Better terms than "female/male" pelvis, suggestions wanted!

[sonia]

I was kindly notified (feel free to let me know in comments if you want to be named) that in my article Change the Rules, Inhabit Your Pelvis, referring to female and male pelvises is cissexist.

I want to change the article to be more correct/welcoming, and I'm looking for suggestions for better phrasing. "People with uteruses" probably correlates fairly well with wide pelvises, but seems indirect to me. "Assigned female" has the benefit of being compact, but is not entirely accurate. "Child-bearing" pelvis? What would I pair that with?

I welcome google search suggestions - I haven't come up with useful search terms yet. I imagine that trans-aware anatomists have come up with acceptable terminology, but I don't know how to find out what that is. What's a good way to say "anatomically female," or "female-bodied," or ....?

ETA: I changed female to cis female, and added a bit of text about "your pelvis may be wider or narrower than you expect." I thought about eliding gender altogether, but that felt like silently going along with cis male being the default everyone learns about.

Comments

[elainegrey]

I may miss things from my cisgenered perspective, but i question why male and female are relevant. Why even bring it up? I'm not likely to have spent time finding any other person's SI joints or sit bones, so the comparison isn't going to help me located it. Making comments about male and female bodies implies we should be thinking of a comparison at the time. From my cisgendered perspective, i'd rather not be put in the frame of asking "is mine more like a male or female,"

I mean, if we were exploring our arms, would it be in anyway theraputic to point out that male arms generally are more muscular? If i'm male identified with stick arms, you're reminding me i deviate from what is expected for male. If i'm a muscular female, it might trigger memories of being made fun of.

It seems that theres a residual from instructing other body therapists (who need to be aware of the diversity of body arrangements) that isn't necessary for an individual in getting in touch with their own bits.

[sonia]

Good point. I hear that it's not helpful for you to compare "male" vs. "female" characteristics. I definitely want to add something about a spectrum of pelvic shapes to the article.

Where I was coming from is that "male" (sticking with that until I get something better) pelvises are generally pictured as the default and not even labeled as such. "Female" pelvises are structured quite differently to allow a baby through, so those of us that have them need clear differentiation to picture how our own bones are structured.

It's similar to how we discuss vagina vs. penis. Yes there's a spectrum from one to the other, but we need terms for both ends of the spectrum as well. If it's not correct to say "male" genitals and "female" genitals, what do people say?

I'm thinking wide/narrow might solve my immediate terminology problem, and I think there's a more general issue of how to discuss sex-linked anatomical variation in an inclusive way.

(I'm sitting with all this and am aware that I might be defending a cissexist stance. I am open to learning more and changing my position.)

[elainegrey]

I don't know how to solve the language issue with the pictures. I noticed and as a body that is usually left out of the depictions of "normal" appreciated the female "normal" being depicted. I don't know how to do the more general instruction around the range and the general steretypical male and female body structures with out making comments about sterotypes - but that's what one is doing in that case, isn't it? Presenting stereotypes?

[tim]

FWIW, it was me who sent the feedback to sonia, and I did so in a friendly way because I know Sonia well enough to know that she would receive the feedback in this way.

Personally, I'm not always so nice, and have lots of experiences where I can reasonably predict the feedback *won't* be received well and thus call somebody out in public because the feedback is really for onlookers and not for them :)

[tim]

Sorry, I did misunderstand your comment. It sounds like you have a lot of education that you need to seek out for yourself, and I can't do that for you.

Some places to start, though:

http://amydentata.com/2012/08/02/from-bite-an-introduction-for-biological-womenwarning-for-non-biological-women/ (it's funny, read this one first)

http://skepchick.org/2011/12/bilaterally-gynandromorphic-chickens-and-why-im-not-scientifically-male/
http://intersexroadshow.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/phalloclitoris-anatomy-and-ideology.html
http://genderbitch.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/male-female-broken-language/
http://eateroftrees.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/sex-is-also-a-social-construct/
http://unpitchable.tumblr.com/post//language-tips-for-cis-feminists-speaking-on-trans
http://www.autostraddle.com/its-time-for-people-to-stop-using-the-social-construct-of-biological-sex-to-defend-their-transmisogyny-240284/
http://transstingray.wordpress.com/annettas-trans-101/
http://kaberett.dreamwidth.org/102050.html

The thing that bothers me so much about misconceptions of the kind that you're expressing here is that they're not just anti-trans. They're anti-intellectual and anti-science.