Preferred genital nouns, anyone?

[jenthelibrarian]

www.spiked-online.com/2020/01/08/what-are-your-preferred-genital-nouns/?fbclid=IwAR147UBF6jsunSxUnlEFvVLgubrZ_fjyc5WZmpBlf6NFM7CVIlK8Ov5Djp8

This has absolutely enraged and disgusted me.
Allegedly anyone can have a dick, men can have vaginas but women have a front hole. Which I think we can agree is anatomically bollocks [ha ha!] since my 'front' orifice is my urethra.

Makes me want to weep, tbh.

"My body isn't wrong my culture is."
How very true.

'Our bodies are our own to name and use'.

Exactly.

Reminds me rather of the AMA the other day with the TM who kept saying things to women and then going blue screen when the women pointed out that this was exactly what they were asking for in return, except the TM had no intention at all of applying it equally to them. TM was wholly blind to the irony and double standards and just got cross.

And 'They' say we GC women are obssessed with genitalia!

I’m a retired doctor. I will continue to use the correct (sex based) nouns for male and female anatomy that I have used since (and in fact before) medical school.
“Front hole” is not only linguistically ugly, it is anatomically incorrect on two counts. The vagina is not a hole, it is a muscular tube, and it is the central one of three - the others being the urethra (anterior) and rectum (posterior).

Titiana McGrath has a really awesome twitter feed on this

You can call your vulva a geranium or your penis a fluffy cloud if you want but the problem is that nobody else will have any idea what you're talking about. Humans use words to communicate. If you choose not to use words to mean what they're generally understood to mean then don't be surprised if communication becomes rather challenging for you.

Safeguarding states that for safety we use correct anatomical terms. Abusers use incorrect terms to help them hide abuse and make it harder for victims to disclose.

We should not mimic the behaviours of abusers; its a safeguarding issue, even if we don't intend to cause harm.

I don't think I will ever get over the seething misogyny, either external or internal, of the phrase 'front hole'.

So only trans women have a vagina now? WTF IS GOING ON. can this be real? If anyone said that I had a front hole I would ask them what are they talking about and tell them I will not be confused! It's immoral that they would do this to genuine women. They must be jelious that they will not ever be genuine.

It's a highly misogynistic and insulting thing, yes. But it's hardly going to catch on.

I could publish an article tomorrow saying that everyone must now refer to their dogs as notcats. No one's going to take a blind bit of notice.

Also did anyone read the post of a trans man calling women cervix havers. Why? He also thought that was the best way to describe women. How can people be minipulated into excepting or even think this is right. I am ashamed that I have had children and they have to suffer things I do not know about or even have time to try and understand all the new words and phrases. No more dcs for me.

only trans women have a vagina now

Only if society is content to accept gaslighting on a truly remarkable scale.

This feels intentionally provocative for people who find it valuable to stimulate awareness and debate. It does not feel like a genuine proposal for social change.

That said, we do, of course, have legislation that was only passed because everyone was assured that nobody would abuse either the letter or the spirit of the act despite the potential for abuse.

If the language change is adopted then I think I'd like to go and become a hermit as I wouldn't feel up to the intellectual challenge of being able to converse or communicate with others ever again.

Not only is is degrading and derogatory, but it's also anatomically incorrect. Have they never seen a woman's genitals before? (Rhetorical question btw)

A neo-vagina shortens, scars, can grow hair and is unable to clean itself and so requires douching to control odour.

An actual vagina is quite a different thing.

Well, my vagina goes by "bumpersticker-windowsill" and I, for one, am elated someone finally acknowledges that genital nouns matter.

If the language change is adopted then I think I'd like to go and become a hermit as I wouldn't feel up to the intellectual challenge of being able to converse or communicate with others ever again.

Can I come with you Arran?
I will bring Oxford English Dictionary and biology books we can reminisce over.

did anyone read the post of a trans man calling women cervix havers

I think the phrase was 'The preferred term is people with a cervix'.

(I would imagine that's only preferred by a few people, actually. Quite a lot of 'those with a cervix' don't know the term for it and would be somewhat more likely to recognise the easier words 'women and girls'. Source:
'Anne Spiller, practice nurse: “The problem is a lot of women do not even know about their cervix. They may think that they do not have one of those reading that and not bother. I speak as a nurse who does smears.”')

i was listening to a conversation on the bus some months ago where the relatively young women were talking about a friend who had an injury from birth and her coccyx was involved, which was clear from the context of the conversation (they were talking about her back, sitting on inflatable ring cushions, etc). But at a couple of points in the conversation, they used cervix instead of coccyx. How on earth is the overly medical terminology going to reach women with full lives, at some distance from their educational years?

Or even those currently in education.

According to a mate who marks biology GCSE papers, the number of 15/16 year olds who muddled up cortex/coccyx/cervix/vortex/anyrandomwordendinginX was quite something, last exam season.

The front hole is the urethra. I had a friend at school. who was surprised to learn that she didn't need to remove a tampon to wee.

Her response was - 'but don't they ... intermingle?'

We were 15.

WomanBornNotWorn

I had that misunderstanding for a while. And I paid attention in school and was very interested in biology. Somehow I just missed something there, I assumed that if boys and girls developed along similar lines they would be similar in that way, and never really thought about it further.

When I figured it out I remember thinking, oh course, that makes sense, I have been told that and just didn't notice.

Yeah I think it's clear whoever came up with the term "front hole" doesn't care about where we piss from. As far as they're concerned it's the holes they can stick their dick in that hold significance for them.

So some trans people want us to call ourselves womxn or cervix havers and what not and they want to use the word women to replace trans women? Have I got that right? I haven't surely?

Same with vagina and they want us to change to front hole?

Front fucking hole. Omg. That sounds vile.

It's the usual thing of 'I demand to control to the nth degree what language you may use in reference to me, which must respect at all times my personal choices and sense of identity, and to not do so is an abhorrent crime (hotline to PC Gul) because you must respect people's choices and identities! BUT I also demand to control the language you may use in reference to yourself, to label you as makes me feel better whether or not you agree or find it offensive, and I have zero respect for your personal choices or sense of identity. And you asking me to is also an abhorrent crime. (Hotline to PC Gul.)'

It's childish in its total irrationality and selfishness.

To which really: it boils down to what a detransitioner recently described in an article linked here: that it was about making people obey their personal rules at all times, utter compliance, or completely cutting them off.

My answer is largely: call yourself what ever you want. Identify however you want. And I'll do the same.

In fairness, the guide this is from (clicked on the link) is aimed at trans people. It doesn’t say ‘these are the terms everyone must use’. It says ‘this is how we’ve used the terms in this particular leaflet’.

I don’t think this a case of ‘you must call yourself this’ or even ‘you must call me this’. I think they’re trying to encourage trans people to have safer sex, so they’re using terms recognised in that community.

You could argue that the very fact that they produced a separate guide for trans people is positive rather than trying to write a guide for everyone and pretend there are no differences between vaginas and neo-vaginas.