Mutilation

[bcholmes]

So, some time ago, I kvetched about a trans documentary that I saw.

One of the aspects of the documentary that I still find myself thinking about is a segment involving a guy from Oz named Alan Finch. Alan Finch is a post-op former M2F transsexual who now regrets having had surgery. So he's now suing "Australia's top gender clinic" because they misdiagnosed him. This part bugs me enormously:

"At the end of the day the choice is with the man holding the scalpel. Nobody's got a gun to his head and is forcing him to do this. He's the one who makes the ultimate choice. Now he better be sure he's got it right."

Nope. No agency, there.

But that's not the part that I keep pondering. What I keep pondering is that when the interviewer, Hana Gartner, pressed him about his critical remarks about trans surgery, he finally blurted out: "Look, it's mutilation."

A number of years ago, I worked on a trans magazine, and we discussed an article that had appeared in the Globe and Mail. The author was a woman named Margaret Wente. The article came out shortly after another CBC document about two trans people: one a cop who transition just as she retired, and the other a member of the Armed forces whose surgery was provided by the military. And, they fell in love with each other.

Sex-change surgery has nothing to do with gay rights, or human rights of any kind. I don't care who Cynthia and Sylvia love, or how they express themselves while doing it. They are perfectly free to make those choices. But I do not think we should condone surgical mutilation in the name of therapy. That's malpractice, pure and simple, and I'm against it.

Later she goes on:

It is profoundly unfashionable to question the value of this surgery and no one in the CBC does so. We never hear someone say it amounts to nothing more than crude genital mutilation, performed on people with problems that probably won't be fixed by it.

Flash forward: some time after that, I did a panel at University of Toronto about coming out in the workplace. One of the other people on the panel was a woman who worked for the Toronto Star and somehow we got to talking about Margaret Wente. "She just has this thing about trans people. She's always going on about it." She rolled her eyes in that dismissive way.

Back to the present: What's especially troubling about these statements of mutilation is that they always seem to be followed by a silent, "There, I've said it." As if the speaker knows that it's not polite to say, "you're mutilating yourself", but eventually they want to acknowledge that their gut just screams out "it's not right because it's mutilation."

I've been trying to think, for a while, what I want to say about this. I've though about deconstructing the idea of mutilation: what does this mean? What can we learn about comparing SRS to, say, having your tubes tied, or breast reduction surgery, or any form of reconstructive surgery? I've pondered the problem of categories: healthy, unhealthy, different, wholeness, incompleteness, left-handedness, whatever.

And, I must confess, I don't even think that these are worthwhile points of discussion because I think these ideas all come from the head, whereas people's sense of mutilation comes from the gut.

And how do you change that?

Comments

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

I've come across people who are horrified that I had my tubes tied, even more so that the doctor was willing to do the procedure on a woman who had not had any children yet. This initial reaction is almost always followed by a strong insistence that I can get the tubal ligation reversed, and no one seems to get that I didn't undergo surgery so I could have it reversed.

I had the surgery because I wanted it. There was no doubt in my mind. I knew exactly what I wanted and I was very lucky to have found a GP and a gynecologist that supported my decision. Do I feel like I mutilated myself? Absolutely not.

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

A lot of stuff that people live by comes from the gut. If someone is squicked by something and says so in public, other people get the idea that it's okay to be squicked by it.

I've been thinking lately that that's what's behind a lot of public acceptance of homophobia. There are plenty of homophobes who aren't Fundies, who don't fall back on 'God said so' when asked why it's wrong. All they can say is 'It's just not right'. I think the basis for that is a gut reaction, and an inability to realise that something they think is icky might not necessarily be icky, wrong, or harmful for everyone else.

Someone I admire very much once said that the Golden Rule is a sham; roughly, that rather than treating others as we want to be treated, we should treat others as they want to be treated.

This is also my theory for the existence of Oscar the Grouch-- to point out that even though you might think broccoli-and-sardine ice cream is disgusting, someone else might think it's comfort food. You can't use your own standards to judge 'yummy' and 'icky' for all people.

Mutilation....I don't think so.

[rbowspryte.livejournal.com]

Although I have'nt had surgery and don't plan to the broad mental paint brush of here is simplistic and stupid. Why is surgery either absolutely necessary or fivolous?

A face lift is mutilation by these terms, how about a much needed birth defect procedure that prevents a child from breathing properly? Technically you ae altering the core "birth" being in either regard.

I think people are angry because they see the body as a largely "unchanging thing...if god mean't you to be a....etc. etc."
the ignore the fluid parts and they have real problems dealing with complex and many-faceted multiple issues at once. I call it "one-step thinking". This-equals-that, it's easy, it's simple and forget about it!

In my own case I tried to explain in a long letter to my insurance provider why they should cover the operation to remove my testes...case and point I take pills which cost you X (lots of money a year). I have operation now I don't take pills which costs you (a little money that will save you tons in the long-run). Simple but it was still a fight, needless to say I won, and they agreed to cover more than half. However it all comes back to that "having your gender controlled or dictated to you by the state" (or corporation in this case).

The whole current climate of trans-phobia and trans-socialist dogma really upsets me...but they have numbers and popular opinion and that bothers me most of all!!

