There will soon be a new edition of the Standards of Care book providing information for medical personnel on how best to serve members of this community. It will be an entirely new chapter and the first providing information about voluntary eunuchs. A small committee has been working on the eunuch chapter, but at a presentation on the state of the current draft at a conference in Buenos Aires this week, there was some push-back to our use of the word “EUNUCH.” In the minds of the medical personnel present, there are too many stereotypes and too much misinformation about eunuchs for them to feel comfortable with our use of the word. I’d like to open it up to discussion about possible other words that might be used. Or, is “eunuch” the best term in English?

The current handbook is available in 12 languages and the new edition will probably be translated into about that many languages for world-wide use. Suggested words in languages other than English would also be appreciated.

The only other possible English word I can think of is "castrate." But I agree that "eunuch" is the best term in English. My endocrinologist was quick to note down "Eunuchism" on my health records when I saw her, even though I never brought up the word myself. What exactly are the stereotypes the medical personnel mentioned, and what does the draft say?

Yes, words are important. How people are described has more than a little to do with how they act and are treated.

I believe medical people speak of orchiectomy, rather than castration; perhaps we more usually use castration for animals. But we seem to lack a word for the the castrated human, something like bullock, wether, steer, capon. I would not like the experts to "borrow" an animal word for us.

So, it seems that as we do not speak of a eunuch sheep, rooster, etc., the word is ours, complete with its literary and social baggage. Ancient texts used the term "eunuch" respectably and it seems intentionally. It has been said that "Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all." (1)

Other languages? I believe Chinese uses 宦官 huàn ɡuān (noun), 太监 tàijiàn (noun), 奄 Yǎn (noun). Visiting an exhibition in Beijing I heard a guide use 宦官, for Qing palace eunuchs, which a moment later he rendered in English as "palace officials". No, I do not want to be confused with a government administrator!

Yes, "eunuch" is clear, short, established. The rest does nothing but confuse, -and perhaps amuse.

(1) WSC

(1) wsc ???????????????

I think some of us men don t mind and actually enjoy having animal terms applied to us. Since we do share a brotherhood of being males and having very similar balls among so many animals, I think its very fitting and a compliment to be labeled along with various animals that are intact or castrated. Lots of us played sports under different animal team names which were taken as compliments and the admired features of the team s animal name or mascots.

Gelding, ox, steer, emasculated, eunuch, castrated, castrato, neutered, unmanned, de sexed, and endless similar terms can be applied to men who are castrated or who have damaged, or non functioning testicles. But all of them usually do have baggage in some people s minds or fail to apply to virile men on testosterone replacement and various other complications. Maybe similar terms in other languages don t have as much negative baggage and past history for english speaking people as our own terms do ?

The term castration is pretty similar in most western languages with minor changes to them.

It is a real brain teaser to think of what label or term best applies to the various degrees of castration and remaining sexual interest and abilities or lack of them in this diverse group of males and ex males.

A complicated subject in that each word has it's own associations. I tend to associate the word eunuch with harems and the men and boys castrated to serve the women there. My girlfriend refers to me either as her personal eunuch since I look after some of her sexual needs or as her gelding or gelded colt, a former stallion deprived of his testicles and masculinity and now compliant and obedient. My doctor tends to use the rather neutral term castrate.

Medical people typically use different words. Despite eunuch is quite ok word, it is too loaded with other meanings. Plus stereotypes. I can think of "neutered male" if female had her ovaries removed she would become a "neutered female". Very neutral word I think.

I think this definitely an area where we don't have the right words. When I was a new eunuch and had no interest in a physical relationship neuter or desexed would have been fairly accurate. Now that I'm sexually active neither of those terms sounds right. Am I deballed, nutted, unmanned, cut, emasculated, yes to all of them but not terms I would normally use. Gelding to me implies submissive which I'm not, castrate sounds medical so for want of anything better I usually refer to myself as a feminized eunuch. Other people tend to see me as a castrated tgirl but strictly speaking I'm not psychologically feminine enough for that. So all in all a very complicated subject and for many of us there probably isn't an exact expression.

(1) wsc ???????????????

Winston Spencer Churchill, I'm guessing...

I think as far as the general population is concerned, words like castrate, castration and gelding all have connotations of violence and/or non-consent.

Eunuch is not a very elegant word, nor is it easy to pronounce without guidance (when he was a child, my b-i-l asked "What's an 'err-nooch'?"), but as D-O says it is very specific to human males and refers to a state of being, rather than the process of getting there.

Medical terms elide the violent connotations as no-one (presumably) wants to be subject to a surgical procedure which is otherwise associated with abuse, retribution or punishment.

It's curious that languages have words specifically to describe the removal of the testicles/genitalia, with no equivalents (I'll stand corrected) for other extremities...

I've been thinking about this since the thread was started by @Jesus. Although I don't have the exact word that would be better, my mind keeps coming back to the concept of a retronym:

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The Google Machine defines retronym as:

ret·ro·nym

/ˈretrōnim/

noun

a new term created from an existing word in order to distinguish it from the meaning that has emerged through progress or technological development (e.g., cloth diaper is a retronym necessitated by the fact that diaper now more commonly refers to a disposable diaper).

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Other examples of retronyms include:

"land line", before cell phones, land lines were just called phones --

"regular coffee", before decaf, regular coffee was just called coffee --

"tap water", before bottled water, tap water was just called water --

manual typewriter", before electric typewriters and word processors manual typewriters were just called typewriters --

"plain m&m's", before peanut and other varieties of m&m's, plain m&m's were just called m&m's. --

"hard wired", before WiFi, Bluetooth and other wireless connections all computer and AV components connected together and there was no need to distinguish a wireless connection from a hard wired connection.

"naked", (this maybe one of the oldest retronyms), before clothes there was no need to describe a state of not wearing clothes.

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So, when it comes to castrated men and needing a standard name, perhaps the answer is a retronym for men who are not castrated?

Medical Doctors have already used a retronym in a very similar situation to solve the problem.

Before there was circumcision all men's penises were just penises. As soon as the first circumcision was preformed a retronym came into the vocabulary to describe the older state of being and the word "uncircumcised" was created. Even though many men use the word "intact" to describe a man who was not circumcised, the medical community uses "uncircumcised".

The word "remarkable" has a meaning in medicine. It means something should be noted. If a test shows nothing out of the ordinary it's considered unremarkable.

If a patient is examined in the United States and is not circumcised, that is remarkable in his chart as being "uncircumcised". Compare that to the appendix. If a patient still has his appendix, doctors don't make a remark in the chart that the patient is "unappendectomied".

So, maybe the answer to @Jesus 's OP is to find a retronym that describes a man whose testicles have not been removed?