'Bonus Hole' Trends On Twitter After Anti-trans Posters Find It In Cervical Cancer Charity's Glossary For Trans Sexual Health Care

Many Twitter users awoke this morning to find the term "Bonus Hole" trending on the website, introducing them to a supposed slang term for a trans man's vagina.

The budding controversy stemmed from the discovery of the glossary on the cervical cancer charity site Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust. On a page there titled, "Language to use when supporting trans men and/or non-binary people," which claims to have been written in partnership with the LGBT Foundation, the terms "Bonus Hole" as well as "Front Hole" are offered as ways to refer to a trans man's vagina without contributing to gender dysphoria.

The discovery was posted to Twitter by user Leo Kearse, who disparaged the term with the quip, "Everyone sure is worried about offending trans people but don't give a bonus hole about offending women, do they?"

From there, multiple commenters, many of them cis women, voiced outrage over the term. The controversy also prompted some reactionary op-ed pieces in the media.

While the term's use in the charity's glossary was evidently many people's first exposure to the phrase "bonus hole," it has seen some use online — though often not in a medical context.

The Sexual Health Alliance includes "front hole" among a list of humorous portmanteaus for trans genitalia, such as "gock" and "bussy." A brief (and NSFW) search for the term "bonus hole" on Twitter will find it usually used in the context of jokes, thirst traps and pornographic clips, suggesting it's not a medical term but rather playful slang.

That being said, contrary to some of the histrionic reactions to the term's appearance in the charity's glossary, the page is not outright demanding doctors or anyone else to refer to vaginas (whether they belong to trans men or cis women) as "bonus holes," but instead presents it as a term that may come up in the context of trans men's sexual health care.

The term's definition on the glossary page adds, "It is important to check which words someone would prefer to use." This echoes what the Sexual Health Alliance says on its page about various slang terms for genitalia: "The best way to know which words a partner or potential partner is comfortable using is to ask them!"