Bill calling trans healthcare “female genital mutilation” allows husband stitches for teenage girls

It’s the same people writing the same laws for the same purpose: gaining full control over sex and sexuality.

By Artemis T. Douglas and Jane Migliara Brigham

The ban on trans youth healthcare that calls HRT “Genital and bodily mutilation of a minor” - and which just passed the US House on Wednesday - has a loophole allowing for husband stitches to be performed on teenage girls after they have given birth.

Husband stitches are a medically unnecessary procedure done on women after childbirth to tighten their vaginas for the pleasure of men who penetrate them.  These are almost always done without the knowledge or consent of the women involved.

The loophole that would allow this in the bill is almost a word for word copy of the same loophole from the federal ban on female genital mutilation (FGM) for minors.  Just as with that statute, this bill would allow doctors to tighten a teenage girl's vagina without her knowledge or consent, as long as it is done after childbirth, when she is likely too exhausted to notice.

Here is the wording for the exception from the trans youth healthcare ban:

“(ii) in the case of female genital mutilation, performed on a minor in labor or who has just given birth and is performed for medical purposes connected with that labor or birth by a person licensed in the place it is performed as a medical practitioner, midwife, or person in training to become such a practitioner or midwife.”

And here is the exception from the federal definition of FGM

performed on a person in labor or who has just given birth and is performed for medical purposes connected with that labor or birth by a person licensed in the place it is performed as a medical practitioner, midwife, or person in training to become such a practitioner or midwife.

Within the very bill that calls trans healthcare a form of mutilation, there exists an exception to the ban on genital surgery which appears to be written to allow the type of FGM that is popular among the kinds of men who get teenage girls pregnant.

If nothing else, it shows that the writers of the bill were thinking of husband stitches while they drafted the legislation.

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All research on these procedures shows that they are detrimental to the physical and mental health of patients, leading to long term complications with no benefits for the patient.

This aligns with Admiral Brian Christine’s remarks at the HHS press conference yesterday. Admiral Christine gave the patriarchal game away when he said, “we need strong healthy boys and girls who will know the joy of coming together as one and starting their own family one day and if they are subjected to these sex rejecting procedures that will not happen.” 

The entire anti-trans reaction, at present, is a patriarchal reaction empowered by reactionary sentiments regarding natalism and demographic shift.

This is also why Rep. Greene used (likely nonconsensual) surgical recovery images of white-skinned teenagers on the house floor to push her bill to make providing any form of transition medicine a Class C felony. 

It’s also why these bans are almost always being pushed by white people in the US and UK. 

It all comes down to a fascist anxiety around birth rates.

The fight for bodily autonomy for trans people is the fight for bodily autonomy for cis women, too.  The abolition of women’s rights requires the abolition of transsexual’s rights.

This is revealed in how legislation targeting trans people always allows for procedures for cis men’s fertility, but not procedures that give cis women reproductive freedom like hysterectomies and tubal ligations. 

It is also revealed in the husband stitch being exempted in the latest legislation.

From academic research in 2020, “The language that their obstetricians used to describe the procedure made it clear to two of the women that their physicians placed an additional stitch following delivery as a “favor” to their husbands. All five of the women experienced health complications following the “Husband Stitch,” including short-term pain around the stitch and long-term pain during sex.”

The “husband stitch” is performed on cis women who give birth for the same reason that a military admiral in charge of public health wants teenagers to “know the joy of coming together as one and starting their own family.”

The reason? Women are seen as reproductive assets, and only cis women with the capacity to breed children can do this.  Meanwhile, cishet men are seen as patriarchal citizens, for whom the people beneath them are theirs to use, discard, and exploit as they see fit.  Those people always include women and children.

The same people who want to make sure kids pair off and breed as quickly as possible also want to make sure kids don't become transsexuals.  The point of both is to control the reproduction of all involved for their own ends.

Whereas they control cissexuals through the regulation of sexuality, they accomplish the same goals with transsexuals by controlling the means of changing sex itself.

As for respect within society, cis women are allowed it if they stay in line.  The moment someone takes material steps to change their own biological sex, they lose all status within a patriarchal society.

Transsexuals are seen as uniquely unqualified for full citizenship in such a system, as they demonstrate that the line between men and women is not uncrossable.  By proving that the line between men and women is neither dimorphic, nor binary, nor immutable, transsexuals violate every rule that a patriarchal society is built upon.  

That is why the same legislation that bans the transitioning of one’s bodily sex allows for the modification of girls' genitals to make them feel better for men during sex.  It’s the same people writing the same laws for the same purpose: gaining full control over sex and sexuality.