rm ([personal profile] rm) wrote2010-06-17 01:03 pm

one inch

I was going to chuck this into sundries, but then some of you might miss it, and it needs to be talked about.

Over at Cornell we have a case of gender and body policing, unnecessary surgery, and stimulating 6-year-old girls with vibrators in the name of dodgy science.

Really helps to confirm my suspicion that the only good girl is one who knows how to disappear, doesn't it? And if she can't figure out the skill of it, don't worry, someone will hold her down and do it for her.

I won't ask you what this fear of big clits is, since we can all figure it out, but did you know that women with larger clitorises are also more likely to identify as gay?

Yup, that's right, one of the many HORRIFYING implications here is all about trying to erase queerness, erase the existence of people like me (and let's note the particularities of this particular act of hate, since there is also a correlation between larger penises and men being gay, but no one is cutting into these suspect little boys).

Things that will never make any queer woman less queer: hair removal, makeup, self-hatred, dresses, boyfriends, surgery, "therapy." My mother used to buy me electric razors, over and over.

All of this speaks with terrible eloquence to the suspicion I often harbour that the most inherently queer thing about me is my unwillingness to disappear.

If you don't get how all of this connects, you should probably go read Valerie's Letter again and again and again until you do.

An inch.

One inch.

Get it?

[identity profile] usullusa.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 07:29 pm (UTC)(link)
This is horrific. What kind of idiot, what kind of monster, decides to mutilate their daughter's genitals because they're "too big"? What does that even mean?

The implication that this is an attempt to erase queerness is chilling.

[identity profile] jerel.livejournal.com 2010-06-18 10:04 pm (UTC)(link)
The whole thing is barbaric, but when I saw "too big" I said "what the fuck does that mean anyway?" If there was a little boy who had a penis larger than his peers, would we be lopping part of that off? I'm not talking about circumcision, which--well, I'm Jewish, but YMMV. Would a surgeon cut off the tip, remove some of the shaft, and then reattach the tip? Well, maybe this guy would. But the rest of us sane, civilized people wouldn't.

And don't even get me started on his post-op vibrator tests....