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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Brighton midwives told to say “front hole”

164 replies

tabbycatstripy · 18/04/2022 06:32

Daily Mail reports that a care guide for transgender patients pregnant or giving birth suggests midwives should use ‘alternative’ anatomical terminology, so, instead of calling a vagina a vagina, they could use “genital opening” or “front hole”.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10727051/Midwives-urged-avoid-using-proper-words-anatomy-avoid-upsetting-trans-patients.html

Aside from the issues of linguistic misunderstanding that might arise when patients are allowed to choose what medical professionals name anatomical parts, isn’t “front hole” simply degrading language? Isn’t it pornified and dehumanising?

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Maternitynamechange · 19/04/2022 09:10

@NotBadConsidering Well obviously. That was the point.

Joystir59 · 19/04/2022 06:19

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

You're way overthinking this. "Front hole" is simply child terminology, no more, no less.

But even for very little children (who are clearly not going to be given medical advice about a baby they are about to give birth to), it's such a ridiculously non-specific non-term.

Your front hole could just as easily be your mouth, either of your nostrils or your belly button. You might as well call your legs your 'lower arms' and your knees your 'lower-arm elbows' - or call your cheeks your 'face-arse'.

Explaining things to tiny children in a way that they can understand, but which is still simplistically factual (and not actually designed to cause them more confusion) is one thing, but anybody giving birth is going to be plenty old enough to understand basic proper terms. Not necessarily 'official' medical terms, but the commonly-understood everyday terms for each particular body part.

As PP have said, surely nobody can deliberately do something as uniquely female as getting pregnant and giving birth, all the while being triggered and offended at anybody who is there to assist them simply referring to the names of female body parts in the course of their professional services. Either the mother believes that she is a man with a vagina, ergo that "some men have vaginas" or otherwise understands that men don't have vaginas, ergo she is not a man.

Some people seem to want to buy their cake, eat their cake, still have their cake - and then make a million by selling the recipe and exclusive marketing rights to Mr Kipling.

You can tell a child of any age the word vulva for the female sex organs. As a child grows up and needs more information on female sexual anatomy you can teach the words clitoris, urethra, vagina, labia and what they each mean. In no world is there ever a need to avoid the correct words for parts if the body. Woman have struggled forever to name to look at to own and enjoy their own sex organs. I'm angry to the core of my being that anyone should refer to the vaginal, this glorious organ, the very birth canal itself, an organ no male ever had or ever will have, as a 'front hole'!!!!!
NotBadConsidering · 19/04/2022 03:20

@Maternitynamechange

Transwomen can have vaginas. Women can’t.
No transwoman has ever, or can ever have a vagina.
Maternitynamechange · 18/04/2022 22:30

Transwomen can have vaginas.
Women can’t.

SilverOtter · 18/04/2022 19:50

Sigh. I just don't understand. If men can have vaginas, as they would have us believe, then why is it even a problem to use the correct terminology?

If my eyes roll any harder I'll have to pick them up off the floor🙄🙄🙄

NoooooCoooooode · 18/04/2022 19:28

@Moochio

It's not a hole though is it! It's a complex structure.
It’s not a canal, or a flange either.
Maternitynamechange · 18/04/2022 18:39

Not a hole. Technically a cavern.

Snugglepumpkin · 18/04/2022 18:31

Men might think it's the front hole for them to stick their penis in.

It's deeply offensive & obviously based on a porn centred vision of what being a female is.

It only counts the holes you could stick a penis in.

Actual women would never come up with those words to describe that part of the body because they live in that body & it's only the 'front hole' to MEN.

Any midwife prepared to use such degrading language is not fit to be let near pregnant women.

If a biological female was in denial about being a biological female, they would not have piv sex, get pregnant & have a baby because ONLY biological females can do that.

It's frankly their problem if they don't like reality because having a baby is not compulsory even if they get pregnant & if they'd been having sex like a man it wouldn't have resulted in pregnancy so they don't even live the lie they want the world to support.

No man can have a baby.
Nobody gets breast enlargements because they think they are a man because they see large breasts as a womans thing.
Same with having a baby.
If you are having one naturally, you know you are a woman who has been doing things that only women do.

BlanketsBanned · 18/04/2022 18:29

I thought the front hole was the urethra, the middle hole the vagina and the back hole the anus. Maybe we should call them peepee hole, baby hole and poopoo hole like some toddlers do.

TheWayOfTheWorld · 18/04/2022 18:23

Women can give birth through their urethra now?!

MarshaBradyo · 18/04/2022 17:20

The language is awful imo

MiladyBerserko · 18/04/2022 17:12

Behold the English language, degenerating to the description of biological characteristics of female humans as a set of geo-located holes.

What shall we call ears? Audio assisted holes with semi rigid surrounds? The penis, a remarkable both rigid and flaccid appendage located to the front of the anus.

And what indeed of the anus? Given its primary function, how will the owner of this orifice comumicate to A&E the location of the new home of various small vertrabates or vacuum attachments?

