Infant Genital Mutilation (IGM)

Infant Genital Mutilation (IGM)

(noun)

Infant genital mutilation occurs in many countries and takes different forms. Sometimes it’s done for religious reasons. Sometimes it’s done when the baby’s genitals are indeterminate. But all infant genital mutilation stems from both a fear of people’s sexual pleasure and a fear of sex variance in cultures that enforce a binary view of sex and gender. It is the practice of performing unnecessary and nonmedical surgeries, often on babies with “unacceptable” genitals, or those with an indeterminate sex and/or genitals, without the consent of the individual who’s undergoing the surgery. 

IGM includes things like circumcision, cosmetic surgery, removal of internal sex organs, cutting or binding of the genitalia, or removal of external sex organs. This is often done in order to make an intersex child appear male or female, or to otherwise appear “acceptable” or “normal.” The surgeries are most often done without the informed consent of the child, with parents or the individual pressured into accepting medically unnecessary surgeries, and even sometimes without the parents even knowing; all in order to enforce the gender binary. Sometimes, an intersex condition discovered by doctors while the patient is an adult are surgically treated without the informed consent of the intersex person.

E.g. Texa underwent infant genital mutilation as a newborn.

Further reading to gain expanded context:

Nonconsensual Intersex Surgery as Physical Conversion Therapy | Intersex Roadshow

Medically Unnecessary Surgeries on Intersex Children in the US | Human Rights Watch

Why Intersex Genital Mutilation Needs to Stop | Teen Vogue

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