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."
The comparisons are fascinating. It would complete the “symmetry,” and increase the irony, if we saw the FGM-practicing countries outlawing western-style genital modification. Countries practicing FGM are in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. They might explicitly legalize it, explicitly outlaw it, or tolerate it despite it being illegal. Have any of these countries had a legal response to western style genital surgery done to support gender identity?
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/
Brilliant argument. Racism is prevalent in so many areas of life today than it was, say, forty years ago
Good article.
The comparisons are fascinating. It would complete the “symmetry,” and increase the irony, if we saw the FGM-practicing countries outlawing western-style genital modification. Countries practicing FGM are in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. They might explicitly legalize it, explicitly outlaw it, or tolerate it despite it being illegal. Have any of these countries had a legal response to western style genital surgery done to support gender identity?