Thirteenth International Symposium

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The Thirteenth International Symposium on Genital Autonomy and Children's Rights convened at the University of Colorado on July 24-26, 2014.

Faculty

• Peter W. Adler, BA, Philosophy, Dartmouth College; MA, Philosophy, Cambridge University; JD, University of Virginia School of Law; and Editor of Virginia Law Review, is a former trial lawyer and is the Legal Advisor for Attorneys for the Rights of the Child. His publications include “Is Circumcision Legal?”, “Is It Lawful to Use Medicaid to Pay for Circumcision?”, and “Is Circumcision Unethical and Should It Be Illegal?”, co-authored with Svoboda and Van Howe, publication pending. Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA.

• Jennifer Andersen is a speaker, writer, blogger, child advocate, and the founder of OurMuddyBoots.com, LIVING! With Kids. Through her work, Jennifer explores the things that keep us disconnected from our children, so that we can reconnect and know them more fully. Most importantly, Jennifer advocates for children—hoping to inspire others to understand that children are people—fully deserving of the same kindness, compassion, and human rights as their adult counterparts. A guest on HuffPost Live, speaker at parenting conferences, and contributor to publications both online and in print, Jennifer’s work focuses on bringing to light the specific ways children are dehumanized−and solutions for changing this. Denver, Colorado, USA.

• Scot Anderson, BSc, received his degree in physics from the Colorado School of Mines and is a practicing physicist working in industry doing analysis. He has many interests, including human rights, and he is active in supporting Colorado NOCIRC. He is otherwise unaffiliated within the medical profession. Conifer, Colorado, USA.

• Kira Antinuk, one of the founders and acting Directors of the Children’s Health & Human Rights Partnership, has been a children’s rights advocate for more than 10 years. She is the recipient of the 2013 Paul Wainwright Nursing Ethics Prize, awarded in recognition of her paper “Forced genital cutting in North America: Feminist theory & nursing considerations”, published in the Journal of Nursing Ethics(September 2013). Kira received her training as a nurse in Victoria, BC, where she currently lives with her partner and two children. Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

• Riun Ashlie is a somatic healing practitioner, workshop facilitator, men’s group leader, and currently an intern at Colorado Therapies and Aquatic Center. A graduate of Body Mind Somanautics, an advanced training in somatic attachment, group process, and anatomy re-patterning, and a graduate of the Hendricks Institute 2-year Leadership and Transformation Coaching Program, Riun combines a variety of modalities, including Access Consciousness as well as Re-connective Healing in support of his passion−catalyzing male potency and empowerment with passion and purpose.

• Markus Bauer is the co-founder and campaign organiser of the international human rights NGO Zwischengeschlecht.org / StopIGM.org and legally responsible for their online presence. He is the partner of an intersex person, and a decade-long writer, editor, performing artist, political activist, and social organiser. Since 2007, he facilitated countless nonviolent intersex protests in front of mutilators’ clinics and medical congresses, as well as parliamentary motions, submissions, and testimonies for ethics and human rights bodies. He has spoken and published internationally on IGM at universities and symposia, and appeared on radio and television, and in newspapers and magazines, including the Wall Street Journal. Zurich, Switzerland.

• Jonathan Bernaerts, BA, MA, is a Human Rights Researcher at the Thailand Institute of Justice (TIJ), where he focuses on children’s rights. He holds BAs in Philosophy and Law from the University of Antwerp (Belgium), a MA degree in international law from the University of Antwerp, and a MA degree in comparative international law from the University of Toulouse (France). He was awarded the European Master Degree in Human Rights and Democratization by the European Inter University Centre in Venice (Italy), for which he spent a semester at the University of Vienna (Austria). His thesis on the circumcision of male children was written under the supervision of Manfred Nowak and Hannes Tretter. Kontich, Belgium.

