December 13, 2008 archive

Friday Philosophy: trans stories



So many things I could be writing about…but the entire week has seemed to conspire to draw me back into discussions I’d rather walk away from.  But I don’t, I guess because I hope that maybe one or two people out there might learn something.  I largely come away with a feeling of disappointment, but that disappointment would be directed at myself if I didn’t at least make the effort.

So I guess I’ll spill it all here and try to knit together a point out of the whole.

In Feminisms the other night, there was a discussion about women choosing to have labioplasties.  The column lambasted the women who would make such a choice as being tools of the patriarchy, I guess, or victims of it, and went on to deplore the procedure as abetting the practice of female genital mutilation.

I was astounded.  I mean, what kind of hypocrite would I have to be to speak against women choosing to have a procedure performed which I have undergone myself?

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