On "It happened to me: I was born without a vagina hole" by Anonymous in xoJane

by David Balashinsky

I recently came across the following essay in xoJane: It Happened to Me: I Was Born Without a Vagina Hole," by Anonymous.  In this essay, the author recounts the signal events in her youth related to her having been born apparently with the congenital deformity known as microperforate hymen.  As frivolously as the author seems to treat this subject (only one of the maddening and grating aspects of Anonymous's writing is her insistence on using the jarring and vulgar vagina hole throughout her essay; surely vaginal introitus is one the few examples we have of an anatomical term for a part of the genitalia that is infinitely more graceful, more mellifluous and downright more appealing than the layman's vagina hole), it is nonetheless moving to read the author's account, first, of her discovery that she was born with a preternaturally small vaginal introitus and, subsequently, of her eventual efforts to seek a surgical remedy for it. Because she was a minor, Anonymous had to persuade her mother to allow her to have the surgery, a campaign that, evidently, was hard won.   Happily, Anonymous prevailed.  As she reports with ironical understatement, "Eventually . . . I was granted the rights to my very own vagina hole."

This last clause underscores an important point: every human being is born with the right to ownership and control of her or his own body.  It should go without saying that the physical boundaries of one's body - its external limits - are analogous to a political border or a property line.  Our bodies declare to the world, "no trespassing."  Without the right to be secure in one's own physical person, the individual is denied full personhood.  An exception to this principle ought not to be made for our genitalia.  As with the rest of our bodies, private parts are private property.  They don't belong to the state and they don't belong to one's parents.

But Anonymous's essay illustrates another important point, as well.  Namely, that the right of bodily self-ownership goes beyond the right to be left alone.  It includes the right to control one's body.  It necessarily follows that this includes the right to alter one's body as one sees fit.  That is why, from an ethical standpoint, I believe that it would have been wrong to deny this young woman the corrective genital surgery that she sought.   

Because we experience self-awareness, our bodies have meaning for us.  That is no less true and maybe even more true of our genitalia.  Hence, it is not merely the rights to protect and to alter one's genitalia that are fundamental but the right to value and to determine for oneself the significance of one's genitalia that is also fundamental.  This, too, is an essential part of personshood.  That is why it is especially demeaning when opponents of genital rights dismiss the significance of the prepuce by saying "it's just skin," as though the person whose skin it is (even if it were "just skin") had no valid claim to value it and has no valid claim to resent its involuntary removal or to mourn its loss.  To impose one's own judgment on the significance to another person of a part of that other person's body that has been stolen from him is demeaning: an affront to that person's dignity.  This principle is well illustrated by Anonymous's narrative.  Why else would she have written about her experience if her genitalia were not an integral part of her self-concept as a human being with free will?  Why did she compile a list of reasons why she needed the surgery?  Without knowing all of the specific reasons on that list, it is nonetheless evident from this essay that Anonymous attached a meaning and a value to the structure and configuration of her genitalia.  Moreover, that the shape, structure, and function of her genitalia were very important - intrinsic, even - to her ability to live her life as she wanted to live it.  And that is why this young woman sought to exercise control over her vagina.  It was not merely because of the importance of its structure to its physiological function but because the importance to Anonymous of the structure of her vaginal introitus transcended mere function.  Not having the opportunities available only to someone with a fully functional (which is to say, complete) genitalia prevented this young woman from fully experiencing her sexuality.  And because one's sexuality is central to one's sense of personhood, to deprive this young woman of the right to control her genitalia through the corrective surgery that she sought would be to deprive her of an essential part of her personhood.

That is why intactivists fight for the right of boys, girls, and intersex children to determine for themselves what parts of their bodies they get to keep.  That is why non-consensual genital surgery is a human-rights violation: not only because it violates the sanctity of one's personal borders, and not only because it deprives the victim of the functional use of the part that has been stolen, but because it deprives him of the right to experience his full sexuality and so deprives him of his right to full personhood.

About me: I am originally from New York City and now live near the Finger Lakes region of New York.  I am a licensed physical therapist and I write about bodily autonomy and human rights, gender, culture, and politics.  I currently serve on the board of directors for the Genital Autonomy Legal Defense & Education Fund, (GALDEF), the board of directors and advisors for Doctors Opposing Circumcision and the leadership team for Bruchim.

For Whose Benefit? (An Open Letter to Karen Remley, Executive Director and CEO of the American Academy of Pediatrics)

by David Balashinsky

Dear Dr. Remley;

Recently, your organization, the AAP, published a revised policy statement regarding procedural pain in neonates.  The very first recommendation, as it appears in the Abstract section of the new policy statement (AAP Gateway, Pediatrics; February 2016, Volume 137 / Issue 2) is that "The prevention of pain in neonates should be the goal of all pediatricians and health care professionals who work with neonates. . . ."  In the Background section, the revised policy also states, in part, "The prevention and alleviation of pain in neonates . . . is important not only because it is ethical but also because exposure to repeated painful stimuli early in life is known to have short- and long-term adverse sequelae."  Your policy also states (again, returning to the Abstract): "every health care facility caring for neonates should implement . . . a pain-prevention program that includes strategies for minimizing the number of painful procedures performed. . . ."  

I take it as axiomatic that the starting point for "preventing or minimizing pain" is avoiding unnecessary pain in the first place.  That being the case, I am curious to know how the AAP reconciles these humane and common-sense recommendations with its continued support for  nontherapeutic infant circumcision.

Nontherapeutic infant circumcision, which is still routinely practiced in the United States, in contrast to most of the developed world, and which is overwhelmingly practiced here for reasons of custom or cosmesis, is a medically unnecessary surgery that violates the four most basic and important principles of medical ethics.  First, not to do harm.  Second, not to provide a treatment in the absence of a medical problem (such as a disease or harmful congenital deformity). Third, to opt for the least invasive or aggressive treatment available when there is a disease or other medical problem.  And, fourth, to obtain consent from the patient before rendering care unless the patient is incapable of providing consent and the treatment is required urgently to save life or limb. Nontherapeutic infant circumcision violates every one of these principles.  Every one of the "health benefits" on the basis of which  infant circumcision is rationalized can be achieved through the use of non-painful and non-invasive means, such as the practice  of basic hygiene, the administration of the HPV vaccine, the use of a condom in order to prevent the spread of STIs, or the use of antibiotics or other non-painful and minimally invasive treatments when a pathological condition, such as a UTI for example, does occur - in other words, exactly the same prophylactic and remedial approach to genitourinary health as is employed with girls.   Even something as simple as not smoking has been proven to have a greater effect upon reducing a man's chances of developing penile cancer than circumcision has.  

Above and beyond all this, circumcision causes extreme pain and distress to the neonate who is subjected to it.  For generations, circumcision was routinely performed without any pain-relief whatsoever in the absurd belief that infants are incapable of experiencing pain.  Today, with over one million circumcisions still performed annually in the United States, the application of adequate or even any pain relief is by no means universal nor is it mandated by law.  By some estimates, even now, only 25% of children who are subjected to circumcision receive adequate anesthesia.

