Tenth International Symposium

The Tenth International Symposium on Circumcision, Genital Integrity and Human Rights convened at the University of Keele, Keele, Newcastle, Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom on September 4-6, 2008.

Faculty

• Peter Baker has been Chief Executive of the Men’s Health Forum (MHF) since 2001. The MHF is a charity that aims to improve the unnecessarily poor health of men and boys in England and Wales. Previously, after a 10‑year stint in local government, Peter was a writer and journalist. He was the first health editor of Maxim Magazine, launch editor of the malehealth.co.uk website and deputy editor of the Men’s Health Journal. He describes himself as a working father – he has three young children – and lives in Brighton.

• J. David Bigelow, Ph.D., earned his doctorate in psychology at Claremont Graduate School, is a retired college professor (Whittier College), therapist, clergyman, and author of The Joy of Uncircumcising! Pacific Grove, CA, USA.

• Annalisa Bortoletti, Ph.D., graduated in Psychology, University of Padua, and is a member of the Padua Working Group on FGM. Padua, Italy.

• Sandra Bussata, Ph.D., is Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Padua, and a member of the Padua Working Group on FGM, Padua, Italy.

• Georganne Chapin, J.D., is President and CEO of Hudson Health Plan, a non‑profit Medicaid managed care company in New York’s Hudson Valley. She is also founder and President of the Hudson Center for Health Equity & Quality (Hcheq), an organisation whose purpose is to contribute to policy and technology efforts toward healthcare reform. Under Hcheq, Georganne is leading the establishment of Intact America, a new organisation dedicated to keeping babies whole. She has taught Bioethics as well as Medicaid and Disability Law at Pace University School of Law, from which she received her law degree. She also holds an undergraduate degree in Anthropology from Barnard College and a Masters in Sociomedical Science from Columbia University. She serves on a number of non‑profit Boards, including that of Attorneys for the Rights of the Child (ARC). Tarrytown, NY, USA.

• M. Gloria de Bernardo, Ph.D., teaches Ethno‑Anthropology and Social Anthropology, Surgery and Medicine Faculty, University of Verona and University of Padua. She is the President of the Ethic Committee in “Clinical Practice, Hospital Institute of Verona, and has been a member of the Experimentation Committee, as an “Expert in Bioethic Science,” following her experience at the San Raffaele in Milan and at Lana Foundation in Padova. She is a member of the Medical Anthropology Italian Society (SIAM). She has written many articles for Etnoginecology Magazine, as a result of her personal research and her research with the Padua Working Group on FGM. She is the author of The Respect of Pain and Death in the Main Confessions. Padua, Italy.

• George C. Denniston, M.D. (Princeton University), M.P.H. (Harvard School of Public Health), is the founder of Doctors Opposing Circumcision (D.O.C.), co‑author of Doctors Re-Examine Circumcision, co‑editor, Sexual Mutilations: A Human Tragedy, Male and Female Circumcision: Medical, Legal, and Ethical Considerations in Pediatric Practice, Understanding Circumcision: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to a Multi-Dimensional Problem, Flesh and Blood: Perspectives on the Problem of Circumcision in Contemporary Society, and Bodily Integrity and the Politics of Circumcision: Culture, Controversy, and Change, and Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Family Medicine, University of Washington. Seattle, WA, USA.

• Sarah Enany, Ph.D., teaches drama at Cairo University. She has co‑authored and illustrated a book on feminism, and co‑authored and illustrated the UNICEF anti‑FGM manual. She has also written and drawn educational material for various Egyptian and international NGOs. She is currently working on Founding Day, an NGO focusing on gender issues and genital integrity for all. Cairo, Egypt.

• Marie Fox is Professor of Law at the University of Keele. Her main research interests are in the fields of Health Care Law, Animal Law and Feminist Legal Theory. Selected recent publications include: (with Jean McHale), 2nd edition of Health Care Law: Text, Cases and Materials (Sweet & Maxwell) 2006 (1204, xxxvi pages); “The Regulation of Xenotransplantation in the United Kingdom After UKX‑IRA: Legal and Ethical Issues” (with L.Williamson and S. McLean) (2007) 34(4) Journal of Law & Society 441‑64; “Rethinking the Animal/Human Boundary: the impact of xeno technologies” (2005) 26 Liverpool Law Review 149‑67; (with Michael Thomson) “Cutting it: surgical interventions and the sexing of children” (2005) 12 Cardozo Journal of Law & Gender 82‑97; (with Michael Thomson) “A Covenant with the Status Quo?: Male Circumcision and the new BMA Guidance to Doctors,” (2005) 31 Journal of Medical Ethics 463‑9; (with Michael Thomson) “Short Changed? The Law and Ethics of Male Circumcision,” (2005) 13 International Journal of Children’s Rights 161‑81; republished in M. Freeman (ed) Children’s Health and Children’s Rights Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2006. Staffordshire, UK.

