Word: birth
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...some ways, this latest turn of events was even more upsetting and confusing than the birth. But the physician's recommendation was clear: the vestigial ovarian and Fallopian-tube tissue and the testis should be removed at once, while the child was still under anesthesia. Otherwise the tissue could become cancerous. "All I could hear was cancer, cancer, cancer," Debbie says. So she and her husband consented to the operation. (The phallus, which doctors eventually renamed a clitoris, was surgically reduced two years later.) The next day the Hartmans took home their recovering infant, whom they quickly renamed Kelli...
...this happens, but one possible explanation is that two eggs are fertilized in the womb--one XX and the other XY--but rather than developing separately into twins, the zygotes merge to become one embryo. At any rate, "hermaphrodite" is not one of the options available on a birth certificate, so the Hartmans' doctors struggled to figure out which sex was more appropriate for the child. Meanwhile, Debbie's sister and mother told relatives and friends not to send anything pink or blue. "They said yellow or green," Hartman recalls. "Or better yet, just send a card...
Either way, the decision to operate soon after birth isn't easy. In retrospect, Kelli's mom thinks she might have waited. "Parents can help their kids live with genitals that are different," she says. On the other hand, she acknowledges, postponing surgery might have been difficult too. "If we had left Kyle as Kyle, I'm convinced he would have felt feminine at times...
...recent years, however, the need for swift and irreversible intervention has been called into question. Adult intersexuals are stepping from the shadows to talk about their experiences, including the harmful effects they attribute to extensive childhood surgery. Some complain that they were assigned the wrong sex at birth. Others are more upset about the secrecy and shame their condition often elicited from their family. There is growing evidence that such surgery can interfere with the ability to achieve sexual gratification, that it can cause chronic incontinence and that the cancer risk may be exaggerated...
...Cecil B. De Mille, a preacher's son but with some Jewish ancestry, had scored a titanic hit with "The Ten Commandments" in 1923 - to its time, the top-grossing film after "The Birth of a Nation." Four years later, the extravagant auteur went from Old to New Testament. Another hit, thanks to De Mille's showmanship and expert marketing, and a color sequence for Easter Sunday, with Jesus surrounded by enough doves for a John Woo movie. "The King of Kings" played around the world for decades after it was released, until the proselytizing efforts of the Church...