A charity has received backlash from women for proposing the use of ‘the bonus hole’ instead of ‘vagina’ to accommodate non-binary or trans men.
Women’s rights advocates strongly criticized this suggested terminology, describing it as both misogynistic and dehumanizing.
The term ‘the bonus hole’ was included on a web page provided by Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust, specifically designed for healthcare professionals who treat patients with cervical cancer.
The charity clarified that their intention was not to encourage all women to use the term ‘the bonus hole’. Instead, they stressed the importance of inclusive language to effectively engage with transgender men and non-binary individuals.
However, the term ‘the bonus hole’ or ‘front hole’, which the organization claims to have developed in collaboration with expert organizations working with the LGBT community, received significant criticism.
According to Conservatives for Women founder, Caroline Ffiske, “The gender movement seems actively to want to encourage body disassociation and hatred, in other words, to actively create more confused young people alienated from their own physicality and their own sex.”
“What better way than to use this utterly dehumanising language about our own bodies?” she said. “To my mind it is grooming: create the unease, the disassociation, the alienation, and then when you have done that, you step in with euphoric rhetoric about ‘trans joy.”
Ffiske added, “Fill the void you have created. Of course those doing this will not be around to pick up the pieces when young bodies are irreversibly damaged and young lives destroyed. Is there a mechanism whereby these charities promoting harm could be struck off?”
The terminology highlights the potential for individuals to feel hurt or distressed if incorrect terms are used to describe them.
According to Kellie-Jay Keen, the founder of Standing for Women, parts of the terminology described is “an erasure of female language.”
“If a woman is so triggered by the word vagina I should imagine she need serious psychiatric help rather than the world bend to her never ending list of irrational demands” Keen explained. “You would think that charities focused on cervical cancer would have better things to do than erase female language. Still it’s better than the Canadian cervical charity who devoted a whole section for men with cervical cancer.”
A spokesperson for the Trust said in a statement: “We are aware that some of our online information is currently attracting significant attention. The information being shared is from a web page written for health professionals to support trans men and / or non-binary patients with a cervix to attend cervical screening.
‘The page includes a glossary of terms they may hear from their patients and was developed with expert organisations who work with the LGBT community.
‘The page is not promoting the use of these phrases with all women, it is a list of phrases that nurses may hear some patients prefer.
‘Our mission at Jo’s is to prevent as many cervical cancers as possible, and a big part of that is increasing uptake of cervical screening.
‘Women are our main audience at Jo’s, however some trans men and / or non-binary people have cervixes and to reduce as many cervical cancers as possible it is important that we also provide information for this group and the health professionals who support them.”
