Bonus hole broke

[IceQueenoftheWest]

Jo's Trust has gone under, with immediate effect. I'm sorry for the people they support, but is this because of the bonus hole fiasco last year? Alienate your core group and pay the price? Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust | Cervical Cancer Charity (jostrust.org.uk)

I know. Still inaccurate though.

No words either for this kind of language to describe a woman’s anatomy 😔 especially in the context of a cervical cancer charity.

Is the Charity sector out of control or is it just a load of media hype? This is a general question and not really related to Jo's Trust.

If the Charity sector is now getting away with being political, should the Charity Commission start doing it's job? More than likely the Commission wont see the politicization because they are now political.

No, I'm afraid it definitely is referring to the vaginal opening.

Many, many years ago, I was the Welfare Officer for the Sussex Uni LGBT society (there was no Q in those days). I had to go on a training course which taught me all of these weird and wonderful terms- 'bonus hole' was around even then (circa 2010).

'Bonus hole' is used by 'gay transmen' (i.e. straight women who identify as male) because the 'main hole' (my term, for clarity) is the anus, since men have this, too. The vaginal opening is the 'bonus hole', i.e. an extra hole only possessed by transmen as opposed to biological men.

Imagine prudish, 20-year-old me learning all this when all I wanted to do was help gay uni students feel more accepted by encouraging them to come to film nights!

@ArabellaScott ... and having typed all that, I think I may have misinterpreted your original comment.

I'm sorry, I phrased that clumsily. I meant it refers to the vagina in relation to the anus.

Charity sectors has been like this for a long time - not necessarily gender wang but full of folks with an inflated ego and absolute belief in their own specialness.

I have family/friends who have worked for some of the Big ones and the general consensus is there are those who roll up their sleeves and will wade ankle-deep in blood and mud to help, and those who are all about ego and CBEs.

Remember the NSPCC Green ‘stop’ campaign? Everyone is saying ‘Green for stop? Why not Red for stop?’

A friend worked on the campaign (internally) and it was supposed to be red - but cock ups and lack of planning (I forget the details - must ask her) and £££££££ spend and they ended up having to pivot ‘oh we meant it to be green - Green for ‘stop’ - smart isn’t it! It’s very deep - it really isn’t a mistake…’ she was incredibly pissed off with the project and the amount of money spent.

The whole gender element seems to have made it really nasty and poisonous though.

Some people feel it's offensive to insist they have a disability when they do need things like accomodation. Six of one and all that.

Tbh, I don't think that's an idea that should ever have been indulged. But many people felt it was easy to fudge the language and make people who felt that way feel better. While still being able to use language that indicated a need for some kind of accomodation.

We seem to live in an era where people's feelings about words are more important than the actual meaning they are meant to convey. And apparently we're all very mentally fragile.

Wait, I misread this! I thought you meant in comparison to the anus!

It's fine, I worded it badly!

Got myself in a right muddle. I did read your comment right then. 😂

Either which way, they’ve forgotten women have three holes!

@BeingATwatItsABingThing “Either which way, they’ve forgotten women have three holes!”

Exactly, but only two are of interest to penis-havers, and therefore only two of them count (apparently).

Well, they are defining women and women's bodies by their usefulness as sexual objects, not from the POV of a woman.

It's dehumanising and recasting a woman through the male gaze, suggesting that the word 'vagina' is too offensive somehow, but the pornified and objectifying 'bonus hole' is acceptable.

@songaboutjam

I have a chronic, incurable long term condition which, when it flares up causes me pain and limits my movement. Some people with my condition are wheelchair or even bed bound.
I have found that with the correct diet and exercise I can keep flare ups at bay and lead a normal life. However, some times I need some accommodations at work, which I'm entitled to under the Equality Act because my condition counts as a disability.

I don't feel like a disabled person because my life is pretty much normal most of the time.

you either have a disability or you don't

Ableist nonsense. That isn't how disability and chronic illness works.

Edited to add I tagged @songaboutjam in solidarity, not to argue against her in case it came off that way

Indeed!

And this is why it is better to say something like, "do you have a disability / medical condition or sensory issue that may require adjustments for you to use our services".

Take something like diabetes, most people would not consider that a disability, but you might need reasonable adjustments.

Dyslexia, again not a disability but might need adjustments.

Gender ideology is so toxic. It destroys everything it touches.

Agree @Rainbowshit Once you’ve started noticing the extent to which its poison seeps into so many areas of our lives, you can’t un-notice it.

@NImumconfused

To be fair to them, most of the site is written in the second person, and they do use women, eg women are usually born with a cervix, then go on to say some trans men and non-binary people will also have one, which i think is reasonable enough.

Dunno about reasonable. In the context yiu describe, "women" isn't used to denote actual women, adult human females, but ladybrain-havers. That automatically makes it non-inclusive. Actually inclusive would be to footnote it saying "The word woman is used here to denote biological females and includes people who may not identify as such, e.g...."

Dyslexia, again not a disability
What makes you think this? Dyslexia is a recognised disability under the Equality Act 2010

@GrumpyPanda would you read women in that first bit to include transwomen then? I didn't pick it up that way, I took it to mean adult human females and the "usually" to mean the small number of those females that might be born without a full reproductive system due to a medical condition.

They are probably more positioned in the middle of the road than I would be on this issue, but I just felt they were being painted as more extreme than they actually were. They were perfectly helpful and supportive of our project, which uses sex based language, and made no attempt to push us towards any sort of erasure of women. They've done a lot of good work and i think it's a shame the sector has now lost them.

Further down the glossary; - SEX - A label assigned at birth.
What, like a luggage label that can be changed at will?

I wonder if there is any wording that would satisfy everyone. I think women, transmen and some non-binary people would be ok but I know some would take issue with that.

What would the perfect wording be in your opinion?