Anti-FGM campaigner Hibo Wardere comes under attack

[quote Fridget]@DadJoke

It would be great if Hibo included trans men in her feminism, but this isn't a big deal to me personally

I appreciate you are trying to be inclusive - but if trans men are actually men (which I think is your position), then you are literally suggesting that men be included in feminism.

Can you see why that is problematic?[/quote]
No, I’m suggesting they be included in issues which affect people with vaginas (primarily women) because they have vaginas.

@DadJoke

It would be great if Hibo included trans men in her feminism, but this isn't a big deal to me personally

I appreciate you are trying to be inclusive - but if trans men are actually men (which I think is your position), then you are literally suggesting that men be included in feminism.

Can you see why that is problematic?

I'd also like a pm of the link to LitCritChick's article, if anyone is sharing.

Thanks

Thank you for those links Justhadathought

Ensuring that the voices of women and girls from affected communities are centred is essential. Silencing them is unadulterated racism.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali also writes about her own experiences of FGM in The Caged Virgin

Here is a non-exhaustive list of resources for survivors of FGM, children and those who want to learn more about it.

● Hibo’s memoir: ‘Cut: One Woman’s Fight Against FGM in Britain today”

● My Body, My Rules - A handbook for primary school aged children

● SafeHands: a charity that promotes access to sexual and reproductive health and rights information, and works with Hibo.

● Forward: The Foundation for Women’s Health, Research, and Development (FORWARD) is a global charity that works with African women and girls towards ending child marriage, FGM, and violence against women.

● The Five Foundation: Co-founded by FGM survivor Nimco Ali, the Five Foundation is a global partnership to end female genital mutilation (FGM). It works to ensure increased collaboration and increased awareness of FGM as an urgent global issue, and to leverage increased resources for the movement to end FGM.

● The Dahlia Project: Provides a support group for women who have undergone FGM, alongside individual counselling.

● The Orchid Project: A charity advocating to end the silence and taboo around FGM and campaigning to end the practice.

I'd really prefer not to post them publicly. Would you be OK if I sent them by PM? I entirely understand if not.

I don't want to risk a strike. So unless someone clarifies why it was deleted I won't repost.

@litcritchick

Any chance of seeing that link again? I think the post was deleted.

But you do think that trans men are women, right

People cannot change sex.

A woman is an adult human female.

All else is a mental or emotional construct based on social and cultural norms and expectations.

Sex matters, no matter how one feels about oneself internally.

At this point, I'm reminded of the MNer who said her transman friend had been unable to access support after a rape that resulted in pregnancy, because local services only served women and transwomen, and the men's rape crisis service couldn't meet his needs regarding pregnancy after rape.

But Hibo is trying to prevent FGM happening at all.

Dr Bowers is Jazz Jennings surgeon.(one of them)

I missed the article @LitCritChick posted and it's now been deleted if pm'ing of the article is allowed I'd love to read it!

@litcritchick thank you for that linked article!

Dr Bowers is doing amazing work. She has no problem with saying it is an issue that girls and women face. All credit to her.

I assume she wrote something, though it won't be English language. I can't find it on google, so I've asked her.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

The GC position is that gender is a social construct. Gender roles and identities are to do with social and cultural factors. Stereotypes and characterisations based on restrictive labelling and expectations

Biological sex is not the same as a gender identity. Not everyone has a gender identity. It is a recent construct that not all subscribe to. If you feel you have one, then you do for as along as you feel that. That identity tends to be based on characteristics and stereotypes that relate to social expectations around biological sex. The rejection of some, and the embracing of others.

People have always done this, though. what they have not done before, en masse, is submit to puberty blockers, hormones and life changing surgeries which, in essence, damage the body and disrupt its natural rhythms

Oh, so now its Hibo's feminism thats under scrutiny, not her campaigning?

I do not want to "get" Hibo Wadere to do anything.

That's hard to believe when you are here repeatedly shaming her for not doing a very specific something.

The commonly understood meaning of a gender crtitical feminist in recent years is that they believe trans men are not men, with all follows from that

No, that's not quite right.

The GC position is that gender is a social construct. Gender roles and identities are to do with social and cultural factors. Stereotypes and characterisations based on restrictive labelling and expectations.

Quite

I suppose some people who suffered FGM could transition

I'm sure. The traumas of being a girl have inflicted enough damage upon them.

One of my friends is a feminist journalist who spent many months in Somalia investigating FGM, and her stories were horrifying. The social and economic pressure to comply was horrendous, which is why I started donating to this cause

Feminist campaigning against FGM has been going on for decades. Long before the advent of contemporary transgenderism.

I suppose some people who suffered FGM could transition.

I do not want to "get" Hibo Wadere to do anything.