Genital cutting – whether done to those designated female, intersex or male at birth – is not about skin. Yes – it’s skin that gets cut. But it’s not about skin. It’s about consent.
In this video, Soraya Mire – a survivor of female genital mutilation and a leading activist for the right to bodily integrity – speaks out about male genital mutilation in America (what gets called circumcision, and how it parallels female genital mutilation in Africa and the Middle East.
Should male genital alteration be legal? Absolutely – but only for hose who are old enough to make that decision for themselves.
Should female genital alteration be legal? Absolutely – but only for those who are old enough to make that decision for themselves.
Should intersex genital alteration be legal? Absolutely – but only for those who are old enough to make that decision for themselves.
Consent: their body, their choice. Without consent from the person whose genitals are being cut, it is mutilation.
All children have a right to bodily integrity: female, intersex, male – stop cutting childrens’ genitals.
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Reblogged this on transatlantictransadvocates and commented:
The entrenched customs of cultures, including ours, MUST give way to the recognition that the body is not to be cut on UNLESS there is a bonafide life-threatening medical tradition.
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Good article. Also, I had a police officer harassing me during a protest one time and I asked him if it was illegal to perform cosmetic surgery (which circumcision is) on a person who can not consent. He said yes, so I asked him, “Then why is the law not enforced for baby boys?” He just walked away.
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Many people say: „It’s a personal choice.“ Let us say NO to genital autonomy for our children, ‚child‘ is any person below the age of 18 years, and YES to their genital intactness.
Completely according to age and development, a child (child is a person below eighteen years of age) is not able to consent to a medically not-indicated female or male circumcision (FGM or MGM).
Even the least invasive form of female or male circumcision harms by limiting the innate potential of man.
Genital circumcision is nothing but the result of group pressure and, once carried out, destroys the confidence in the fellow human beings.
Because that is the unspoken message: We accept you only if you obey, with an intact genital you are not welcome with us.
In particular, the trust between father and child as well as between mother and child is undermined by the ritual. The child will soon recognize: you could not protect me or you did not want to protect me.
The child is angry at his parents and, on the other hand, in future, will decide to have his child circumcised or will motivate his child to be circumcised. We must succeed in ending this cycle of fear, violence and mutilation.
A de minimis FGM will not be sufficient, but the child can be re-cut at any time. In many communities the girl, who is not sufficiently invasive, will not be able to marry, or she will not be allowed to be a heir.
Among Shafii Sunni muslims or among Bohra Shia, the girl’s own parents or later husband and mother-in-law will despise the „wrongly circumcised“ woman as sinful, haram (حرام) and ritually unclean, najis (نجس).
Therefore, we also have to ban the FGM type Ia amputation of the clitoral hood as well as the FGM type IV subtype incision or needle stitch.
The WHO classification for female genital mutilation may not under any circumstances be split into a still prohibited and another, allegedly low-invasive and then permitted part.
Let us fight together for the worldwide ban on any medically unidentified operation on human beings under 18 years of age.
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