Now the term FGM is cissexist? WTAF?

[NormaStanleyFletcher]

elegantgatheringofwhitesnows.com/?p=2069

By the very brilliant Louise Pennington.

How can they try to erase the lived experience of violence against women by banning a discriptive term for what is actually happening?

"It is not “cissexist” to talk about the biological reality of women’s bodies and the damage done to them within a capitalist-patriarchy. Frankly, even the suggestion that it is “cissexist” demonstrates a fundamental inability to actually understand the reality of lives of women and girls in our world."

[ElephantsNeverForgive]

Sorry I can't resist adding my DDs to the acronyms list

AFBB (assigned female before birth)

[Thumbscrewswitch]

I am reading all this with an ever-dropping jaw - I had no idea it was so out of hand! And I'm a bit loath to type what I want to now, because it could be personally risky to me - but I'll try to keep it vague enough that no one will feel like tracking me down, and it's already been alluded to upthread - it sounds like it's just another way to oppress women born as women. Women born as men are attacking women born as women - because they were born as men. Just another excuse for us to be the bottom of the pile then, eh?

As another aside, why do they perceive being a woman as some gold standard? When it's pretty clear historically and still now that women are often seen as second class citizens, if they even achieve that level in some areas of the world. That confuses me. I understand the "being born in the wrong body", "Having the wrong brain" - and completely sympathise with that and the need to do something about it - but I don't get that we're somehow lucky to have been born women and that makes us enviable.

[JeanneDeMontbaston]

Not all trans people are MtoF, though. The majority are.

But there are FtoM trans people, and as others said upthread, most people just want to do whatever helps them cope in the world, which is both very understandable and, I can see, horribly difficult.

I think some people do fetishise femininity in a disturbing and reactionary way, but those people (it seems to me) are a vocal minority.

[LurcioAgain]

Just made the mistake of googling and having a look at the reddit discussion. It's like stepping into a parallel through-the-looking-glass reality where everythings upside down, back to front, 2+2=5 and the world has gone fucking bonkers.

But on the plus side, googling also threw up this:
"Females do not have their genitals mutilated because they have vulvas.

Females do not have their genitals mutilated because they ~iDeNtIfY~ as females.

Females have their genitals mutilated because the societies have decided that people born with vaginas are just human enough to be fucked by and impregnated by men, but not human enough to have sexual autonomy."

Amen to that!

Seriously, to take the most horrific thing (short of gynocide, and there's a lot of that in the world) done to women as a class simply because they are women, and demand that it be redefined as "vulval mutilation" so that the "cis-sexism" of the term doesn't offend you - fuck right off to the far side of fuck and stay there.

[NormaStanleyFletcher]

As a complete digression here, it's interesting to me that we have this little tiny corner of the internet where we actually can discuss this stuff, without being shut down, labelled, and threatened.

I dread it being found.

Don't tell anyone about it

[YonicScrewdriver]

Yy Lurcio - is there a pre pubescent with a vulva who could avoid FGM by saying they considered themselves to be male? I don't think so!

[ApocalypseThen]

Yes, of course. And Malala wouldn't have gotten herself shot if she'd prudently identified as a boy.

I keep thinking of the survivors of symphysiotomy. They, too, had a terrible medical procedure foisted on them which had left many of them in permanent pain, again, because they're women. Is is all cissexist of me to say that a man who identifies as a woman wouldn't have his pelvis broken to facilitate childbirth? Is there a gender neutral was of expressing that horror?

[AsAMan]

Vulvas aren't mutilated because they are vulvas. They are mutilated because they belong to women. If you're so fucking devastated that people are some how taking this away from you... what the fuck is wrong with you.

[WhatWouldFreddieDo]

[JeanneDeMontbaston]

I'd be overjoyed if someone would take this away from women, asaman.

I had no idea that people had had such success in reducing FGM by re-defining it as cissexism! Thank goodness!

I am so reassured you're telling us that the mutilation of little girls has been brought to an end.

Do come back and provide links so I can congratulate the people who achieved so much, simply by telling mutilated women how to label their experiences.

[AsAMan]

They believe abortion and Pap smears are not women's issues because men (transmen) need them too and that prostate health is not a man's issue because transwomen need them too. The use of women/female for these matters excludes transwomen (ie does not put transwomen's feelings and need for validation from women of their womanhood) at the centre of every issue.

Except I never hear transmen demanding that prostate exams are cis sexisit..I think really it's transwomen feeling excluded from our cervical cancer and our FGM rather than transmen demanding this sort of thing. Funny it's always the ones raised as men who shout the loudest.

^Are we basing this outrage on three tweets from somebody called Vivian? I see no evidence anywhere in real life that 'cis' and 'cissexist' are words with any meaning at all.It's only in the deepest reaches of online debate that anybody gives a hoot.
It's such a tiny minority of (American) people writing in such niche corners of the web as to be utterly irrelevant and beneath mainstream debate.^

We didn't find out the venue until the day before (I think) recently of a radfem event because the transacitvists had had the venue shut down twice before and made threats. It absafuckingloutely matters.

[AsAMan]

I hadn't finished thread when I posted last post. The "you" is transactivist!. It just looks like I am responding to lurcio because I hadn't read that far down and repeated what she said basically!

[AsAMan]

I recently read an article on the trans* woman on a popular "feminist" website and just about every comment was "oh my gosh, I wish I could be as pretty as her and I was born CIS female". That might have actually been a direct quote. SO basically "feminists" are now playing up the whole pretty and "feminine" makes you a woman and doing so in a really crappy not genuine way. As much as some of them want to be seen as "right on" and believing that transwomen are women you can see from the actual interaction that they don't believe it and they even perform femininity for them in a way they don't for "cis" men.

[AsAMan]

*the transwoman from Orange is the new black that should say.

Fuck it I'm exhausted and not being clear. Good night!

[grimbletart]

I utterly refuse to use the term cisfemale or ciswoman (except here obviously). Trans folk can all themselves what they like, but they are not entitled to tell me what I call myself.

[AsAMan]

I use "cis" here because I don't want to fall afoul of MN talk guidelines by saying "real. I use quotation marks though so people know I think it's bollocks

[TonightTonight]

This is not a trivial issue this is the biggest threat to women and feminism and freedom. I am desperately concerned about it yet it is not a topic I would dare to comment on, link to or even refer to online or elsewhere; I fear for my safety and for my job. I decided not to attend the rad fem event due to the security concerns. Thank goodness there are still some brave women speaking out and thank goodness MN is not censoring it.

[BellaSolanum]

AsAMan I tend to use biological women or born women rather than cis.

[ZombiePuffinsAreREAL]

Just to let people know.....

A link to this thread has gone out on Twitter. Be prepared for the usual influx of dickheads.

[Thumbscrewswitch]

Ah feck.

[EatingMyBrains]

So you all looked at one tweet and made a lot of assumptions. Maybe looking further may have helped- twitter.com/VanguardVivian/status/526875412245528576

[ZombiePuffinsAreREAL]

It'll be fine. We always handle them, I just wanted to give a heads up.

[ZombiePuffinsAreREAL]

Eating.... does VV at any point admit that it's little girls being mutilated? If you find one of her tweets which does say that, then we'll be wrong about it because that is the point we're making.

[EatingMyBrains]

I assume she means it affects girls and trans men assigned female at birth. What's wrong with that?

[ZombiePuffinsAreREAL]

Have you read any of the thread? It's explained quite comprehensively already.