• Gregory J. Boyle, PhD (Delaware), PhD (Melbourne), DSc (Queensland), Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, and Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society, was Professor of Psychology at Bond University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia for 20 years. Currently, he is Head of School at the Australian Institute of Psychology, based in Brisbane. In 2005, he was recipient of the Buros Institute of Mental Measurements Distinguished Reviewer Award. He has contributed over 200 publications, and is Senior Editor of several international handbooks in the fields of personality theory and assessment (SAGE Publishers; Elsevier/Academic Press). Currently, he is Senior Editor of the SAGE series on both cognitive neuroscience and on industrial/organizational psychology. Professor Boyle has lectured in many universities, including Oxford University, Stanford University, and Princeton University. He also served as Associate Dean for Research at Bond University for several years, and as a Research Consultant to the Australian Army Psychology Corps (Hon Rank: LTCOL) for more than two decades. Professor Boyle has conducted empirical studies regarding the adverse psychosexual impact of infant male circumcision. More recently, his detailed critique (with George Hill, Doctors Opposing Circumcision) of the serious methodological, ethical, and legal concerns relating to the African circumcision RCTs (published in the Journal of Law and Medicine in 2011), attained international prominence. Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.

• Annie Brook, PhD, LPC, is an author, international speaker, master therapist, and former university professor who has worked in clinics, hospitals, public schools, and in private practice. She supports community awareness and healing. Her work with men began in the late 1980‘s when she started men’s groups in rural locations where there were no male facilitators. Her professional background in infant development gives her keen insight on the impact of early experience on identity and behavior. She trains therapists in body-based therapy work that includes early attachment. Her training programs have male facilitators leading men’s work that is full spectrum and empowering, and includes the tender and outrageous work of recovering from circumcision imprints. She is a somatic psychologist, Registered Movement Educator, and Cranial Sacral practitioner with a Doctorate in Perinatal Psychology and Human Sexuality. She has authored, Birth’s Hidden Legacy, From Conception to Crawling, and Sexuality and the Sacred. Boulder, Colorado, USA.

• Glen Callender is a Vancouver-based writer, editor and performance artist. In 2010, he founded the Canadian Foreskin Awareness Project (CAN-FAP)—Canada’s best-known and feistiest pro-foreskin advocacy group—to promote his vision of a more positive genital autonomy movement that emphasizes pro-foreskin over anti-circumcision messaging. Glen has performed his educational-comedy foreskin shows Foreskin Awareness Booth and The Revolution Will Not Be Circumcised to thousands of people across Canada and the USA, and is developing a multimedia guide to the intact penis that he hopes will revolutionize society’s understanding of, and respect for, the male organ. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

• Charli Carpenter is Professor of International Affairs in the Department of Political Science at University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Her teaching and research interests include human rights and humanitarian action, agenda-setting in transnational advocacy networks, and gender violence. She is particularly interested in why some human security problems and vulnerable populations get less attention on the global agenda than others. She has published three books and numerous journal articles, has served as a consultant for the United Nations, and contributes to Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs. Her most recent book, Agenda-Vetting in Global Networks and the Shaping of Human Security, includes a case study of the transnational campaign against infant male circumcision. Amherst, MA, USA.

• Georganne Chapin, JD, MS, an attorney and healthcare executive, is the founding Executive Director of Intact America. She also holds positions at Hudson Health Plan (President & CEO) and MVP Health Care (Executive Vice President for Corporate Affairs), both located in New York State, and serves as an officer on the board of Attorneys for the Rights of the Child. Georganne holds an undergraduate degree in anthropology from Barnard College, a Masters in Sociomedical Sciences from Columbia University, and a JD from Pace University School of Law, where she has also served as adjunct faculty, teaching courses in Bioethics and Medicaid and Disability Law. Woodstock, New York, USA.

• Chelsea Collonge, MA, has a background in peace and nonviolence studies at UC Berkeley and holds a masters degree in religion from the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her research in the area of feminist liberation theology and sexuality focused on progressive Christian opposition to forced circumcision in the USA. Chelsea lives on a farm in rural California where she works with HIV-positive persons and participates in the Catholic Worker movement. Sheep Ranch, California, USA.

• Leonid Walter Dunn, MNS, received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from the University of Liberia after earning an Advanced Certificate in Statistics from the Institute for Population Studies at the University of Liberia and his Masters of Ntalextuwl (Intellectual) Studies with emphasis in Communications & Public Policy from the Blacology Research & Development Institute based in Maryland, USA. Leonid is a Liberian national, with a portfolio ranging from administrator to professional aide in the Office of the Liberian Presidency prior to his resignation in 2010 to focus on and run one of Liberia’s leading child-rights advocacy institutions, Child Rights Foundation-Children Welfare Foundation International (CRF-CWFI), serving as Chairman. CRF-CWFI seeks for compliance to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN-CRC), international instruments and protocols that protect the child; while seeking prosecution for abusers. Monrovia, Liberia, West Africa.

