Lovingly, a family raises an intersex child - again

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Lovingly, a family raises an intersex child - again

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST
June 9, 2019

OGDEN, Utah (AP) — When doctors said her youngest child would be a girl, Amie Schofield chose the name Victoria. Then they said the child would be a boy, so she switched to Victor.

It turned out neither was exactly right. The blue-eyed baby was intersex, with both male and female traits.

And so she and her husband decided to call the infant Victory. The name is a hope for triumph over the secrecy and shame, the pain and discrimination suffered by intersex people.

Amie Schofield knows those sufferings better than most: This was not her first intersex child.

Some two decades earlier, she gave birth to another child whose body did not align with common expectations of boys or girls. Schofield agreed to have that child undergo surgery that tipped the scales of gender to masculine. But the operation did not settle the issue of gender in the child’s mind, or protect them from a savage beating decades later.

Now, with Victory, Schofield has been given an opportunity to try again. Her parents want Victory to be accepted for who she is; instead of changing Victory, they are intent on changing the world so it is more accepting of intersex people.

-snip-

Read more: https://apnews.com/1f5f240794e1473d80be00465b4b519b


In this Thursday, June 6, 2019, photo, Victory looks on as she plays at home, in Ogden, Utah. Victory has XXY chromosomes. She also has a separate condition that means her body doesn’t fully respond to male hormones. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)