ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how parents and children are positioned in the decision to surgically 'normalize' intersex children. It develops the understanding of parent's contribution to a decision to opt for normalizing surgery. The chapter presents the wonders of modern medical management as a solution to the 'tragic' situation faced by the parents of a newborn with a typical genitalia. Haiken describes how the popularization of psychological concepts such as the inferiority complex paved the way for rationalizing and justifying cosmetic surgery as important for psychological well-being. In English usage, 'cosmetic' refers not only to adornment and beautification, but also to the surgical possibilities of 'imitating, restoring, or enhancing the normal appearance', and suggests that the intervention is 'intended to improve only appearances superficially improving or beneficial. Simone Weil Davis refers to the way that advertising has been used to produce the kind of anxiety needed to sell medical products and interventions.