• Brian D. Earp is a Research Fellow at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford as well as a Consultant Researcher with the Institute for Science and Ethics, also at Oxford. He has served as Editor in Chief of the Yale Philosophy Review as well as Guest Editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics, the leading journal in the field. Brian holds degrees from Yale and Oxford universities and is currently a Cambridge Trust Scholar and Rausing Award recipient studying the history and philosophy of science and medicine at the University of Cambridge. Cambridge, England, UK.

• John V. Geisheker, JD, LL.M, has practiced medico-legal law as an arbitrator, mediator, litigator, and law lecturer for over 30 years. He is the full-time pro bono Director and General Counsel for Doctors Opposing Circumcision, an international physicians’ charity based in Seattle, Washington. D.O.C.’s members and supporters oppose cultural, non-therapeutic genital cutting of children, male or female, on human rights and scientific grounds. John is a native of New Zealand, a country that fully abandoned medicalized male circumcision in the 1960’s. He hopes his adopted USA will someday follow that principled example. Seattle, Washington, USA.

• Ronald Goldman, PhD, is a psychologist, speaker, writer, and Executive Director of the Circumcision Resource Center in Boston, a nonprofit educational organization. His investigation of the unacknowledged adverse psychological and social aspects of circumcision includes hundreds of contacts with men, parents, Jews, and medical and mental health professionals. He is the author of Circumcision: The Hidden Trauma and Questioning Circumcision: A Jewish Perspective. Other writing has appeared in medical journals, national newspapers, parenting publications, and Jewish periodicals. He participates in numerous media interviews, gives lectures on circumcision, perinatal health and childcare practices, and counsels parents and circumcised men. Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

• Rue Hass, MA, CCHt., EFT Master, and Ordained Minister is a Spiritual Life Path Coach, Intuitive Mentor, and EFT Master practitioner. Her background includes university teaching, extensive training in psycho-spiritual philosophy and Energy Psychology therapies, and ordination as a minister by the Lorian Association, a spiritual research center that explores a contemporary spirituality. She has authored several books and conducted many trainings on the highly sensitive temperament and spirituality. Boulder, Colorado, USA.

• Janet Heimlich is an award-winning journalist and the author of Breaking Their Will: Shedding Light on Religious Child Maltreatment, which takes an in-depth look at child abuse and neglect in the United States that is enabled by religious belief. She is also president of the Child-Friendly Faith Project, a national nonprofit public charity that educates the public about the impact that religious, spiritual, and cultural beliefs and practices have on children. As a freelance reporter for National Public Radio, Ms. Heimlich won nine journalism awards, including the regional Katie and the Houston Press Club’s “Radio Journalist of the Year.” Austin, Texas, USA.

• Katharina Kunze, MS, has degrees in Cultural Anthropology, Gender Studies, and Philosophy. She explored and discussed in her final thesis how NGOs use social, cultural, and financial resources to work sustainably and effectively. Before she became the section manager against FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) at Germany’s largest women’s rights NGO, Terre Des Femmes, she worked as a copywriter, researcher, campaign manager, and social media expert. She discovered feminism in her early twenties and understood that her privileges oblige and empower her to take action for justice, health, freedom, and security. Berlin, Germany.

• David J. Llewellyn, BA, JD is an attorney whose practice is concentrated in genital injury litigation. He has represented numerous victims of botched circumcisions, both infant and adult, as well as victims of circumcisions performed without consent. He has also represented a number of parents who filed suits to prevent the circumcisions of their sons. He has extensive experience representing the victims of the most common forms of negligently performed circumcisions. Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

• Donna Rigney Macris, RN, CNM, MSN, CLNC, is a decades-long human rights activist in issues of genital integrity who has served on the Board of Directors of NOCIRC, was a co-founder of the International Symposia on Circumcision, and co-authored the Declaration of the First International Symposium on Circumcision. Her writings on the issue of circumcision and the rights of infants and children as well as on the normal function of the male genitalia have been published. She has spoken nationally and internationally promoting conscious objector status for nurses and midwives in opposition to newborn circumcision. She has been guest faculty in midwifery programs, including Stanford University’s Women’s Health Care Training Project. Her Master’s Degree Research at St. Louis University centered upon informed consent for circumcision. Fresno, California, USA.