Hoping4second · 18/04/2022 16:45

And at no point are they offering antenal counselling to deal with the pregnancy induced dysphoria.

It's really just a fig leaf, and an offensive one at that.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 18/04/2022 15:31

You're way overthinking this. "Front hole" is simply child terminology, no more, no less.

But even for very little children (who are clearly not going to be given medical advice about a baby they are about to give birth to), it's such a ridiculously non-specific non-term.

Your front hole could just as easily be your mouth, either of your nostrils or your belly button. You might as well call your legs your 'lower arms' and your knees your 'lower-arm elbows' - or call your cheeks your 'face-arse'.

Explaining things to tiny children in a way that they can understand, but which is still simplistically factual (and not actually designed to cause them more confusion) is one thing, but anybody giving birth is going to be plenty old enough to understand basic proper terms. Not necessarily 'official' medical terms, but the commonly-understood everyday terms for each particular body part.

As PP have said, surely nobody can deliberately do something as uniquely female as getting pregnant and giving birth, all the while being triggered and offended at anybody who is there to assist them simply referring to the names of female body parts in the course of their professional services. Either the mother believes that she is a man with a vagina, ergo that "some men have vaginas" or otherwise understands that men don't have vaginas, ergo she is not a man.

Some people seem to want to buy their cake, eat their cake, still have their cake - and then make a million by selling the recipe and exclusive marketing rights to Mr Kipling.

nepeta · 18/04/2022 15:03

Not directly linked to the topic, but it looks very much as if gender dysphoria is mostly a problem for FTM transitioners and not to MTF transitioners. I have not seen anyone from the latter group ask for different names for penises or testicles. Even the 'girldick' label does not erase the 'dick' part at all.

Even more generally, I have never seen someone who is biologically male talk about their hatred of their body; just their desire to have the other body. But most biologically female transitioners do mention loathing of their female bodies, including one who says they are non-binary (but had to have an abortion and now wants only language erasing 'female' from all writing and talk about abortions).

And that specific sex-linked dysphoria is what seems to be happening here.

I believe that providers should accommodate the linguistic requests of their patient and clients when it doesn't do medical damage, but I am strongly opposed to the idea that a small group should be allowed to change the definition of the language that is used in the public sphere.

In particular, they cannot dictate gender identities on the vast majorities who don't have them (I believe most people are not 'cis' as that requires having an abstract identity not based on the biological sex of one's body but just accidentally happening to correlate with it) but define themselves as women or as men on the basis of their biological sex.

EmbarrassingHadrosaurus · 18/04/2022 14:55

Writing this into policy surely sets a precedence for children and teens to be taught incorrect anatomical terms in case it triggers them.

It might just be that that NHS Trust that adopts it for the present because that policy has been available for a year, iirc. At the very least, they should run a trial of the impact on the understanding of the service users.

UlcerativePoliteness · 18/04/2022 14:46

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DryHeave · 18/04/2022 14:37

How does this work with writing medical notes? How does this work with two HCPs talking to each other within earshot of the patient?

nightwakingmoon · 18/04/2022 13:28

@MiladyBerserko

Given the recent publicity re. the scandal of maternity services and the risk to mothers and babies, you would think that the maternity services would be more concerned with the safety of all women and infants and not reducing them to slabs of meat perforated by holes.
^^This!!

My friends who are medics working in Covid wards don’t pretend it’s just a cold to make their Covid-denying patients feel more “comfortable”.

Patient safety and comfort is paramount, yes; but medicine is a science, and shouldn’t be in the business of denying reality and obscuring correct anatomical terminology just because that suits a tiny proportion of patients’ personal delusions.

MiladyBerserko · 18/04/2022 13:13

Given the recent publicity re. the scandal of maternity services and the risk to mothers and babies, you would think that the maternity services would be more concerned with the safety of all women and infants and not reducing them to slabs of meat perforated by holes.

Likeli · 18/04/2022 13:04

Why the fuck is it okay to offend the majority of women (I’m sure most women find that terminology offensive) purely to appease a very tiny number of trans people who treat being offended as their hobby. I also would think any decent trans person would not be offended by medical terminology, it’s just a few weirdos who are!!

saleorbouy · 18/04/2022 12:56

If you are pregnant then surely you are identifying as female since a male mammal cannot gestate young in a uterus?
I'm baffled.....Hmm

FrancescaContini · 18/04/2022 12:51

@BobbinHood

I’m not convinced people who struggle so much with words like “vagina” to the extent this kind of guidance has to be introduced are stable enough to be having children.
Absolutely.
veronicagoldberg · 18/04/2022 12:50

They're trying to make a labouring woman with dysphorphia feel more comfortable. Whatever. If it helps it helps.

So you admit she's a woman. Not a "man". Good. We're getting somewhere.

Rightsraptor · 18/04/2022 12:38

I'm getting the 'document not found' when I click on the BSUH language preference link.

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