The AAP concedes that "existing scientific evidence is not sufficient to recommend routine circumcision."  And yet, lacking sufficient evidence-based medical justification for nontherapeutic circumcision, the position of the AAP, as articulated in its most recent policy statement (2012) is that "the final decision should still be left to parents to make in the context of their religious, ethical and cultural beliefs."  Why does the AAP, an organization of medical professionals that professes to be "dedicated to the health, safety, and well being of infants," continue to defend a painful and medically unnecessary surgery on the basis of "religious, ethical, and cultural beliefs"?   How is subjecting male infants to circumcision for cultural or religious reasons ethically any different from subjecting girls to "female circumcision," which is also performed for cultural and religious reasons?  Defenders of infant male circumcision in the United States are quick to claim that male genital cutting and female genital cutting are fundamentally dissimilar - but isn't this just a form of cultural arrogance?   It amounts to claiming "It's okay when we do it."  But it is merely the distorting lens of one's own cultural context that makes these two practices appear to be fundamentally different.  In a culture in which male circumcision has been normalized but female circumcision has not, the two practices are simply judged by different yardsticks.  Yet there is no rational scientific or medical basis for hypothesizing and studying the potential health benefits of surgical modification to male genitalia while denying a priori any comparable health benefits of surgical modification to female genitalia.  

This raises an important question:  If studies were to suggest that the "benefits" of female genital cutting outweigh the "risks," would the AAP likewise endorse "access to this procedure for families who choose it" (to use the AAP's parlance)?  That is not a far-fetched hypothetical question.  In Egypt, where female genital cutting remains common, its defenders include physicians who claim, just as the AAP does on behalf of male circumcision, that female circumcision is medically justified.  It is probably not a coincidence that female circumcision is now, in the 21st century, increasingly becoming "medicalized" (that is, performed in hospitals under aseptic conditions and justified on medical grounds) just as male circumcision became medicalized in Great Britain and North America in the 19th and 20th centuries and is now becoming medicalized in Africa. (Indeed, one might reasonably speculate that the defenders of female circumcision have now taken a page from the AAP's book.)   Nor is it a coincidence that the "benefits" of female circumcision closely parallel the myriad claims that are routinely made in defense of male circumcision, including "improved aesthetics and hygiene."  The inescapable conclusion of all this is that the AAP endorses what is essentially a cultural practice that harms infants and causes them excruciating pain needlessly even as it acknowledges that there is insufficient medical evidence to support routine infant circumcision (RIC) and even though, as the AAP now acknowledges in its latest policy statement on neonatal pain management, "there are significant research gaps regarding the assessment, management, and outcomes of neonatal pain; and there is a continuing need for studies evaluating the effects of neonatal pain and pain-prevention strategies on long-term neurodevelopmental, behavioral, and cognitive outcomes."

As controversial as nontherapeutic circumcision is, there remains one fact about it that is not in dispute that, to my knowledge, the AAP has never addressed.  This is that no infant ever consents to his own circumcision.  Consider again the AAP's position statement that "the procedure's benefits justify access to this procedure for families who choose it."  But, of course, it is not "families" who choose circumcision but parents.  The individual himself  - the one who is actually being circumcised and, therefore, the only person whose opinion should actually matter - has no say at all.  But by what right of parental authority is it ethical or appropriate for a parent to order the medically unnecessary amputation of a part of his or her child's body?  And by what principle of medical ethics does the AAP endorse such a parental prerogative?  Throughout the AAP's deliberations regarding its official stance on circumcision, how much weight was given to the right of the individual himself not to have part of his penis amputated without his consent?  Where is the AAP's recognition that every human being is born with an innate and inviolable right to ownership and control of his own body?   Infants, after all, do not remain infants forever. Circumcision, on the other hand, is permanent.  (And, of course, there is absolutely nothing to prevent an intact adult male from choosing for himself  to undergo a circumcision once he is old enough to weigh for himself the costs and potential benefits of circumcision.)  Where is there any acknowledgement by the AAP that the man the circumcised infant will one day become may object to having had a functional and erogenous part of his penis amputated on the basis of nothing more substantial than an amalgamation of superstitions, cultural norms, religious beliefs, specious and, at best, tenuous medical justifications?  Was there ever even a passing consideration by the AAP's task force on circumcision that that man may prefer to have experienced life with his body whole and his penis intact?   The AAP equivocates about the "risks" of circumcision (while conceding that no one actually knows for certain what those risks are) yet refuses to acknowledge even now that circumcision is a harm in and of itself.   If the AAP's refusal to recognize this fact is predicated on its dismissal of the functions and importance of the male prepuce, including its role in sexual sensation for both male and female and its functional role during coitus, it is predicated even more fundamentally on the AAP's apparent disdain for the right of the individual to decide for himself which parts of his body are important to him -  and to decide for himself which parts of his body he gets to keep and which parts get cut off. 

It's time for the AAP to live up to the lofty ideals of its professed mission "to attain optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents and young adults."  The AAP has an ethical duty to protect children; that ethical duty is incumbent upon each of its members, as well.  That duty includes refraining from subjecting neonates to painful and unnecessary surgeries, especially a surgery that results in the permanent loss of a functional and sensitive body part that every neonate, every infant, every child, every adolescent, and every man has a right to retain for as long as he, himself, chooses to keep it.  Revising its policy on circumcision so as to bring it into conformity with the AAP's recent policy statement on neonatal pain-prevention (to say nothing of bringing it into conformity with the principles of medical ethics and into conformity with a basic respect for infants' and men's fundamental human right to physical integrity) would instantly bring the AAP a long way toward realizing its stated goal of "preventing or minimizing pain in neonates."

Update (June 10, 2025):  In 2018, Dr. Remley left the AAP to become a Senior Fellow at the de Beaumont Foundation.  Subsequently, she was a Senior Advisor to the Office of the Commissioner at the Virginia Department of Health and, most recently, beginning in 2020, she was the Director of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (and, just as a reminder, Dr. Remley, the male prepuce is not a birth defect).  In March of this year, Dr. Remley was one of five senior leaders who resigned their posts at the CDC.  This followed the resignations of several other top CDC officials in the wake of the Trump administration's assault on the CDC, on science and on public health.  The AAP's 2012 Circumcision Policy Statement expired in 2017.

About me: I am originally from New York City and now live near the Finger Lakes region of New York.  I am a licensed physical therapist and I write about bodily autonomy and human rights, gender, culture, and politics.  I currently serve on the board of directors for the Genital Autonomy Legal Defense & Education Fund, (GALDEF), the board of directors and advisors for Doctors Opposing Circumcision and the leadership team for Bruchim.

In Response to Amberlee Lovell: "Should You Circumcise Your Newborn?" {in familyshare}

by David Balashinsky

There is a maxim that one should choose one's battles. With the apparently unending stream of blog posts and articles in parenting sites and magazines on the subject of infant circumcision, one is confronted with the by-now tiresome question: Is this worth responding to? The stakes increase when one has to create a new user name and password in order to comment. Yet another online ID? Most exasperating of all is when one's comment is limited to 5,000 characters. Hence today's BalaBlog post. I am responding to a post in familyshare in which Ms. Amberlee Lovell reinvents the wheel yet again, and poses the novel question, "Should you circumcise your newborn?"

