One of the concerns that come up regularly when speaking about multiple genital autonomy issues is that it "waters down" (credit: Hibo Wardere) one or many of the issues. I see it differently. I see it as bringing people together to make the message louder.
I see genital autonomy removed not only when genitalia are modified, but when genitalia are touched or controlled without the individual's consent. Let me elaborate:
- LGBTQIA+ (Gay Pride): When society tells people that there is something wrong with their sexuality, this is an attempt to control those individuals and that takes away autonomy. It tells these individuals that they are not free to express themselves in the ways that they desire and that their own body is not their own.
- Childhood Sexual Abuse: When an individual's genitalia are touched in an inappropriate way by someone that has power and control over that individual, it can lead to psychological confusion about sexuality. For example, the individual may feel powerless about their sexuality as a child and that powerlessness may lead into adulthood. Again, this takes away an individual's autonomy.
- Rape: Even though the individual's genitalia are not modified physically, the individual can be psychologically affected.
- "*GM:" I use the asterisk to identify the letters "F," "I," and "M" for "female," "intersex," and "male." I bundle these together because I see genital mutilation as genital mutilation regardless of what sex someone is assigned at birth. If your genitalia is modified as a child (or even as an adult under social pressure), you are being told that you were not perfect when born. You are told that there was something wrong with your genitalia, and many actually end up believing it (Fox Without a Tail). I disagree. Mutilation makes genitalia "damaged, not perfect." This is not to say that it isn't possible that you were born with a defect that needed to be fixed, but that would not be mutilation.
I imagine you want to fix at least one of these. What are the chances that one of these affects one or more of the other? Consider reading "Circumcision: The Hidden Trauma" by Ronald Goldman, Ph.D. (https://circumcision.org/circumcision-the-hidden-trauma/). While I highly recommend reading the book from the beginning, page 156 "Antisocial Behaviors" explores connections between sexual harassment and assaults of adults with the genital mutilation of children.
200 million females are believed to live with FGM. Over 1 billion males are believed to live with MGM. 81% of women are believed to be SA victims in the USA. 25% of men are believed to be SA victims in the USA. 3.5% of adults in the US identify as LGB. You see, when we only talk about one of these, we could only be including as little as 0.1% (intersex) of the population, while we could easily be talking about half the population when we include all of these. Gaining sympathy from one to gain autonomy for all could be a useful tactic. If #consentmatters for one case, why wouldn't it for the others?
