Howe, 1998;Groveman, 1998;Wilson and Reiner, 1998;Crouch, 1998;Chase, 1998;Schober, 1998; Kipnis and Diamond, 1998; Preves, 1998). The current controversy appears to have created sharp divisions within the clinical community. These divisions apparently affected the preparation of above-referred number of theJournal of Clinical Ethics, because some physicians with experience in the clinical management of intersex conditions declined to contribute (Howe, 1998).
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McCullough, L.B. (2002). A Framework for the Ethically Justified Clinical Management of Intersex Conditions. In: Zderic, S.A., Canning, D.A., Carr, M.C., Snyder, H.M. (eds) Pediatric Gender Assignment. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 511. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0621-8_10
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