[1][2][3] The tool was developed by Kiira Triea (Denise Tree) based on a concept by Suzanne Kessler and is used to demonstrate concerns with the medical treatment of intersex bodies.
She combined those standard tables to demonstrate an "intermediate area of phallic length that neither females nor males are permitted to have", that is, a clitoris larger than 9mm or a penis shorter than 25mm.
[10] Fausto-Sterling notes that, despite the existence of normative tables, clinicians' practices are more subjective: "doctors may use only their personal impressions to decide" on an appropriate clitoris size.
[11] Similarly, in a paper presented to the American Sociological Association in 2003, Sharon Preves cites Melissa Hendricks, writing in the Johns Hopkins Magazine, November 1993 on subjective clinical norms and their relationship to surgical management:[12] In truth, the choice of gender still often comes down to what the external genitals look like.
Doctors who work with children with ambiguous genitalia sometimes put it this way, "You can make a hole [vagina] but you can't build a pole [penis]."