Ann Arbor, Mich. — When a child is born with a disorder of sex
development, decisions regarding gender assignment and genital
surgery are often made quickly and under pressure. Quite often
those decisions are surgical and often irreversible. Former
patients and health care advocates have long complained that
parents are provided inadequate information to make decisions
for their child with a disorder of sex development. But with a
new award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute
(PCORI), researchers at the University of Michigan hope to
provide parents with the tools needed to make decisions about
disorders of sex development (DSD). “When a child with a
disorder of sex development is born, parents are often
experiencing enormous distress,” says David E. Sandberg, Ph.D.,
director of the Division of Child Behavioral Health at C.S. Mott
Children’s Hospital and professor of pediatrics and communicable
diseases at the University of Michigan Medical School. “The
right decisions about gender assignmen