A Story of Women

[Trigger warning.]

This is a story about the complexity of womanhood. It's a story about girls who are mutilated by women (so they won't be hurt in other ways by men), and about the women those mutilated girls grow up to be, about a woman who wanted to help them, who reached out to surgeons who would share her will to help, about the woman who was first to respond, about daughters and mothers, and cis women and the trans woman whose belief that healthcare and sexuality are rights moved her to volunteer, and about what it means for women to be allies to each other.

I won't even excerpt the story. Just go read the whole thing (if you can; strong trigger warning applies).

There is an associated video, which I have transcribed below.

In Shakesville's history, I've only ever emailed one person to request an interview after seeing her profiled in a documentary or news show (I can't remember which, now), because I felt her views om the intersection of gender, sexuality, and healthcare, were so compellingly and beautifully expressed that I wanted to share them with the Shakers. That was probably four years ago, and this was still a teensy wee blog and I was just some random blogger, and my email was (understandably) never returned. That person was Dr. Marci Bowers, and I admire her still.

Title card: Newsweek.

Carol Commetto, Staff, The Morning After Recovery House: We're in Trinidad, Colorado. Old mining town, old railroad town. Just wonderful, caring people that live here. We've always been known as the sex change capital of the world. We're at The Morning After—it's a guest house for Dr. Bowers' patients.

Dr. Marci Bowers, Surgeon, Trinidad Reproductive Healthcare: This is a place of love, I think, and recovery.

Dr. Brigitte Boisselier, CEO, Clitoraid: So, we have been contacting lots of different surgeons, eh, in the United States, in Canada and Europe, and—and the first one to say, "Yes, I want to help; tell me more!" was Dr. Bowers.

Bowers: I think healthcare is a right, and sexuality is a right. …So we've gotten already patients from Mauritania, from Mali, as our patient today was from, Nigeria, and Kenya.

Boisselier: What's happening actually, eh, in lots of countries, in Africa, what they do, they remove, um, the clitoris, and this—actually not the full clitoris; they remove the tip of the clitoris. There are several levels of, of mutilation. Sometimes they just cut it, sometimes they also cut the lips around, sometimes they will sew the lips together—it's like, eh, they have several degrees of pain, and, eh, and barbaric behavior. The reasons why they are doing it in Africa obviously is for tradition, and where does that tradition come from? It come from—it's really because men wanted to make sure that women won't have pleasure with anyone else but them. [edit] Women are the one who are doing that tradition, who are perpetrating that tradition. They are not—it's not done by men. It's done by women to women.

Bowers: If women knew that this is something that can be reversed, uh, I think the demand for it would be enormous.

Boisselier: They have such low self-esteem, and so much pain. When they describe having sex with their, their partners, it, it's like—I, I just can't, can't accept that anymore. So we decided just, let's go; let's build the hospital; let's make people aware that it's possible to repair, and do it for free. That's, that's the goal of Clitoraid.

Bowers: I'm very sympathetic to the cause, and I think it's an important cause globally, and I like to take, um, the causes of, of underdogs. I went through a transgender process in the mid-1990s, while working as a male physician, and, um, I became a, a woman, went, went through a transition.

Boisselier: I'm so grateful to team with Dr. Bowers, yeah. [edit] I wish I had the camera just to, to, to show the transformation in all of them, all of them who have been repaired.

Bowers [talking about a patient she is shown hugging onscreen]: She came for the circumcision reversal, uh, spent the morning in the hospital, and then was released, brought by our staff over to the guest house here.

Boisselier: There will be one more woman on this planet who can say that I am whole again.