If Lovell's blog post has one virtue (and it is a dubious one, as I intend to argue), it is that it at least treats the appropriateness of circumcision as an open question. Ms. Lovell certainly seems to strive for "balance" in this superficial and disappointingly un-researched post. As much as intactivists like me are baffled that there is anything still "controversial" about the assertion that it is bad medicine and unethical to amputate an important part of a baby's penis without his consent and in the complete absence of medical necessity, the fact remains that, because we still live in a male-genital-cutting culture, forced infant circumcision remains controversial. There is no denying that. That's actually a good thing because it means that our society has moved away from near universal mute acceptance and is now well on the way toward ending this barbaric practice once and for all. We are currently in the controversy stage of that process. For that reason, I think it's unfair to come down too hard on Lovell for attempting to consider "both sides" of this controversy, just as it is unfair to criticize too harshly women who have been subjected to female genital mutilation and in turn want to impose it on their own daughters. Lovell is in and of our own male-genital-cutting culture and that, more than anything else, is what is reflected in her attempt to strike a balance in her post between the "pros" (as if there were any) and the cons of circumcision.

There comes a time, however, when ignorance can no longer be used as a defense. As numerous commenters at the site in which Lovell's post appears who arrived there before I did have pointed out, Lovell cites thoroughly discredited sources in support of forced infant circumcision which even the most rudimentary sort of journalistic research should have prompted her to dismiss. For example (and this is not the only example - not by a long shot), Lovell recycles the claim that circumcision can reduce the risk of penile cancer with nary a mention of the fact that the American Cancer Society itself has stated that "circumcision is not of value in preventing cancer of the penis" and that not smoking cigarettes would have more of an effect in reducing a man's chances of getting penile cancer than being subjected to forced genital cutting would.

For me, the ethical dimension to the question of forced genital cutting makes all other considerations irrelevant but, in the interest of taking up the gauntlet thrown down by those who obdurately attempt to justify routine infant circumcision as a medically valid procedure, I will merely point out that, as with any medical treatment, the burden of proof does not rest with those who oppose the treatment but with those who advocate it. It is highly significant, therefore, that despite hundreds of studies, even its most ardent professional supporters, the membership of the AAP (whose impartiality is highly suspect inasmuch as these physicians benefit financially from the performance of circumcision to the tune of several hundred million dollars annually) concedes that there is insufficient evidence to warrant recommending RIC. At what point does a lack of supporting evidence for the alleged efficacy of a prophylactic genital surgery cease to constitute a justification for practicing it? For the advocates of forced infant circumcision, the answer, apparently, is never.

This brings us to the crux of the matter: Are there really even two sides to this debate? At what point in a society's development and in its concomitant transition from acceptance of a cultural practice to holding that practice in universal opprobrium is it no longer socially acceptable to treat these countervailing impulses evenhandedly? At what point is it no longer acceptable to confer legitimacy upon the cultural inertia that clings to ancient customs by granting it equal status with the movement toward a more ethical society? I would like to suggest in response to Lovell's post that that time has come. As one who has not herself been subjected to genital mutilation, Lovell writes from a position, at least in that one respect, of privilege, and so she has the luxury of regarding the science and the ethics of forced infant circumcision as an "open question." For me, however, as a victim of male genital mutilation, I do not consider this an open question. Knowing what we now know about the history of circumcision, particularly in the United States - how it was promoted during the 19th century as a way to prevent boys from masturbating and as a panacea for numerous other ailments, how it metamorphosed from nineteenth-century pseudoscience into a twentieth-century cultural norm and has persisted as a cure desperately in search of a disease, and how its boosters and defenders routinely inflate its alleged benefits while completely dismissing its harms - to regard the medical validity of forced genital cutting, strictly from a scientific standpoint, as an open question is comparable to climate-change deniers' claim that "the jury is out" on whether climate change is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. It is like the claim of "scientific creationism" (or "creation science") that evolution "is only a theory" and that the Earth is really only 7,000 years old. There actually is broad scientific consensus on these questions. Circumcision is no different. That is why not a single national professional medical organization on Earth recommends RIC whereas several such organizations outside of the United States not only discourage it but have condemned RIC as a human rights violation.

There is simply no getting around the fact that RIC - or more properly, male genital mutilation (MGM) - is a medically unnecessary surgery that violates four of the most basic and important principles of medical ethics. First, not to do harm. Second, not to provide a treatment in the absence of a medical problem (such as a disease or harmful congenital deformity). Third, to opt for the least invasive or aggressive treatment available when there is a disease or other medical problem. And, fourth, to obtain consent from the patient before rendering care unless the patient is incapable of providing consent and the treatment is required urgently to save life or limb. Routine infant circumcision violates every one of these principles.

From a moral standpoint, to treat involuntary genital cutting as an open question is comparable to putting slavery up for debate and claiming that there are two sides to this question and that "people of good will can have an honest disagreement" about whether the benefits of involuntary servitude to society as a whole outweigh the harms (or "risks," to adopt the euphemistic language of forced-circumcision advocates). It is amoral and pure sophistry to cloak a human rights violation in the mantle of medical legitimacy for the purposes of academic debate. An act that is manifestly harmful and that deprives a human being of the right to control his or her own body cannot be considered in a moral vacuum. That is the essential ethical problem in which the pro-circumcision versus pro-human rights debate is entangled and thus, despite paying lip service to this fundamental question, Lovell's post ultimately fails in that it treats what is in fact an egregious human rights violation as an open question.

Lovell asks, "Should you circumcise your baby?" I ask, How many millions more males and intersex infants must have their most basic human right violated before our society universally acknowledges that every human being is born with an inalienable right not to have a body part amputated or surgically altered for reasons of custom or cosmesis in accordance merely with the predilections of that child's parents?

Update (June 9, 2025): Revisiting this post and the article to which it responds for the first time in almost ten years, I have discovered that Amberlee Lovell is now Amberlee L. Peterson and that the platform in which it originally appeared ("familyshare)" is now "familytoday." Aside from the byline and the name of the publication, I honestly cannot tell what revisions have been made to the text of the article itself, although my impression is that the position of the article has moved slightly in the direction of skepticism toward RIC and slightly away from the standard issue medical justifications. However, the article continues to contain discredited and debunked pseudoscientific claims. And, more importantly, because it continues to treat as an open and valid question whether a parent should subject her or his child to genital mutilation, my original objection to it, on ethical grounds, stands.

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About me: I am originally from New York City and now live near the Finger Lakes region of New York.  I am a licensed physical therapist and I write about bodily autonomy and human rights, gender, culture, and politics.  I currently serve on the board of directors for the Genital Autonomy Legal Defense & Education Fund, (GALDEF), the board of directors and advisors for Doctors Opposing Circumcision and the leadership team for Bruchim.

