byjoveimbeinghumble:

UNESCO has a thesaurus – a collection of terms that are not only defined, but labeled as preferred or non-preferred terms. (Psychoses, for example, is UNESCO’s preferred term for schizophrenia.)

I don’t know when because I can’t find supporting documentation, but at some point, UNESCO designated female circumcision and genital mutilation as non-preferred terms. The preferred term is excision, a word that struck me as remarkably and suspiciously sanitized. Why would you want to verbally soften and obscure the act of genital mutilation?

http://vocabularies.unesco.org/browser/thesaurus/en/search?clang=en&q=Excision

: thesaurus: Excision