This article takes an ethical approach to briefly analyze current therapeutic guidelines in Brazil for cases diagnosed as “ambiguous genitalia” (one of the “disorders of sexual development”, DSD) in intersex children. Except when there is clear risk to the infant’s life, there is no medical or institutional consensus on the definition of intersex, DSD, or recommended treatment. Parents or guardians of these minors have the legal right to provide consent for genital surgical interventions. The irreversibility of some procedures calls attention to reports by some intersex adults who underwent such interventions during their childhood or adolescence and now fail to acknowledge the physical or psychosocial benefits that were originally claimed to justify them.
Disorders of Sex Development; Urogenital Abnormalities; Genitalia; Child