• Michel Garenne, Ph.D. (demography), is Director of Research at the French Institute for Research and Development and is currently working at the Pasteur Institute, Emerging Diseases Unit, in Paris. He is also honorary Associate Professor at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He directed the Niakhar Demographic Surveillance System in Senegal in the 1980s and has collaborated with the Agincourt Health and Demographic Surveillance System in South Africa since 1992. He is the author of numerous publications on population and health issues in Africa, and has taught demography at several universities in Europe (Paris, Clermont‑Ferrand, Heidelberg, Antwerp), and in the United States (Harvard). Paris, France.

• John Geisheker, J.D., LLM, is the General Counsel and Executive Director of Doctors Opposing Circumcision (D.O.C.). Seattle, WA, USA.

• Prasad Godbole, MB BS, FRCS (Eng), FRCS (Paeds), FEAPU, is a Consultant Paediatric Urologist and Surgeon at Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust. He specialises in paediatric urology, with an interest in dysfunctional voiding and intractable wetting disorders, paediatric urinary tract stone disease, reconstructive urology, including hypospadias. He is a member of the British Medical Association, The Royal College of Surgeons of England, British Association of Paediatric Urologists, European Society for Paediatric Urology, British Association of Paediatric and Adolescent Gynaecology, Medical Defence Union. Sheffield, UK.

• R. Wayne Griffiths, MS, MEd, a sociologist and educator, received his MS from BYU and his MEd from Oregon State University and did post graduate work at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He was an assistant professor of sociology and criminology at Armstrong State College in Savannah, Georgia. He is the co‑founder of the National Organization of Restoring Men (NORM), which was founded in 1989, and is the Executive Director, handling all inquiries about restoration. He has written and published a number of articles on foreskin restoration. At the 8th International Symposium on Circumcision, Genital Integrity, and Human Rights. University of Padua, Italy, he reported on the results of an ongoing survey about the attitudes and feelings of men concerning circumcision and restoration. Concord, CA, USA.

• James Loewen, Photographer, discovered his circumcised status at age seven, which sparked his outrage. Artistic abilities as a child led him to a career as a photographer and many fascinating assignments, including a three‑month project in 1975, photographing the activities at the sex‑change clinic of the notorious Dr. John Brown. In 1993, Loewen happened upon Jim Bigelow’s book, The Joy of Uncircumcising, and began connecting with others opposed to infant and childhood genital surgeries. His lifetime of questioning gender, sexual roles, and orientation has informed his artistic and intactivist activities. Currently he is making videos related to intactivism and hosting a YouTube channel, “intactivist1” with many collected video clips related to the issue. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

• Thomas w. Hennen, J.D., received a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Washington State University (1969) and a Juris Doctor in Law from the University of Maine School of Law (1973). He is a member of both the Washington and California Bar Associations and is admitted as an attorney before the US Patent & Trademark Office. He has spent 33 years of his professional career working as an Intellectual Property Attorney for government and corporate employers. Des Moines, WA, USA.

• Robert C. Johnson recently retired from a 24‑year career as a writer and editor at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, USA, where he wrote extensively about deafness‑related research. He is co‑editor of Testing Deaf Students in an Age of Accountability, published by Gallaudet University Press. In 2005, at the age of 60, determined to understand and overcome the root cause of difficulties with intimacy he had experienced all his adolescent and adult life, he decided to pursue an eclectic form of regressive therapy for a second time. Much to his surprise, during one session of this therapy, he began to re‑experience his neonatal circumcision, an event he believes originally occurred within hours or minutes after birth, without parental consent (a frequent occurrence in 1945), many hours before he met his parents. His paper describes his journey from that shocking discovery to his current status as an anti‑circumcision activist. Alexandria, VA.

• Ron Low, BS, MS, earned his BS degree in Engineering from the University of Illinois and his MS from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management, and is the marketer of a leading brand of foreskin restoration devices (TLCTugger.com) and the host of the “Circumspect” podcast series. Ron has been cited in the book, Everything you know about Sex is Wrong, was featured in the BBC documentary Circumcise Me?, and interviewed by Time magazine. He appears in the 2007 documentary, Cut: Slicing Through the Myths of Circumcision. Chicago, IL.

• Paul Mason is the Commissioner for Children [CfC] for Tasmania. The CfC is an officer of Executive Government, independent of the elected government of the day, appointed to advise the Government and to increase public awareness of matters relating to the health, welfare, care, protection, and development of children. Paul is a family lawyer with 30 years experience.

