When you're a baby, nobody asks for your permission before you receive medical treatment,

but what if that treatment changed your life forever?

What if it decided whether you were a man or a woman?

What if you never even knew you'd been operated on?

I knew I was somehow different.

I didn't know what it was and it made me very, very angry that this secret had been kept.

For decades, children who were born intersex have been operated on without their consent and often without being told about

it when they were older.

Now under new NHS draft proposals those surgeries could be coming to an end.

Children in the UK have had operations from around the age of six months.

That might include surgeries on their genitals, their reproductive organs or both.

If there's no evidence that these surgeries were beneficial before a child can consent,

then why are we doing them?

You're listening to stories of our times from the Times and the Sunday Times.

I'm Manvin Rana. Today, consent, shame and a lifetime of secrets.

Is it time to end surgery on intersex kids?

I'm Sarah Gillingham.

I am now in my 50s and I was born with variations in sex characteristics which we also call

intersex traits. It's really hard to know how many people are born intersex in the UK every year.

I ask the Department of Health and NHS England, but they don't have figures.

The National Audit Office says it's difficult to measure because babies are very rarely

registered as intersex on their birth certificates.

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