Intactivism and Feminism

by David Balashinsky

Like all social reform movements, intactivism follows logically from certain universal principles. That is one of the reasons why intactivists find it mind-boggling that our position is not shared universally. After all, how can anyone possibly disagree with the proposition that no one should have his or her genitals altered without his or her consent? Our adversaries look upon us as though we are crazy while we view them as morally inconsistent and perversely blind to their own moral inconsistency. This can only be explained by a cultural schism between the two sides in this debate. When intactivists look at male genital mutilation, we view it within a certain philosophical and moral framework that requires us to condemn it because the act itself is morally incompatible with the underlying (or overarching) moral framework. When proponents (or those who simply have never questioned whether male genital mutilation is consistent with the moral framework to which they probably already subscribe) look at genital mutilation of boys, it is not that they are not seeing what we are seeing but that they have placed forced infant male circumcision conceptually outside of the moral framework that governs most other aspects of their beliefs and conduct. It is as though male genital mutilation exists for them in another dimension beyond the purview of the principles of bodily integrity and basic human rights. Thus, intactivism has much in common with the abolitionist- and civil -rights movements. Jefferson and many other champions of "the rights of man," after all, saw no contradiction between their belief in basic human rights and slavery because enslaved Africans existed for them conceptually outside of the moral framework of those rights. Similarly, advocates and acceptors of MGM place male genital mutilation conceptually beyond the scope of rights and principles that they take for granted in all other respects.

That is why, when the abolitionist movement was gathering steam in the U.S. during the nineteenth century, the notion of human rights was not new but it took a cultural shift to expand the definition of "human" to include enslaved Blacks. The fact that the U.S. constitution was written by freedom-loving men, many of whom, like Jefferson, were at the same time slave-owners, represents a moral inconsistency in the foundation of our republic that could not even begin to be rectified until the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation and ratification of the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments. (Indeed, the legacy of this moral inconsistency - our nation's history of structural racism - to this day has not been adequately confronted.) The concept of basic human rights was not new: both the French and American revolutions were based on the Enlightenment ideas of universal human rights. What the abolitionist movement and its heir, the civil rights movement, did was merely apply the same principles universally so as to include Blacks. These movements did not invent a new concept of rights but merely demanded that diaspora Black people be brought within the fold of humanity and within the ambit of those rights so that those rights might at last be applied universally to all humans and not just to White property-owning men.

The suffragist-feminist movement had similar origins and has had a similar history. When the revolutionary minds of the European Enlightenment and behind the French and American revolutions conceived of the inalienable "rights of man," what they really meant was the rights of white, property-owning men. And just as the abolitionist- and civil-rights movements expanded the compass of "human rights" to include humans who were not white, so the suffragist-feminist movement expanded the compass of human rights to include humans who are not male.

Intactivism owes much to the civil rights movement and to feminism. It is their natural heir and ally. The concept of bodily integrity and autonomy - the right not to have one's genitals altered without one's consent - is not a new idea. But, like our civil-rights- and feminist predecessors, it is our job to bring infant male and intersex genital integrity within the ambit of rights that are already accepted by most people as axiomatic.

The question arises from time to time to what extent feminism and intactivism share a common moral foundation and to what extent they are in conflict with one another. This question arises mainly, and regrettably, because there is a strand of anti-feminist thought and polemics that runs through the larger tapestry of the intactivist movement. I believe, however, that the anti-feminist-pro-genital-autonomy philosophy is based not only on a misunderstanding of feminism but on a failure to recognize the fundamentally sexist and patriarchal origins of circumcision itself.

Writing as a victim of MGM, as a male feminist and as an intactivist, it is my conviction that feminism and intactivism both stand upon a single philosophical and moral foundation. Feminists and intactivists should therefore be natural allies. After all, the principles of bodily integrity and autonomy, which are at the core of the intactivist movement, are also at the core of feminism. The feminist claims on behalf of women's rights, including the right to safe and legal abortion, the right to contraception, and many other specific rights that are important to feminism, follow inevitably from the principles of bodily integrity and autonomy. Likewise, the principle of genital integrity for members of both sexes follows from these same principles.

A critical feature of feminism that is often overlooked by its critics and detractors is that feminism has always been a movement intended to liberate both sexes from their rigidly prescribed (and largely constructed) gender roles. Although patriarchal and sexist culture harms girls and women differently than it does boys and men, it harms boys and men, too, and the ways in which it does have been explicated and argued by feminist theoreticians more than by anyone else. The very concept that men should be liberated from their traditionally constructed gender roles - as breadwinner, as stoic, competitive, aggressive, violent, and unflinching in the face of pain - are feminist ideas. The claims on behalf of boys and men to be free to experience their full humanity and free to explore the full range of human emotion and experience are claims that were being made by feminist writers and theoreticians on behalf of boys and men decades ago. That, incidentally, is one of the reasons that the anti-feminist and MRA criticism of feminism as being somehow "anti-male" or pro-women's rights at the expense of men's right's is not only baseless but perversely and preposterously baseless.

Yet if intactivism is the natural heir of feminism (and of the civil rights movement more remotely), why has it not gained more traction with feminists? I think there are several possible answers to this question.

First, it must be acknowledge that some of the most eloquent champions of the cause of genital rights for males are in fact, feminists, so it is not as though intactivism has escaped their notice. Their analyses of how intactivism fits within the broader philosophical framework of feminism are readily available on the internet and I would urge the reader to follow the links provided here,  here, and here to these several good examples of feminist intactivist thought.

But secondly, and to the extent that intactivism has failed to gain more traction with feminism than feminist-intactivists such as I might wish, I suspect it is probably due to the fact that power structures are adept at pitting against one another natural allies who, were they to make common cause, would make short work of their common enemy. Thus, the 1% adroitly makes blue-collar workers resent the poor, rather than the rich; it makes white-collar, middle-management and small business owners resent civil servants, rather than corporate CEOs with their bloated compensation packages. Poor whites are encouraged to resent blacks and immigrants.

So with women, men, feminism and intactivism. Patriarchal institutions adroitly foment male resentment against women for problems that affect men. And there certainly are kernels of truth within the MRA list of grievances. But the fact remains that the vast majority of these grievances reflect problems that have been created largely by men themselves. MRAs, for example, frequently complain about how our system of laws is tilted against men and in favor of women. Yet the U.S. has proportionally less women in government than almost half of all the other nations on Earth, so it is absurd to blame women and feminism for this state of affairs. The U.S. congress, after all, is not dominated by feminists. In fact, female representation - to say nothing of feminist representation - in congress is proportionally very low. As the Daily Kos reported back in 2012, out of the world's 195 nations, "the U.S. ranks 80th on the list of the percentage of women serving at the congressional level." This same source notes, incidentally, that even Afghanistan has proportionally more women in government than the United States has.

This is exactly the state of affairs with respect to circumcision. This ancient, Abrahamic practice derives from a fundamentally patriarchal religion. That a patriarchal religion should sprout from a patriarchal culture should surprise no one. Islam - adherents of which comprise the overwhelming number of males who are circumcised around the world - likewise is a patriarchal religion and reflects the patriarchal culture in which it originated. Here in the United States, RIC was promoted during the 19th century by a medical profession that was dominated by men. Does anybody believe that the male Victorian physicians who advocated circumcision were feminists? And yet instead of looking to our patriarchal and sexist legacy as the obvious source of circumcision, MRA intactivists instead direct their wrath against feminists - the very people, in other words, who are working to dismantle the patriarchal culture that gave rise to circumcision in the first place.

