In this article on a very sensitive topic, I argue that what is considered 'mutilation' of the body is culturally determined. I will use the more neutral term 'modification', but I do not endorse any particular surgical procedure. It seems that in the United Kingdom at least, those involved will be judged by the legal system on the basis of their ethnicity.
In 2003, the British Government introduced the Female Genital Mutilation Act, legislation which made the procedures collectively known as 'FGM' illegal for United Kingdom nationals and immigrants. There does not appear to be a directly equivalent law for the male body.
Aiding and abetting the type of female genital modification practised in some African countries is illegal in the UK, even when a girl or woman consents to this surgery. In the explanatory notes for the Female Genital Mutilation Act gender reassignment surgery is given an exception, as an example of an operation necessary for mental health, along with the "distress caused by a perception of abnormality". In some communities, not having genitals modified like your peers can be a source of distress. However, the potential defence that the procedure was carried out because of cultural beliefs is explicitly ruled out.
Guidance from the Crown Prosecution Service, the agency of the UK Government which decides who gets to stand trial, states: "In determining whether an operation is necessary for the mental health of a girl it is immaterial whether she or any other person believes that the operation is required as a matter of custom or ritual."
Factors which increase the likelihood of prosecution include if the procedure was marketed to women, if money changed hands, if the long-term consequences are severe, if the woman in question wants the persons responsible prosecuted, and if there is no medical justification for the genital modification. It seems that cosmetic labiaplasty, a modification for purely aesthetic reasons also known as the 'designer vagina', could fall within the UK's legal definition of FGM, even though that does not appear to have been the intent of the 2003 legislation.
In the case where a girl carries out her own genital modification, the Crown Prosecution Service guidance states that any UK national or anyone else living in the UK who encouraged her can be prosecuted under the 2003 law: "The act of FGM by the girl may take place anywhere in the world and/or the act of aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring it may take place anywhere in the world, provided that the act is done by a United Kingdom national or resident. Aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring can occur by many means, including online." Intentionally encouraging female genital modification is also contrary to the UK's Serious Crime Act 2007.
This legislation was targeted at a relatively small number of African women who were performing genital modifications, were having girls' and young women's genitals modified in the UK, or were taking females to other countries for this type of procedure. The Crown Prosecution Service Guidelines for the 2003 law imply exemptions for registered medical practitioners, although the first prosecution in the UK was of a London doctor, who was found 'not guilty'.
More recently, 'New Yorker' magazine featured a cover story on a person who had part of their leg attached to their crotch, to create a replica of a penis (phalloplasty). As an alternative, metoidioplasty surgically extends the clitoris to superficially resemble a micro-penis. Genital surgeries are again front page news, but this time they are being framed as a life-affirming confirmation of gender, rather than a bizarre and damaging practice of African witch doctors, based on nothing more than ancient ritual or superstition. It seems appropriate that this particular cover story was published in New York, given the historic popularity of Freudian analysis there, but these surgeries are now being promoted to women all over the Western world. Students of Sigmund Freud will recall that myths from the classical European period were believed to contain explanatory powers for modern psychosexual conflicts, such as a supposed 'penis envy' in girls and women.
According to his disciples, it wasn't that Freud was merely inspired by ancient legends to invent these theories himself, like some kind of pseudo-scientist. Instead, those pagan myths supposedly proved that the Oedipus and Electra psychosexual complexes had always been part of the human condition, hiding in plain sight until Freud arrived to explain them to us. As Mary Shelley reminded us in the subtitle of her first and most famous novel, Prometheus was another of those ancient European myths. Creating a man on the operating table using spare body parts might be the ultimate challenge for a surgeon, whether they happen to believe in penis envy or not.
The most fervent Freudian would have to concede that psychosexual theory, including penis envy, is based on ancient myth rather than science as we understand it today. Sceptics might point out that having a licence to practice therapy, medicine, or surgery does not immunise against superstition, or guarantee unethical practices will not take place. Otherwise, professional bodies would not need processes for taking those licences away when unethical behaviour was proven.
The Tavistock Centre, the current home of the institution set up by Freud's followers in London during the 1920's, has Sigmund's seated statue outside, like a psychosexual Abraham Lincoln who freed the libido from its chains. Freud and his family left Vienna in 1938, a few months after the National Socialist Workers Party of Germany took control of his home city in the Anschluß Österreichs.
Sigmund Freud was then hosted by his followers in the Swiss Cottage area of London, a short walk from where the Tavistock Gender Identity Clinic on Finchley Road stands today. First among all Freud's disciples, Carl Jung, also lectured at the Tavistock in the mid-1930s. Jung's theories of animus and anima, representing masculine and feminine archetypes respectively, influenced the development of “gender identity” as a concept independent from biology. The Tavistock was thereby endorsed by the founders of the Freudian and Jungian movements as the home base of psychosexual and archetypal theory in Britain, and by extension the English-speaking world.
From an intersectional standpoint it is difficult to explain away the fact that African cultural practices relating to female genital modification are illegal in Britain, while contemporary European and American cultural practices relating to the very same body parts of girls and women are not only legal, but have been endorsed by the UK's National Health Service which funds the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust.
Since “gender-affirming” therapists are not trained or qualified to carry out the procedures they advocate for, UK surgeries for phalloplasty and metoidioplasty are outsourced by the NHS to the private New Victoria Hospital near Wimbledon, the neighbourhood on the south-west side of London better known for tennis. Estimates of costs for initial phalloplasty procedures when obtained privately range from £40,000 to £70,000 per patient. It is not clear if these prices include later surgeries required to address complications or replace penile implants as they wear out.
While activists in Wyoming, USA were adamant that legislation restricting elective genital surgeries on transgender children would be unfair or bigoted, we are yet to see a campaign in the UK to repeal the existing laws forbidding modification of the very same parts of the body which target black women and girls only. It seems that in the West, certain European beliefs are privileged as 'scientific' or reasoned regardless of evidence, while African beliefs are automatically discounted as ritualistic.
Due to the exemptions allowed in the United Kingdom's FGM legislation, there will be no prosecutions of white people in the UK for aiding and abetting genital surgeries carried out because of cultural beliefs such as the existence of 'penis envy' or 'animus and anima'. Legislators now have the opportunity to resolve this double standard. FGM law reform could ensure that any genital surgeries carried out on girls and women must be evidence-based, and do no harm in future.
Photo by Arseny Togulev on Unsplash
This is spot on. Apparently, it's all in how you frame the body modification! Notably, so-called "gender affirming" surgeries are more extreme in their effect than other cultural modifications such as female genital cutting in Africa and Asia. After all, "gender affirming" surgeries (phalloplasy for women and vaginoplasty for males) tend to assure sterility and total sexual dysfunction, also negatively affect the thigh or forearm (for women), and are much more likely to cause severe infections and/or incontinence than the forms of female genital cutting that are outlawed in the UK. Despite this fact, these more extreme and harmful modification are lauded as "life-saving" and are credited for allowing a person to be their "true authentic self."
Another take, related, comparing FGM to the early 20th Century’s Freudian obsession with clitoral vs vaginal orgasm in women, and attempts at surgical “remedies” to cure “female frigidity.” https://mistakinghistories.wordpress.com/2021/12/02/the-moving-clitoris/