• Nancy Tshiala Mbuyi graduated in Nursing Sciences, University of Padua, and is a member of the Padua Working Group on FGM. Padua, Italy.

• Ken McGrath, VRD, M.S. (Hons), LIBiol, MNZIML, Senior Lecturer in Pathology in the Faculty of Health, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, has made a lifelong study of the male genitalia, which he has taught to medical students. His research interests are the innervation of the penis and fungal diseases of the skin. Auckland, New Zealand.

• Comfort Momoh, MBE (RN, RM, FPN, BSC, M.S. – London), is a FGM Consultant/Public Health Specialist with extensive experience of holistic women‑centered care management, a researcher of women’s health, and a strong campaigner for the eradication of FGM. Comfort holds a Masters degree from the University of London and she is an honorary lecturer at the same university. She established and runs the African Well Woman’s Clinic at Guy’s and St Thomas Foundation Trust, a support service for women and girls who have undergone FGM. She is the recipient of the many awards, including the first ever nurse/midwife of the year award from the Trust in 2003. She received the Florence Nightingale Scholarship/Travel Award 2007, to carry out a Comparative Research in Africa – looking at the sexual quality of women who have undergone FGM. She received MBE from the queen in recognition of her work on women’s healthcare. Comfort was awarded a doctorate degree at Middlesex University ‑ School of Health and Social Sciences for her contribution to public life and strong connection to the University. She also provides training, workshop, seminars, and conferences at local, national, and international levels. She is the Chairperson for the Black Women’s Health and Family Supports (a non‑governmental organisation working and supporting the community). She is also the vice‑president for EURONET (European Network on FGM). London, England.

• Pierre Mouriquand, FRCS (Urol), is a professor of Paediatric Urology and head of the Department of Paediatric Surgery at Lyon Children’s Hospital – Claude Bernard University Lyon 1. After a medical training in Lyon and London (Great Ormond Street Hospital), he became a consultant/Associate Lecturer in Paediatric Surgery in Cambridge (Addenbrooke’s Hospital) from 1991 to 1994 and a consultant/Senior Lecturer in Paediatric Urology at Great Ormond Street Hospital: Institute of Child Health from 1994 to 1998. He was appointed as a Professor of Paediatric Urology in Lyon in 1998. His main fields of expertise are the Disorders of Sex Development, antenatal diagnosis of uropathies, exstrophy /epispadias complex, neuropathic bladder and elimination disorders.

• Gordon Muir, FRCS (Urol), FEBU, Consultant Urologist, is based at King’s College Hospital and the Lister Hospital, London, and is Honorary Senior Lecturer, King’s College London. He specialises in the minimally invasive treatment of prostate diseases and the study and treatment of male sexual dysfunction. London, UK.

• Miriam Pollack, an educator in private practice and the Jewish mother of two circumcised sons, has been advocating for genital integrity for Jewish as well as non‑Jewish baby boys for the past 17 years by writing, speaking, counselling Jewish parents, and providing alternative brit b’lee milah ceremonies for interested parents. Boulder, CO, USA.

• Steve Scott is the Educational Outreach Coordinator of the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers and the Director of NOCIRC of Utah. Salt Lake City, UT, USA.

• Janette Shaw, MA, RGN, RM, DMS, DPS(HV), Nurse Consultant, Safeguarding Children, Waltham Forest Primary Care Trust, sits on the Waltham Forest Local Safeguarding Children Board Management Group and is a member of the sub fora. Waltham Forest is a North East London Borough, with a multi‑cultural population, ranking 11th largest local government district in England and Wales, with a non‑white, minority ethnic population. London, UK.

• Daniel Sidler, M.D., MPhil (Applied Ethics), FCS, is a Paediatric Surgeon at Tygerberg Children’s Hospital, Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa.

• Sigismond (Michel Hervé Navoiseau-Bertaux) is a psychoanalysis researcher. Paris, France.

• David Smith was educated at St Joseph’s College, Market Drayton, and he qualified in business studies at Underwood College. He worked for Re‑Solv, the solvent abuse charity, but he currently works full‑time as General Manager of NORM‑UK, and is the organisation’s only paid staff member. David created and now edits NORM NEWS, the organisation’s magazine for member. Stone, Staffordshire, UK.

• J. Steven Svoboda, J.D., focuses on civil litigation and human rights, and is the founder and executive director of Attorneys for the Rights of the Child (ARC), a non‑profit organisation addressing the illegality of involuntary genital surgery. Berkeley, CA, USA.