Thus, feminists are not merely being kept busy fighting battles on behalf of girls and women but are contending at the same time with an unwarranted antipathy toward and a scapegoating of themselves by men which is fostered and facilitated by a pro-circumcision, anti-feminist power structure that is only too happy to see these natural allies turned into competitors and adversaries. I cannot speak as a feminist woman, of course, since I am a feminist man and my experience in the world is different, but I think I can imagine that the constant barrage of sexist attitudes and imagery - to say nothing of the anti-woman and anti-feminist invective being spewed daily by certain politicians and loudmouths in the media - might not leave women feminists particularly inspired to take up the cudgels on behalf of infant boys' genital integrity.

Another explanation for the failure of the intactivist movement to gain more traction among those who identify as feminists could be simply that the very word "feminism" has been skillfully vilified by reactionary anti-feminists. Thus, many people - of either sex - who, by inclination and principle might identify as feminists, are loath to do so because of the success that anti-feminists have had in discrediting and misrepresenting feminism. For example, I have known not a few women who eschew the label of "feminist" and buy into the whole Rush Limbaugh feminist-bashing narrative and yet, if you ask them about particular matters of concern to them as women and as mothers, their concerns and principles for the most part reflect unabashedly feminist concerns and principles. This technique of prying women away from an organized feminist movement to which their social, legal, and economic interests should naturally make them gravitate has the effect of separating them from a philosophical organizing principle that would also be more likely to lead them to embrace intactivism. That probably holds for men, too. (Indeed, in my own case, my feminism preceded my intactivism and it was the former that prepared the ground, in my own philosophical development, for the latter.) Perhaps it is because women and men in our society are discouraged from looking at patriarchal power structures critically and deconstructing them through the feminist critique of power that an unquestioning acceptance of patriarchal authority and custom is fostered. But it is precisely this - an unquestioning acceptance of authority and custom - that has created a cultural environment in which routine infant male circumcision has thrived in the U.S. for over 150 years. Routine infant male circumcision, then, is an integral part - not an aberration - of the patriarchal power structure. We need more feminism, not less, in order to end both.

Still another explanation could be the phenomenon of attributing pro-male-genital mutilation attitudes to women who may - in contrast to women who shun the label "feminist" but in fact are - profess themselves feminists but in fact are not. After all, anybody can call herself anything she wants, but that does not make her what she professes to be.

On this head, I first need to question here, parenthetically, whether such a phenomenon is not merely an updated trope of the "castrating shrew." On numerous occasions now in online threads I have come across complaints by anti-feminist intactivists that feminists are indifferent to the plight of male victims of genital mutilation, and that this belies feminists' professions in support of bodily rights and equality. And yet, in my own experience and through my own observations, such a chimera is rarely to be found. On the contrary, as noted above, feminist women are in the vanguard of the intactivist movement.

But let us, in the interest of fairness and for the sake of being thorough, allow that there may be feminists who have not yet fully absorbed the fundamentally feminist principle of genital autonomy for all sexes, including intersex. For the most part, the major flaw of those feminists who are not animated on behalf of the cause of genital rights for all is merely that they labor under the same cultural prejudice in favor of circumcision in which its "benefits" are routinely touted and its harms as well as the human rights violation in which it consists are routinely minimized or discounted altogether. But this makes feminists who are indifferent to the wrongness of circumcision certainly no worse than anyone else who is equally indifferent to it. Of course, feminists, precisely because feminism strives for full equality among all sexes and genders, set themselves up to be held to a higher standard, and so it is fitting that they should be held to a higher standard. But holding feminists to a higher standard does not mean that they should be scapegoated and alienated from our cause. It is our job, as intactivists, to reach out to them and to win them over rather than to push them away. In the internet age, where invective and ad hominem attack have largely supplanted reasoned discussion, that will take enormous patience and self discipline.

At the same time, to the extent that there is a population of self-professed feminists - however small or large this group may be - which has not yet fully absorbed the fundamentally feminist principle of genital autonomy for all, of these I can only say that either they are not true feminists or they are not fully realized feminists. Male genital mutilation goes against absolutely everything that feminism stands for. A self-professed feminist who would exclude infant boys from her conception of universal human rights, including genital integrity, is analogous to a champion of "the rights of man," such as Thomas Jefferson - to return to that worthy - who is at the same time a holder of human chattel. The fallacy is not in the theoretical framework of the rights themselves but rather in their inconsistent application. Indeed, Jefferson's error was both a moral one and one of logic. His ultimate failing, though, was not that he was a champion of human rights but simply that he was an inconsistent one. The solution to Jefferson's inconsistency would simply have been a greater and more inclusive definition of humanity, hence, a more inclusive application of human rights. Similarly, a self-professed feminist who does not recognize both a moral and logical inconsistency inherent in a simultaneous belief in feminism and acceptance of male genital mutilation is laboring under the untenable burden of supporting a feminism that is not fully realized, and inconsistently applied. Thus, with respect to feminism and intactivism, when the former fails to embrace the latter, the problem is not with feminism itself but rather with its incomplete application to all humans. The solution is more feminism - not less. Intactivists, therefore, should criticize such incompletely realized feminists not for their feminism but for their want of it.

I began by observing that the divide between the intactivist community and those across the chasm is a cultural one. It is a difference in worldview. Routine infant male circumcision will only end when we have won enough hearts and minds to effect a cultural shift. The way to get there is not by alienating and scapegoating those who ought to be and probably are our natural allies. In this respect we need to take a page from the civil-rights, feminist-, and gay-rights playbooks. The successes that these movements have had thus far did not come about by their proponents' differentiating and segregating themselves from the rest of society but precisely the opposite - by demanding entry to the club: by demanding a consistent application to themselves of principles already embraced by society broadly. And just as the civil rights movement did not seek to create something novel but merely the application of universal human rights to Blacks, and just as the feminist movement has not sought to create something novel but merely the equal application of universal human rights to females, so the intactivist movement should endeavor to call society to a better version of itself in which the principle of genital integrity is finally applied universally, protecting boys and intersex children as well as girls. In other words, we need to make unambiguously clear to those who have yet to join us that it is our side that is in possession of moral consistency and legitimacy. We need to do this, partly, because it is the right thing to do. But, more importantly, because our movement will remain consigned to the fringes if we don't.

 

 

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About me: I am originally from New York City and now live near the Finger Lakes region of New York.  I am a licensed physical therapist and I write about bodily autonomy and human rights, gender, culture, politics, and sometimes cats.  I currently serve on the board of directors for the Genital Autonomy Legal Defense & Education Fund, (GALDEF), the board of directors and advisors for Doctors Opposing Circumcision and the leadership team for Bruchim.

Some Reflections on "With a Spate of New Laws, California May Be the Most Progressive State in the Nation," by Sonali Kolhatkar in Truthdig

by David Balashinsky

From Truthdig (Oct. 15, 2015) comes this interesting review of recently enacted legislation in the state of California.

These are all great. Unfortunately, California also leads the nation in reactionary legislation when it comes to human rights and genital autonomy. To my knowledge, California is the only state in the union with a state-wide ban (signed by Governor Brown in 2011) on local ordinances that would regulate, restrict, or ban male genital mutilation (forced non-therapeutic penile circumcision). That would be like New York City banning female genital mutilation (if it weren't already banned by a federal statute) only to have the State of New York supersede the law with a statewide statute prohibiting localities from banning FGM.

