The Gaps in Fatwā on Intersex Corrective Surgery: Some Reflections in the Context of Malaysia

Abstract

Intersex being a birth impairment in human babies is a fact of human
precreation. Opposed to normal birth of humans as males and females incidents
of babies with vague gender identity have perturbed people and families as
to how to socially place them within the binary system of men and women
in the community. In Islam, it is more important in view of the gendered
orientation of some Islamic laws and its system of social ethics. Accordingly,
jurists formulated an Islamic blueprint to manage this segment. However,
their main criteria to align such individuals to one of the normal genders were
inadequate to assign a specific sex to all intersex. Medical science, on the other
hand, proposes not only to achieve precise diagnoses of intersex conditions
but also to manage them medically. Accordingly, Muslim jurists and muftis
by and large celebrated this medical solution as a better remedy to resolve this
juridical perplexing question. This study, however, argues that juristic stamp of
approval needs to be more ethically grounded so as to avoid pitfalls inherent in
this medical innovation.