• Jennifer Margulis, PhD, is an award-winning investigative journalist and a senior fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University. She is the author of the groundbreaking exposé, The Business of Baby. Ashland, Oregon, USA.

• Brendon Marotta is an award-winning filmmaker. He graduated from the University of the North Carolina School of the Arts Film School, and works as a professional film editor and director. His work can be found online at www.brendonmarotta.com. Charlottesville, Virginia, USA.

• Paul Mason, BA (Hons), LLB, is a family law barrister of 35 years experience. For 3½ years, from 2007 to 2010, he was the statutorily independent Commissioner for Children for the Australian State of Tasmania. During that time, amongst his other work, he pursued raising awareness of the human rights of children to protection from all forms of violence and from harmful traditional practices (HTPs). He, with Dr. Comfort Momoh, is an inaugural co-patron of the UK-based charity Genital Autonomy and in 2013 was instrumental in establishing the Antipodean child rights organisation, Australasian Institute for Genital Autonomy Inc. (AIGA). Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

• Jonathan Meddings has a degree in medical science with honors from James Cook University and is currently a student of philosophy at Macquarie University. He is a member of Friends of Science in Medicine, an organization campaigning against the teaching of the pseudoscience that is alternative/complementary medicine in Australian tertiary institutions, as well as a board member of the Rationalist Society of Australia and writer for the Young Australian Skeptics, organizations devoted to the promotion of rational and skeptical thinking in all areas, including medicine. Jonathan is currently writing a book on circumcision. Melbourne, Australia.

• Marilyn Milos, RN, is the co-founder and director of the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers (NOCIRC) and co-founder of the International Symposia on Circumcision, Genital Autonomy, and Children’s Rights. She is the co-editor of eight symposia books and the editor of the NOCIRC Annual Newsletter. San Anselmo, California, USA.

• Soraya Miré is an award-winning director, writer, and activist. Her credits include a featured segment of the Vagina Monologues on FGM and the award-winning documentary Fire Eyes, which highlights the barbaric practice of FGM. Fire Eyes was featured at the International Women’s Conference in Beijing, the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, the Sundance Film Festival in the USA, and The United Nations in Geneva. Miré’s activism has been recognized with many awards, such as the “Humanitarian Award” at the United Nations Sub-Commission Sessions, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice “Winnie Mandela Award,” “Best documentary” at the United Nations International Conference on Population and Devel-opment in Cairo, the “Human Rights Award” at the Third International Symposium on Circumcision at the University of Maryland, and Intact America’s “Personal Courage Award 2009.” She was born in Somalia and immigrated to Europe in 1978 at age 17. She studied literature and political science at the University of Grenoble in France. Mire’ left her studies to expand her mission to end violence toward women and children. In 1984, Miré moved to Los Angeles and began a career in film. She appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, and Nightline with Ted Koppel. She has lectured at numerous universities, including Harvard, UCLA, Vanderbilt University, and Stanford University. She has stood before committees at the United Nations, the US Senate Human Resources and Health Assembly, and the World Health Organization. She has worked with medical professionals, government officials, with women, and with families who have been affected by FGM, all in her tireless pursuit of protection of human rights for women and girls. Los Angeles, California, USA.

• Teri Mitchell, RNC, CNM, DNP, LCCE, IBCLC, a Registered Nurse certified in maternal newborn nursing for the last 10 years, is also a Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator and an Internationally Board Certified Lactation Consultant. She completed a Doctorate of Nursing Practice degree in midwifery at Baylor University in May 2014 and is a certified nurse midwife. Her doctoral focus has been on parental decision making about routine infant circumcision, as well as the impact of tongue-tie on breastfeeding. She currently works as a nurse-midwife and lactation consultant at a freestanding birth center and home birth practice in Texas. Frisco, Texas, USA.

• Elwyn Moir, BA, has worked in mental health for a decade. His practice principally concerns mood, self-concept, and suicide prevention, and provides clinical supervision and training. His work was recognised with the award of a National Emergency Medal in 2012. Elwyn’s nation-reaching advocacy has included published opinion pieces and long-form television appearances. He co-founded (with Paul Mason and others) the Australasian Institute for Genital Autonomy and, in addition to his clinical practice, is Secretary of the AIGA and a Master of Mental Health (Psychotherapy) candidate with the Department of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine at the University of Queensland. Fortitude Valley, Queensland, Australia.