Let's compare the progressive laws cited in this article with California's position regarding the right of infants with penises not to be subjected to genital mutilation.

1)Abortion and the state's crackdown on phony abortion clinics: The right to obtain a safe and legal abortion rests on the same legal and ethical foundation as the right of the individual to decide for himself what parts of his body he gets to keep.  If denying a woman the right to control her own body violates her right of bodily autonomy, how does denying a male or intersex infant the same right constitute any less a violation of his rights?

2)The Right to Die: This is closely related to abortion rights: in other words, the right of bodily autonomy. What is more central to that right than being protected from a harmful and potentially lethal genital surgery imposed upon one without his consent?

3)Equal pay: This legislation rests on the principle of treating both sexes equally. Yet female genital mutilation is illegal in California whereas male genital mutilation is not. And, as noted above, California law goes even further in facilitating the human rights violation of male genital mutilation by explicitly preventing localities within the state from protecting male and intersex infants from nonconsensual and medically unnecessary genital surgery.

4)Environmental regulations: The reason we have environmental regulations is because history as demonstrated that, without them, polluters pollute even more than they do with them.  At the same time, epidemiological research has also shown that pollution of the air, soil, and water harms human health.  Ultimately, therefore, environmental regulations exist in order to protect human health.  The focus of the recently enacted environmental regulations cited in this article is clean- and renewable energy, but the goal of renewable energy, too, is ultimately to keep our planet hospitable to human (and other) life which, on the most basic level, is a public-health policy concern.  Yet amputating a healthy body part (aside from the inherent risks of any surgery) is manifestly unhealthy for the individual subjected to the amputation. The male prepuce - like its homologous counterpart in females, the clitoral hood - has evolved over millions of years because it is functional and anatomically important. The male prepuce is the most sensitive erogenous tissue of the penis and its amputation necessarily diminishes the male's ability to experience full penile sensation as an adult. In addition, the male prepuce has many other functions, including protecting the infant from infection during early childhood (throughout which the prepuce remains fused to the glans). Thus, its removal is harmful in and of itself - just like exposing someone to air pollution or water pollution is harmful.

5)The ban on the routine use of antibiotics in animals: the rationale behind this important and overdue legislation is that the indiscriminate and routine use of antibiotics has led to the evolution of drug-resistant microorganisms which, in turn, has harmed human health. Its purpose, then, is to protect human health.  And, yet, non-therapeutic infant circumcision and "corrective" genital surgery on intersex infants also harm human health and far more seriously than drug-resistant strains of staph- or enterococcus do.

6)Legislation making undocumented children eligible for state-subsidized health insurance: This legislation is pro-child and pro-health. No child should be denied adequate health care simply because of the immigration status of her or his parents. This legislation, then, incorporates the principle that access to healthcare should not be denied on the basis of a child's legal status. But the very first principle of medicine is primum non nocere - "first, do no harm." Thus, before California subsidizes healthcare for minors, ought it not to insure that the healthcare that they receive is in accordance with medical best practices and medical ethics? Non-therapeutic penile circumcision, by definition, violates the most basic principles of healthcare. Hence, it is inconsistent for the state of California to take steps to promote childhood wellness while simultaneously permitting children with penises to be victimized by medical malpractice.

7)Voting rights: the new motor voter law advances the laudable objective of increasing citizens' participation in government and thus aims to facilitate the actual practice of democracy. And what, after all, is more directly democratic than ballot initiatives and citizen-driven referenda? And yet California has explicitly banned such referenda when it comes to protecting infant boys and intersex infants from genital cutting. Hence, this legislation, which appears to be progressive and pro-democratic on its face, amounts to the state legislature encouraging the residents of California to participate in the democratic process but not when doing so would protect male children from genital mutilation.

8)Gun control. This is simply another public health matter. Gun violence is epidemic in the U.S. and California is right to take this modest step toward curbing it. But genital mutilation is also a form of violence and it is also an epidemic, since more than one million infants are subjected to it annually in the United States.  To its credit, California is at the low end of all the states insofar as the incidence of male genital mutilation is concerned.  But while there are different degrees and kinds of violence, on some level violence is violence.  Does it make sense for the state legislature of California to treat the right not to be injured or killed by a gun differently than the right not to be injured or killed by a scalpel or other genital-mutilating implement?  After all, harm is harm, and violence is violence.  And the right not to be shot and the right not to be subjected to genital mutilation arise from the same fundamental rights, namely, to be secure in one's person and free from harm and violence.

9)Ban on the offensive term "Redskins." Bravo! But what is the term "redskins" but a reflection of a type of bigotry based on ethnicity or race? And what is the practice of male genital mutilation and the state of California's statue forestalling citizen referenda to prevent it but a state-sanctioned form of cultural bias against males and male bodies? - A bias that defines the natural penis as something innately disgusting, disease-prone, ugly, offensive, and urgently in need of surgical modification at birth.  A bias that defines males and male bodies as existing beyond the protection of constitutional rights and laws that protect only girls and women from physical harm to their genitals.

10)Medical Marijuana regulation: The author of this article construes this legislation as being significant largely insofar as it may be a precursor to the eventual decriminalization of marijuana. To the extent that it is, it advances two important principles: the ability of citizens to have access to a valid pharmacological agent in order to alleviate suffering and the more basic right of citizens to be free to use psychoactive substances recreationally without an unwarranted governmental proscription against their doing so. The relevant principles behind these laudable objectives are that health, wellness, and freedom from needless suffering are positive goods to which people have an innate right and that people should be autonomous and retain absolute ownership of their bodies, including what they do to their own bodies and what substances they put into their own bodies. But non-therapeutic circumcision violates both of these principles. It harms the individual's health and causes needless suffering while depriving him of the right of bodily autonomy.  Hence, while the California legislature is forward-looking when it comes to marijuana, it is backward-looking when it comes to non-therapeutic circumcision and its violation of the right to bodily integrity and the right to bodily autonomy.

That may be said of every one of the new statutes discussed in Truthdig's article: they reveal a moral inconsistency on the part of California's legislature. One can only hope that as the state government moves ever closer toward a full incorporation into its statutes of the principles of beneficence, wellness, democracy, and respect for human rights, the moral gravitational pull of these principles will awaken in the hearts and minds of California's legislators the recognition that male genital mutilation represents the antithesis of these principles and thus, like female genital mutilation, should be banned.

About me: I am originally from New York City and now live near the Finger Lakes region of New York.  I am a licensed physical therapist and I write about bodily autonomy and human rights, gender, culture, and politics.  I currently serve on the board of directors for the Genital Autonomy Legal Defense & Education Fund, (GALDEF), the board of directors and advisors for Doctors Opposing Circumcision and the leadership team for Bruchim.

