How should we refer to parents who take their children abroad to have their genitalia removed?

[GrabbyGabby]

Dear MNHQ

I just got a deletion for referring to the well evidenced fact that Susie Green, now ex CEO of Mermaids took her child to Thailand on their 16th birthday and had their male genitalia removed. I used the correct medical terminology (castration) for this procedure and used sex based pronouns (he).

Can you please explain why my post was deleted? The use of euphasims such as "top surgery" and "gender realignment surgery" are not accurate and hide the brutal truth.

Can you please let me know which elements of my post caused the deletion.

I didn’t say consent I said approval, again a distinctive difference.

Can a child make that decision? When they cannot make the decision to get a tattoo, smoke or drink alcohol?

consent?

Mr and Mrs Green took their childs toys away because his dad did not want a gay son. The toys were returned once he said he was a girl. She then ordered illegal drugs off the internet which shrunk his penis. And then took him to Thailand for the penis removal.

Abusive.

We call them abusive. If I’m feeling generous I might put it down to Munchausens by Proxy.

They can be enthusiastic and active participants unlike children who experience FGM, the distinctive difference.

I didn’t say consent I said approval

Semantics

There will be many many instances where the girl undergoing FGM consents to it because she has been brought up to believe the cultural reasons for it and has been encouraged into it by female family members who have also undergone the procedure and therefore believes it is a path she must take, it won’t always be carried out with physical force. There is nothing in law to say that FGM is only illegal if the child doesn’t consent or if it is forced, even if the girl has been indoctrinated into believing in the need for the procedure it is still illegal.

Its mind blowing to me that a parent acting to seek the removal of their child’s genitalia abroad can return to the UK without any legal repercussions, regardless of whether the child’s sex is male or female and regardless of whether the child may believe they are consenting at the time it doesn’t feel like a decision either the child or their parent should be able to make.

“Approval”.

Children are commonly “active and enthusiastic” participants in their own abuse.

It’s the refrain of paedophiles everywhere “but he enjoyed it”

Doesn’t make it any better than someone actively resists

Someone who

For the sake of all the children and young people going through this now we need to use very clear language. Euphemisms should be banned. Well said OP.

Jeeze if only taking a child to a foreign country to have their bollocks removed was “against the rules”.

“misgendering” is the least of the problem here, poor sod.

Maybe site stuff is exempt from auto delete protocols?

Are we allowed to refer to mastectomy as mastectomy regardless of who the patient is and their reasons for having surgery?

I agree.

Quite apart from the fact that it would be preferable to be able to use medically correct terminology around these issues (as it always is around any issues), a handy glossary of banned terms would be useful to refer to while the policy is debated.

I’ve deregged and reregged so many times I feel like I’ve missed important case law.

It makes me nervous of contributing to discussions. I don’t know where the mines are.

It’s not just castration, which would cover the testes, but a penectomy too.

I don’t know, but I’ve always assumed that because the child was 16 on the day of surgery (although 15 when flown out of the UK with the specific intent of having the surgery) then the parent basically “got away with it”. Afaik we haven’t yet had a UK prosecution for a child being removed from the UK for fgm abroad but I’d be interested to know the legal stance if the child was 16 rather than 15 or younger and whether the day of removal from the uk is the factor, or the date of the assault. FGM is against the law for over 16s too but there is an additional crime of “failing to prevent” to give further protection to kids. I suspect if a mother flew a 15 yo girl out of the UK for mutilation then “but we waited until her birthday before we got the knife out” wouldn’t be a defence for anyone with a knowledge of what was going to happen, such as a father or “charity” worker or grandparent of colleague of the mother who knew that the child was being flown out of the county for a genitalectomy.

I would imagine the OP’s post was reported in order to be deleted.

Probably.
If I was MNHQ I'd be taking quite a jaundiced view of people who pounce on a so-called 'misgendering' to get posts they don't like deleted, especially if they have such serious substance.

It's best to just avoid pronouns to avoid that tactic. Refer to the DC or the 'male child' (we are allowed to correctly refer to peoples sex). It's a pain, but better than getting a whole post deleted.

Monsterous.

as a point of information the law on FGM protects female children only and does indeed cover taking a (girl) child to another country for any non medical alteration to the genitals
a rare case in which girl children are more protected than boy children

Wow. I hadn’t considered that. Strange times.

A 16 year old (only just) child cannot possibly consent to that kind of surgery. This is why it was banned in the UK and is now banned in Thailand too. Such an awful thing to do to a child.

Abusive

I think there is a general 'not in the spirit' barring of posts discussing personal medical details about specific individuals though, especially youngsters. If that's what your post did, OP, then tbh it probably should have been deleted. It's probably impossible to fully describe Green's indefensible behaviour without being unfair to her then 16 yo DC.