Victor Schiering

Victor Schiering, 2011

Victor Schiering is a German intactivist who spoke at the WWDOGA in 2014, and since 2016. He is chairman of MOGiS e.V., member of the Experts Circle of Circumcision Affected Ones at MOGiS e.V., and was member of the Nationwide Working Group of Secular Greens.

Schiering is co-signer of the "Statement on foreskin circumcision" of 2014.

During the symposium Jungenbeschneidung in Deutschland - eine Bestandsaufnahme (Boys Circumcision in Germany - an inventory) at the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf on 8 May 2017 he gave a lecture as an affected person with Önder Özgeday.

In 2019 Victor Schiering spoke at a panel discussion organized by TERRE DES FEMMES, MOGiS e.V. and the Projekt 100% MENSCH in the Ibn Rushd Mosque in Berlin about the campaign "My Body - intact and self-determined".

Video messages 2020

In 2020 he spoke as chairman of MOGiS e.V., the organizer of the WWDOGA, in three video messages on the WWDOGA:

A question

“

Dear people outside interested in the World Day of Genital Autonomy! Thank you for watching this video. Today I want to ask you a question. Would you agree with the following statement: "Removing the foreskin is a mutilation." Now please consider how you would react if we were in a room and I would ask for your hand signal. The Australian Supreme Court confirmed this sentence in fall 2019. It was about the so-called "less invasive medicalized forms of female genital mutilation". The cutting of the female foreskin, the clitoral hood was meant. Defenders of these practices had appealed a judgment against them. They said they had not done any mutilation because only the clitoral hood had been manipulated. Medical reports had also confirmed this. The Australian High Court disagreed. Here is a report about it. You can find it on the internet. It was explained that it was a mutilation because the foreskin of the clitoris was part of the clitoris. And that justifies the term "mutilation". If you like, please consider now if your hand signal would have been different if you have had this information before, that we were talking about the clitoral foreskin. And if that is the case, it may be a sign that gender stereotypes and cultural influence affect us in our assessments. In cultural areas different from your own it might have been different again. Because cultural influences are very different. The supporters of the Worldwide Day of Genital Autonomy come from very different cultures. That's one interesting thing about that day. What unites them is that they all share the opinion of the Australia High Court. Any such intervention is a mutilation if it occurs without the person's informed consent. We oppose to the standardization of children. Private parts are private parts. That should be sure and remain that way. We stand for diversity. Diversity is beautiful. Thank you for your attention. – Victor Schiering (WWDOGA 2020)

Language

“

Dear people interested in the the Worldwide Day of Genital Autonomy! Today I want to talk about language. Because language shows and reveals a lot. Especially the unconscious. I don't want to have to read terms like "a piece of skin" or "a shred of skin" anymore. It is inhumane to talk about parts of human genitals like this. Haven't we already been further? Unfortunately there are also aggravations yet. At DIE ZEIT (German paper), the leading editor Patrik Schwarz wrote that a foreskin removal, I quote, "does not affect the normal use of the penis". it has come this far. Now you are told from DIE ZEIT what the "normal use" of a penis shall be. Whose standards actually apply? Maybe this gentleman’s or those of the people supporting him? But how does my penis concern to these people? Or the penises of millions of other people? Something like that is reactionary thinking, to which we clearly must show the “red card”. For me, the link to the "Demo for everyone" (anti-LGTTIBQ * activity) is clear, which also wants to tell us who we should have sex with and for what purpose. And that includes WHAT you have sex with. Is that supposed to be standardized now? The WWDOGA says: NO! Private parts are private parts! Nobody has to decide what I do with my genitals and with whom I do it - by mutual consent, of course. That’s just not ok! We live in freedom of speech. Everyone can claim the biggest nonsense. Lawyers would tell me now, no, there are limits too, but that's not the issue now. So in principle everyone can say and write what he wants. But you have to reap contradiction for something like that! If people reach these levels just because they want to defend genital mutilation of boys, whatever it may cost. I would now like to counter this with something positive. Two sentences from the statement of the German Pediatric Association addressed to the committee of legal affairs of the German Parliament on November 26, 2012. It says: "Parents cannot give their consent on behalf of the child here either, since the intervention is not medically necessary and the parents cannot judge at all what the boy demands on the integrity of his body surface and his sexual fulfillment later. Personal experience cannot be a yardstick here." Exactly! My own demands are MINE! And I would like to be able to make them free for myself. And not limited to the extent of what is still available from my genitals when I grew up. After others have defined that by setting their standards on me. I find this sentence so remarkable because it expresses so significantly what the Worldwide Day of Genital Autonomy stands for: Respect. I am not allowed to put a hand to a child's genitalia. Because everyone has the right to develop fully, to discover their full potential without restriction. What nature has given to this person. Isn't that something very nice? That's why I like this sentence. Because it says: stop! Here is a limit. We are not entitled to that. Maybe this thought helps those people who find this topic difficult. It has something to do with: letting go. Simply allowing everyone to be different and that this makes us rich. Thank you for your attention. – Victor Schiering (WWDOGA 2020)