On The Decision by the New York City Board of Health to Repeal the Metzitzah B'Peh Consent-Form Regulation, On Same-Sex Marriage, and On the Question of Antisemitism

By David Balashinsky

Just over a week ago the New York City Board of Health shirked its responsibility to protect public health and the health of New York's neonates within the relatively small community of Ultra-Orthodox Jews by repealing a Bloomberg-era rule that imposed only the most modest regulations on the ritual of metzitzah b'peh.  Metzitzah b'peh, or "oral suction circumcision" as it is sometimes called in English, is a circumcision ceremony in which a mohel amputates an infant's foreskin, then sucks the infant's penis in order to remove the blood.  As the New York Times reported back in 2012, "Between 2004 and 2011, the city learned of eleven herpes infections it said were most likely caused by the practice.  Two of those babies died; at least two others suffered  brain damage."  In response, the Board of Health in 2012, instead of banning this practice outright as it ought to have done, merely issued several impotent regulations.  The Times reported on these regulations (September 13, 2013), as follows:

In an effort to educate parents, the city will now require ritual circumcisers to inform parents in writing if they will use direct oral contact during the circumcision, and must receive their written consent. The consent form states that the health department advises against the procedure because of the possibility of herpes transmission, which may cause brain damage or death. The mohelim must keep that permission document for one year. Failure to comply may result in warning letters or fines to the mohelim. Enforcement, though, will be based on investigation of specific complaints and herpes cases, not spot checks or raids, and there are no mandatory punishments. . . .

For the record, "oral suction circumcision," as occurs in "metzitzah b’peh," is practiced by adherents of Haredi Judaism (such as Hasidic Jews and the Satmars) who are a small fraction of Orthodox Jews.  Orthodox Jews themselves are a fraction of religious Jews.  Religious Jews (of all stripes) are themselves a sizable fraction but a fraction, nonetheless, of those who identify ethnically and culturally as Jewish. And Jews, broadly, comprise a mere 1.4% of the population of the U.S.  In other words, oral suction circumcision is an exceedingly rare practice.  Yet, lest anyone think that I am offering an excuse or rationalization for the legality of this practice on the grounds that it is limited to a minority of a minority of a minority, I am not.

I am speaking as a Jewish man when I say that the practice of oral suction circumcision is barbaric and its continuation a disgrace to all Jews.  It is manifestly unsanitary and should absolutely be abolished - if not by religious Jews themselves, then by the New York City Board of Health.  If not by the New York City Board of Health, then by the New York State Department of Health.

The regulation requiring the signing of a consent form that had been issued in 2012 by the city's Board of Health was, as the Times subsequently reported earlier this year (2015), routinely ignored.  Then, in 2014, there was a significant spike in the number of herpes infections that are believed to have been caused by this practice. As the Times noted,

City health officials have advised that the ritual should never be performed, but the growing ultra-Orthodox Jewish community that cherishes it represents a crucial political constituency for Mr. de Blasio. So he pledged during his campaign to rescind the consent requirement on "Day 1" of his administration and find a solution that would be more acceptable to Orthodox leaders, while still protecting children's health. 

That "solution," was proposed by the de Blasio administration  in February of 2015. "Administration officials," the Times continued, "announced a [proposed] new policy that they described as a compromise between reducing health risks for infants and protecting the religious freedoms of those who cherish the ritual. . . ."  That compromise did away with the signed consent form and instead mandated a series of diagnostic tests in cases in which a mohel was suspected to have transmitted herpes to infants during this ritual.  In the case of a DNA match (confirming the source of the transmission), the mohel would be banned for life  from performing oral suction circumcision.   However, under the proposed regulations, "a mohel who [was] found to have herpes would still be allowed to perform the ritual if a DNA test does not match his virus with the strain present in the infant." This, despite the fact that "It can sometime require multiple DNA tests  to establish a match."  This wholly inadequate regulation, until about a week ago, still needed to be approved by the New York City Board of Health.  It was not.  Instead, the health department, it has now been announced, will merely "ask hospitals to distribute a brochure to Orthodox families that warns of the risks of the ritual," thus doing away not only with the mandatory testing in cases of suspected herpes transmissions but even with the consent-form requirement.

This is not a compromise but a capitulation.  It is a naked and craven act of political expediency by de Blasio himself and, at the same time, and perhaps worse, a wholesale abandonment by the Department of Health of its stated mission "to protect and promote the health of all New Yorkers."  It is incomprehensible that, to date, the New York State Department of Health has not simply banned this practice, superseding the city's accommodation of it.  After all, if the New York State Department of Health can require me, as a healthcare worker, either to get the annual flu vaccine or wear a mask at work all winter, I do not see why it cannot protect infant Jewish boys from this manifestly unsanitary and dangerous practice.

The claim that banning oral suction circumcision in particular and ritual circumcision in general  constitutes an infringement on religious liberty is frequently made.  And this claim is not only made by some religious Jews themselves.  No less august a defender of civil liberties, the ACLU of Northern California, incomprehensibly and to its shame, opposed - precisely on the grounds that it constituted an infringement of religious liberty - the proposed ballot initiative in San Francisco in 2011 which, had the voters been permitted to vote on it and if passed, would have outlawed non-therapeutic circumcision of minors (that is, providing boys with the same legal protection against genital mutilation that girls have).  The ACLUNC issued a press statement  in which its managing attorney, Jory Steele, is quoted as follows: "Conducting a popular vote on whether to criminalize a minority religious practice fosters sectarian strife. This initiative would have undermined the right to religious liberty that we cherish in a pluralistic society."

The claim of "religious liberty" as a carte blanche to violate the rights of others has, of course, been much in the news lately in the context of same-sex marriage.  To its credit, the ACLU has condemned Kim Davis's actions in no uncertain terms.  Writing on behalf of the ACLU on its website, the senior staff attorney for its Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, Heather L. Weaver, stated, "Davis's duty as a public official is to enforce civil law, not her own personal religious views."  I could not agree more.  But if invoking religious liberty as a justification for discriminating against other citizens who are attempting to exercise their constitutional right to marry is wrong, invoking religious liberty as a justification for performing genital mutilation on infants is even more wrong.  It is not just morally and logically inconsistent, then, but, frankly, hypocritical for the ACLU's Northern California  affiliate to have staked out a position, as it did, on involuntary circumcision that is fundamentally opposite that of the ACLU's position on marriage equality.  On the one hand, the ACLU argues that the claim of religious liberty cannot be used to deny others their constitutionally established rights: in this case, the right to marry the person of one's choice, irrespective of sex.  On the other hand, the ACLUNC argued that the claim of religious liberty can be used to deprive others of their constitutionally established rights: in this case, the right not to be subjected to genital mutilation.   (This right is rooted in the "right to be let alone" and numerous other rights as understood in the common law and as articulated in the U.S. constitution, numerous state constitutions and other statutes.  See Peter W. Adler, Is Circumcision Legal?  for a thorough legal analysis of the issues related to forced male genital cutting).

Individual government officials and agencies have both a legal and an ethical duty to carry out their mandates in accordance with the law, with public policy, and on the basis of rational objectives that further the interest of the public good.  This is no less true with respect to ritual circumcision than it is with respect to same-sex marriage.  Thus, the mandate of the New York City Board of Health - a secular governmental agency - to protect public health cannot be simply be ignored or nullified when its public-health policies conflict with manifestly unhealthy religious practices.

