
Intersex patients routinely had diagnoses withheld by doctors - spatulan
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-39979186
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chriskanan
The article is about the treatment of intersex children in the UK, but the
same is true for them in the US.

See these links for more regarding treatment in the US:

[0] Long Atlantic article -
[https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/07/should-
we...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/07/should-we-fix-
intersex-children/373536/)

[1] Brief NBC article with a couple interviews -
[http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6994580/ns/health-
childrens_health...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6994580/ns/health-
childrens_health/t/new-guidelines-treating-intersex-babies/)

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akerro
So she was lied not only by doctors, but also by her parents. She was underage
so doctors didn't have to tell her, and couldn't tell her if parents
prohibited them... soo... yeah doctors lie.

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pacaro
Indeed, and at the time when this was done to her, and for most of her life,
she had no legal right to see her own medical records. IIRC That was only
introduced sometime in the 80s in the UK.

~~~
pacaro
Of course, because doctors knew that patients couldn't see their records, they
wrote stuff in them with the expectation that it would never be read by a
patient. When the law changed, this was a major point of contention.

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fao_
This is not a new thing, it has been known since before the 2000s, and was
written extensively about by Fausto-Sterling in her book Sexing The Body.
Doctors -- even today -- routinely withhold this information from intersex
children, believing that it is for their own good. Unlike the article's
suggestion, it is a widespread practice not limited to the UK.

A fun fact about the idea that you can ask for your medical records, is that
the staff may redact any information they think would be harmful to you.

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Tyrannosaur
How do doctors, parents, anybody think this is a good idea? Hiding things from
kids that are guaranteed to become a problem later in life is rather a
guarantee that the person will be traumatized when they do find out, and have
major trust problems from there on out.