As for changing the gut to brain relationship I'm not sure but maybe a start is in marketing...I've heard that a good slogan or protest march can do wonders to bridge the heart-head connection so maybe it's true here as well...something like "You say Mutilation we say a lovely new Creation"....I don't know...just venting a tossing clods.

[king-tirian.livejournal.com]

I wonder if these people see mutilation as being about the restriction of future bodily opportunity. SRS is the dividing line beyond which an XY person can no longer sire a child even if she changes her mind later.

My hassles with being called mutilated in public (having been circumsized at birth) is that I cannot fathom the smug satisfaction the accuser gets out of insulting my bodily integrity. "There, I've said it." What you've said is that you are the judge of the wholeness of people and I will never meet the standard. Somehow it seems to say much more about the accuser than the accused.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

People are free to be disgusted by whatever disgusts them. Unfortunately, too many seem to go to the next step: "That disgusts me, so nobody should ever do it."

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of an earlier post where you were talking about peoples' reactions to your tatoos.

The "mutiltion" reaction is a lot more extreme, but they both sound like people trying to come up with plausable explanations for what is essentially an emotional response.

[firecat]

I think that deconstructing it would be a good idea. People seem to use these emotional outbursts as a way of silencing others, and treating them as if they are simply part of the dialogue rather than privileging them as a special kind of speech might reduce their power.

(Note: I confess that this is how I approach most emotional outbursts, as someone who has a classic "analyzer" response to emotional upset. And most people don't appreciate it. And I think it's inappropriate for me to go there when someone is talking about their feelings about something that really does affect them. But when it's used as a way to control other people's feelings and actions, I think analyzing it is legitimate.)

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

Excellent advice, as usual, firecat.

Funny how things go...

[chemlabgoddess.livejournal.com]

In an interesting quirk of the universe, I have been mulling over making a post to my own LJ, on exactly this subject. I was recently contacted by a former aquaintance here in the Twin Cities, whom I knew as female (post-op), who elected to 'detransition' (hir words) and revert to a previously assigned gender. I try SO HARD not to be judgemental of decisions that others make, but by the end of the phone call my jaw hurt from clenching my teeth to keep from blurting out something over-emotional and hurtful. This person is lining up a 2nd state-paid SRS, and chooses to be blithely ignorant of the continuing fact of my pre-op status.

Sigh.

t-minus 134 days.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

I have no advice about deconstruction, but I think you're right on the money that it is an emotional and visceral reaction. And I think it is right to start by acknowledging (at least to yourself) how powerful those are, and how not amenable to reason.

I don't quite know where you go past that point, to actually starting to get people to realise that their personal visceral reaction is not be a guide to what other people should or shouldn't do.

I think part of the problem is that socially, we do use those visceral reactions as a first guide to general morals - for example, the difference between premeditated murder and crimes of passion. So you not only have to fight the reaction, you have to fight the fact that typically, that reaction is catered to, with social moral/legal re-inforcement.

[aranduin.livejournal.com]

I agree that the "mutilation" perspective is emotional and complicated by an inability to understand an alternative point of view. I wonder, though, whether it is more specifically a *fear* reaction, where that person is expressing tremendous fear of anyone ever doing surgery/tatooing/whatever to them. They cannot conceive of doing this thing voluntarily, and they connect their physical fear with the act.

Out of curiousity, I did some definition searching for mutilation. It would seem that it differs from other "surgery" by a degree of violence and of moving away from the perceived "norm" toward something ugly or undesirable. Violence would seem to imply something involuntary or harmful; I don't see that applying to SRS as it is the patient's choice instead of the surgeon's. However, this does seem consistent with my first thought of this as a fearful reaction.

Since it isn't involuntary, though, the issue becomes a personal judgment of normalcy, beauty, and desirability. Those are all social constructions, and therefor in the eye of the beholder. This is where I disagree with their use of the term and see it as fair game for discussion. The term does seem to express their fear and seeks to provoke a similar reaction in their audience, but I think it is incorrect in its use and serves to hide their weaker complaint that someone who is trans violates their sense of 'normalcy'.

[persephoneplace.livejournal.com]

Really interesting thoughts - i would be very interested in how you deconstruct this.

Margaret Wente is challenging at the best of times. I can feel the orbit of the earth tilt on the rare occasions she writes something i agree with wholeheartedly.

People think that stating their ignorant opinions somehow validates them. Like otherwise reasonable people who say "that's so gay" etc. (and my opinion of them never recovers after that, its always been damaged) who would agree that homophobia is harmful and somehow don't see their own contributions to it.

Mutilation? We live in a world in which we agree that a certain amt of mutilation of our bodies is acceptable - we get piercings, and tattoos. We get our tubes tied and let's not even go down the path of cosmetic surgery...

It's a miracle not a mutilation.

The silence after people say it - in my not so humble opinion - is about wanting to be excused or understood for being ignorant and mean.

What i don't get - and i am not being disingenious when i write this - is why people think that its okay to voice opinions like that. Mostly people have gotten past saying vastly homophobic things in the workplace for example. I personally don't care if people go home and think that the way i am living my life is "wrong" - i care tremendously if they try to posion my environment with that.