The parallel between the claim of religious liberty on behalf of the right to discriminate against LGBTQ persons and the claim of religious liberty on behalf of the right to perform an inherently dangerous and potentially deadly ritual on an infant is inescapable.  Religious liberty ends where another person's rights begin. The First Amendment guarantees each American the freedom to practice her or his religion.  It does not guarantee each American the right to impose her or his religious beliefs on another person.  That is especially the case when doing so carries the risk of brain injury and death.  Indeed, this principle - that one's zone of freedom to act is delimited by every other person's zone of freedom not to be harmed by one's actions - is no doubt what guided Congress when it did not allow for a religious exemption to the national ban on female genital mutilation back in 1996. Exactly by this reasoning, the right of infants not to be harmed by the ritual of metzitzhah b'peh - or, for that matter, by any non-therapeutic circumcision, whether performed for religious, cultural, or cosmetic reasons - supersedes the right of their parents to subject them to it.

Religious freedom as articulated in the First Amendment does not extend outward from the believer to include the bodies of others.  Otherwise, slavery could have found a safe haven within the ambit of the First Amendment since the Bible itself countenances slavery (there were many denominations before the "Great Schism" and before the Emancipation Proclamation that used the Bible as a justification for slavery).  By the twisted logic of those who claim the right, on the basis of "religious freedom," to mutilate the genitalia of infant boys (or girls) (and infect them with herpes, to boot) anyone could claim the right to commit any act of assault, battery, or violence of every conceivable description on the basis of religious freedom. What about those religious sects that once practiced ritual human sacrifice and would still were it not outlawed?  Should an exemption to laws against homicide be made in order to accommodate human sacrifice?  A closer parallel exists in the U.S. federal law banning female genital mutilation.  The Congressional Findings that are an adjunct to the text of that legislation (click the Notes tab) state, in part, "The Congress finds that - the practice of female genital mutilation is carried out by certain cultural and religious groups within the United States" and that "the practice of female genital mutation can be prohibited without abridging the exercise of any rights guaranteed under the first amendment to the Constitution or under any other law. . . ."

Fortunately, not only do the vast majority of Jews not subject their infant boys to the inherently dangerous practice of oral suction circumcision but, encouragingly, more and more Jews are rejecting infant penile circumcision altogether.  That makes sense. After all, having had one's penis mutilated is not where Jewish identity comes from.  It comes from one's upbringing, one's values, one's cultural and ethnic heritage and, in the case of Judaism, it comes from one's religious beliefs.  If infant male circumcision were sufficient alone to confer "Jewishness" on those who have been subjected to it, the millions of non-Jewish American men who have been subjected to penile circumcision would in fact have become Jewish as a result.  Conversely, were circumcision necessary to confer "Jewishness" on those subjected to it, there would be no Jewish women since Jewish women are never circumcised.  Even some Talmudic scholars and rabbis have rejected the claim of the necessity of forced penile circumcision.  The fact is that there is a growing number of both secular and religious Jews who oppose involuntary infant male circumcision (see, for example, Beyond the Bris  and Jews Against Circumcision on Facebook).

Yet, because of the historical importance and putative centrality of the rite of circumcision to Jewish identity and religious practice, the question as to whether the campaign (which I enthusiastically support) to end routine penile circumcision is itself somehow antisemitic frequently and inevitably arises. Because it does, I think it important to address it head on, whenever it does.

There is no question that there are some antisemites in the genital autonomy movement, just as I am sure that there are antisemites involved in many other worthwhile causes, their antisemitism notwithstanding.  Indeed, I have tangled with a few of them myself in online forums several times when this subject has come up previously.  Often their position amounts to something like this: "The reason infant male circumcision hasn't been banned is because the Jews defend it and they have so much power that it will never get banned."  That's an almost-verbatim quote from someone posting in an online thread.  And it's always the collective the Jews, isn't it?  That's usually a reliable way to spot an antisemite - as though all Jews are in cahoots with one another and all think the same and act in concert as befits our secret cabal.  I have no doubt that there are antisemitic intactivists who are only too happy to have another reason - in this case, the Jewish defense of forced circumcision - to blame Jews for one of the world's great ills.  

At the other end of the spectrum are those Jews who, without a shred of justification, denounce any and all efforts to ban non-therapeutic circumcision as antisemitic.  I even saw a picture of a Satmar holding up a sign that read "Blood Libel" in protest of the effort merely to regulate and impose a modicum of medical common sense on the practice of oral-suction circumcision.  (For those  unacquainted with medieval European Jewish history, the "blood libel" was the canard made by Christians against Jews that Jews secretly murdered Christian children and used their victims' blood in the manufacture of matzohs.  On the basis of these accusations, many hundreds and probably thousands of Jews were rounded up, tortured, and burned alive from time to time during the Early and High Middle Ages.  A form of this ancient conspiracy theory has, of course, been resurrected in the contemporary Q-Anon conspiracy theory.)  Opposing genital mutilation in general and oral suction circumcision in particular is not antisemitic and to claim that it is demeans Jews who have actually been the victims of antisemitism and antisemitic violence. To claim persecution in defense of the right to commit an act of violence and mutilation on another human being is contemptible and makes a mockery of the valid claims of actual Jewish persecution that are a part of Jews' collective history.

Moreover, to those Jews who claim that the genital autonomy movement embodies, at its core, Jewish hatred, I would counter that - and I say this as a Jew - subjecting Jewish infants to genital mutilation because they are Jewish constitutes the ultimate act of Jewish self-hatred.  I would also ask, if you believe in a god who presumably loves us (I don't, but that's beside the point), why would "He" want us to mutilate our children's genitals?  It could also be argued that antisemites should, in theory at least, be only too happy to see male Jewish infants sexually mutilated.  Why on Earth would an antisemite really care about harm being inflicted on Jewish infants?

The effort to end male genital mutilation - whether as a fraudulent medical practice, as a cultural norm, or as a religious rite - is blind to race, religion, and ethnicity.  It is also blind to sex, inasmuch as the genital autonomy movement opposes female genital mutilation and intersex "corrective surgery" just as vehemently as it opposes male genital mutilation.   After all, the principle upon which all genital-autonomy movements are based is one and the same.  That principle is that every human being is born with an inherent right of ownership of her, his, or their body, and that no part of a person's body - including her, his or their genitals - may be permanently altered, scarred, mutilated or removed without that person's consent, and that they may not be subjected to any sort of surgery - even with the best of intentions - in the absence of an urgent medical necessity for doing so.

Genital autonomy is a human rights issue, and no one should understand the bedrock principles of human rights better than the Jewish people, precisely because of our history.  Indeed, it is in no small part because of my own Jewish heritage that I feel a moral obligation to oppose and to fight male genital mutilation, whenever it occurs and for whatever reason it occurs.

 

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About me: I am originally from New York City and now live near the Finger Lakes region of New York.  I am a licensed physical therapist and I write about bodily autonomy and human rights, gender, culture, and politics.  I currently serve on the board of directors of the Genital Autonomy Legal Defense & Education Fund, (GALDEF), the board of directors and advisors for Doctors Opposing Circumcision and on the leadership team for Bruchim.