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.

Well, this means sweet FA to most people

”Orchidectomy” is not as commonly used or even as widely understood as “castration” though is it? My autocorrect doesn’t know it.

I can never pronounce or easily spell cholecystectomy so I - like most lay people - say “gallbladder removal”.

The best known term is always the clearest term. It is so important to be able to discuss all is these complicated issues in a way that is unambiguous and accessible.

There is a difference between using the correct term for the procedure carried out - and mumsnet should allow that - and how you refer to the people who actually did the deed or enabled it. I have only contempt for anyone performing the operations. I have some sympathy for parents who thought they were doing their best for their child. That sympathy evaporates when they laugh at their child's lack of tissue or admit they were motivated by homophobia, even if that is claimed to be a partner's homophobia.

The problem is there doesn’t seem to be an alternative word to “castration” that doesn’t obscure the meaning.

'neutered' is a familiar term. It's less surgical but it makes a very part of the meaning clear.

Wouldn’t that attract the accusation it had veterinarian overtones?

It is such a minefield. There must be a way through it to facilitate discussion.

I understand that MumsNet has been under attack over this, but the landscape has changed recently and it is still changing.

This reluctance to hurt the feelings of some trans people by naming what (a few of them) have done to themselves (and that other trans people refuse to do to themselves) allows them all to stay in denial about what they have done and what they propose to do and what they think it's fine for young people to do or have done to them. And worse, it allows other people, people who are responsible for children, young people who are vulnerable themselves, to stay in denial about it.

Why do these hurt feelings trump the feelings of mothers who can't name what our own children are doing to themselves?