Solidarity

“

Dear people interested in the Worldwide Day of Genital Autonomy. My name is Victor Schiering. I am chairman of MOGiS e.V. - A voice for those affected, an association of those affected by interventions in sexual self-determination in childhood and adolescence. The association was founded 10 years ago by victims of sexual child abuse. Over time, the association has opened itself to those affected by other forms of interventions in the sexual self determination. For example genital surgery. That's how I came to this organisation. Solidarity is a basic principle of our association. As people who have experienced different things and still get together, we have to agree on what we have in common, for example the possible lifelong consequences of what we experienced. There is no “hierarchy of suffering” here. So that one would say to each other: “But you have it much easier than I have”. Everyone has his own story. And no one is to judge the experiences of others. Only the person concerned may do this for himself. Solidarity is also an important point in the Cologne ruling, which we are going to celebrate again this week. Something incredible happened eight years ago: A non-therapeutic foreskin amputation on a boy was considered as a criminal offense. On what basis could this judgment be made of? In 2000 the German Bundestag passed a law: the right of the child to non-violent upbringing. Whether you were used to doing something with children, whether you had always done it that way, the intention of the adults: from now on, none of this played a role in the basic classification. With this, our society has set itself a very high standard! The judges of the Cologne Regional Court took this seriously. This is lawyers’ work: always to double check whether their judgments correspond with the high standards. On May 7, 2012, they lit up a previously blind spot. They made it clear that we cannot apply different standards to children based on their genitals in opposite to if they had a different genital. Sometimes I remember those people protesting this act of solidarity of the Cologne judgment. And by that I don't mean those people with cultural closeness to what was discussed there, but people who should actually judge completely independent. But then I think again and know, that this was back then, and now let's look forward. And there are more and more people who understand how important the impulse of the Cologne judgment was. At an even higher level, Worldwide Day of Genital Autonomy is an act of solidarity too: People of different cultures stand together in solidarity on one point in particular: As stated in the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child: no person, no child may be disadvantaged or preferred on the basis of their gender. WWDOGA is a global anti-discrimination alliance! Thank you for your attention. – Victor Schiering (WWDOGA 2020)

External links

• WWDOGA 2019 Cologne, speech Victor Schiering
• WWDOGA 2018 Cologne, speech Victor Schiering
• WWDOGA 2018 Cologne, Victor Schiering greets intactivists in San Francisco
• WWDOGA 2017 Cologne, speech Victor Schiering, English subtitles
• WWDOGA 2016 Cologne, speech Victor Schiering
• WWDOGA 2014 Cologne, speech Victor Schiering
• Podcast by RedeMit with a contribution by Victor Schiering, published Sep 27, 2014