Category Archives: Sexual & Reproductive Health & Rights (SRHR)

Family is family…

by in family, Human Rights, Sexual & Reproductive Health & Rights (SRHR) and tagged , | 2 Comments

I’ve been thinking a lot about the composition and meaning of family recently.

For me, it has always been those who I know I can count on when things are very bad at a particular moment and those who share my joy at the happiest of times, my sorrow at the darkest moments, and the mundane for everything in between. For me, despite the distance between me and my biological family, I know they are ‘there’ and hope they know the same holds true for me. Obviously, my husband has been my daily family tie since we fell in love, and his gigantic family has welcomed me with the warmest of arms. But, my ‘family’ has also consisted of ‘my tribe’—a small group of several individuals whom I love and who love me back unconditionally in that way that only families can. None of this really has to do with any specific identity or sexual preferences. The most important qualification is love. Simple, honest, persistent love.

My pontification of ‘family’ recently has been more related to politics (of course) and how others find it so simple and necessary to define the meaning of ‘family’ for people they do not know. I’m a fervent supporter of marriage equality for all, largely because I see the desperate sadness of those who are denied that joy of defining their family for themselves. I also find it unconscionable that there are individuals who find it so repulsive. Largely, I’ve found that those who object to same-sex marriage are the very same individuals who deride LGBT rights in general because of the ‘promiscuous lifestyle’ of gay men whilst dismissing extra-marital affairs of their own as irrelevant and a ‘private matter’. Nevermind that there are plenty of examples of gay men and women who have been in decades-long relationships with their partners and never had an affair. Not that it is anyone’s business but that couple’s.

I don’t understand preventing couples in loving, committed relationships from enjoying the same legal rights as heterosexual couples vis-a-vis a recognised civil union. If a church wants to prevent it, fine (although I find fault with that as well). And, if the couple’s only ‘difference’ is that it is a same-sex couple, who is it hurting? Not the gay-bashing homophobes, surely. If they are concerned with examples of solid, loving and life-long relationships — e.g., preservation of ‘the family’ — why prevent two individuals who have lived together in good times and bad from publicly declaring that union and granting it the same legal protections?

I don’t get it.

Perhaps that’s why initiatives such as The Devotion Project are so incredibly important. Quoting their Facebook page, ‘The Devotion Project is a series of short documentary portraits of LGBTQ couples and families, chronicling and celebrating their commitment and love’. Couples and families.

The third video in their series, ‘Listen from the Heart‘, follows the lives of the Fitch-Jenett family. And, what a family it is. You need only listen to them to hear their devotion. Watching it and seeing the love and commitment is not only a shining example of how families should be, but should thaw the heart of even the staunchest opponent to same-sex marriage.

Simon is an incredibly lucky boy. If more children had parents as devoted to him and to one another as his are, the world would be an infinitely better place. And, many a heterosexual couple would do well to learn from their example.

Reproductive and sexual ‘freedom’….?

by in Human Rights, Sexual & Reproductive Health & Rights (SRHR), women and tagged , , | Leave a comment

Alice Walker's book, The Temple of My Familiar, is one of the most moving fictionalised accounts of FGM.

It must have been 1992 or so when I first heard about the practice known as ‘female genital mutilation’, or simply, FGM. Sadly, it was not through a text or lecture on practices in a faraway land, but as a part of a public health debate in the greater Atlanta area.

The case was particularly troubling not merely because of the desire of a parent to have their young girl undergo a particularly severe form of the painful practice, but because it was being driven by the young girl’s mother. This was a fierce slap across the face to my young feminist leanings.

For those unfamiliar with the practice, the roughly 100 to 140 million girls and women who have been subjected to FGM have received no health benefit of any kind from the practice. It involves the partial or complete removal of the external female genitalia, and may result in severe bleeding, problems urinating, and potentially complications during childbirth. In its worst incarnation, known as ‘infibulation’, the vaginal opening is narrowed to such an extent that it needs to be cut open later to allow for sexual intercourse and/or childbirth’. Sexual pleasure is unsurprisingly limited if not altogether impossible for those who have been ‘circumcised’.

FGM is internationally recognised as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. While it is largely carried out in developing countries, it is not uncommon in the United States.

What’s more troubling is that it is becoming more common.

The practice in the US and in the UK is known as ‘clitoroplasty’. The procedure is increasingly on girls, young women and women when  the clitoris is deemed ‘too large’ or ‘unattractive’. For more on  the practice in the UK, try to find a programme entitled, ‘The Perfect Vagina‘.

Part of the concern and outrage surrounding FGM in general is that it is not merely the physical harm that are worrying, but also the psycho-social damage which lasts far beyond the physical wounds that make it so reprehensible. How then can we not be outraged by a physician at Cornell University in New York who takes that harm to an altogether different level?

Tell me, why is this a medically ‘necessary’ procedure? Who decides that a young girl, one who has not even enjoyed that right of passage known as puberty, has ‘abnormal’ genitals? And, by determining that a particular girl’s genitalia are ‘unattractive’ or ‘abnormal’, are we not then causing the very psychological harm we condemn for more ‘traditional’ brands of FGM? Finally, what sort of harm comes from ‘testing’ the ‘success’ of the procedure by using stimulators such as vibrators on girls as young as 6?!

And, how then can we ever attempt to advocate for reproductive rights or sexual freedom beyond our own borders ever again?