Ian Aaronson, M.D., director of pediatric urology, has been chosen to head The North American Task Force on Intersexuality — a group charged with the design and execution of long term follow up studies of intersex patients. The Task Force is sponsored by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Urological Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the American College of Medical Genetics and has brought together internationally recognized experts in the field of intersexuality from many different disciplines. Its first priority will be to determine the long term psychosexual outcomes among intersex patients who were assigned at birth either boys or girls to learn whether the criteria for making this decision at the time were appropriate. “The recent publication of John Colapinto's book (“As Nature Made Him”), which tells the sad story of a boy who lost his penis in a circumcision accident and was consequently raised as a girl, only to reassign himself as a man later in life, highlights the complexity of the issues facing us,” said Aaronson. The outcome studies will focus on a variety of intersex patients to learn of the role of circulating testosterone on the developing fetal brain and possible influences of the Y chromosome on ultimate gender identity. The studies will entail detailed interviews carried out by a team of specially trained psychologists and is expected to take four years to complete and require a budget of $1.5 million. “This is a very ambitious undertaking,” said Aaronson, “but the urgent need for these studies is clear to everybody working in this difficult field. I am confident that, with the experts we have at our disposal on the Task Force, we will succeed.” The Task Force is also developing an educational website to help pediatricians and family physicians as well as the families of infants born with ambiguous genitalia better understand these conditions. May 12, 1999
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