• Andrew Tinson started training in psychotherapy, in 2002, with the Metanoia Institute in west London and is currently in advanced training, working part‑time towards an M.S. in Gestalt Psychotherapy. He has been a member of NORM‑UK since the mid‑1990s. During the last 30 years, he has worked as a teacher, lecturer, IT project manager and now, as an IT support manager.

• Michael Thomson is Professor of Law, Culture & Society at the University of Keele. His research interests include Health Care Law, Law and Gender, and Law and Literature. His particular focus has been the regulation of reproduction and the relationship between law and gender. The focus of his most recent work is masculinity and the legal regulation of the male sexed body. He is the author of Reproducing Narrative: Gender, Reproduction and Law (Dartmouth, 1998) and Endowed: Regulating the Male Sexed Body (Routledge, 2007). Staffordshire, UK

• Franco Viviani, Ph.D., a physical anthropologist, is at present professor of Functional Anthropology at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Udine, and Professor of Psychobiology and Physiology of Human Behaviour at the Faculty of Psychology, University of Padua. He has published papers and articles on both male and female circumcision. He is the representative for Italy. NOCIRC of Italy. Padua, Italy.

• John Warren, MB BChir DCH FRCP, qualified in medicine at Cambridge University, England (1966). He obtained the Diploma of Child Health (1968), Membership of the Royal College of Physicians of London (1970), and was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (1987). After junior training posts, he was appointed a consultant physician in Harlow, Essex (1975), specialising in general internal medicine and respiratory disease. He became interested in problems surrounding infant circumcision when studying child health (1968), and followed up this interest in the early 1990’s, leading to the establishment of NORM‑UK (1995), of which he has been chairman since its foundation. He retired from medical practice in 2006. Harlow, Essex, UK.

• Chantal Zabus is Professor of Postcolonial Literature and Gender Studies at the Sorbonne Paris North University (University of Paris 13), a Researcher at the University of Paris 3 ‑ Sorbonne Nouvelle, and a Senior Scholar at the Institut Universitaire de France, Paris. She is the author of Between Rites and Rights: Excision in Women’s Experiential Texts and Human Contexts, Stanford UP, 2007); The African Palimpsest (Rodopi, 1991; rpt 2007); Tempests after Shakespeare (Palgrave, 2002). She has also edited Le Secret (with J. Derrida, Louvain, 1999), and Changements au féminin en Afrique noire (L’Harmattan, 2000). Fearful Symmetries: Essays and Testimonies Around Excision and Circumcision is forthcoming with Rodopi this year, and she is currently editing Perennial Empires (with Silvia Nagy‑Zekmi). Paris, France.

• Ilenia Zanotti, Ph.D., received her degree in Psychology at the University of Padua. She is a member of Padua Working Group on FGM. Padua, Italy.

Proceedings

Program

Thursday, 4 September 2008

• Business & Introductions

David Smith

• Welcome and Opening

Marilyn Milos and John Warren

• Session 1: Law, Ethics & Human Rights

Chair, Peter Ball

• Adolescent Autonomy and the Limits of Religious Freedom

Marie Fox and Michael Thomson

• Writing Rites gone Wrong: autobiography, testimonials, and Their Relevance to the Debate around genital alterations

Chantal Zabus

• Circumcision mythologies in conflict with Logic, Reason, and common Sense

Steve Scott

• Three-Fourths Were abnormal”– Misha’s case, Sick Societies, and the Law

J. Steven Svoboda

• Hospital’s Duty: Informed consent

Zenas Baer

• Session 2: Law, Ethics & Human Rights (2)

Chair, Marie Fox

• Violating all codes

George C. Denniston

• Female genital mutilation: a human Rights Issue

Comfort Momoh

• International Organizations, Political Interests: One group’s Experience

Seham Abd el Salam and Sarah Enan

• The goal Posts Don’t move

Paul Mason

• The Local Process for gaining agreement to create an FGM Protocol

Janette Shaw

• Thanks by Session chairs closing Remarks

Marilyn Milos

• Business of the Evening

David Smith

• Session 3/1: Foreskin Restoration

Chair, Peter Ball

• Foreskin Restoration

Wayne Griffiths

• Restoration: The Foreskin and the American Dream

Ron Low

• Session 3/2: Considerations of Infantile Sexual Mutilation

Chair, Andrew Tinson

• Rites, Rights, and Wrongs (Psychoanalysis of Sexual mutilation/Sexual mutilation of Psychoanalysis) Excision, circumcision, “Hush, It’s for Your Own Sake! (A Presentation of ISM) Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed against ISM

Sigismond (Michel Hervé Bertaux-Navoiseau)

Friday, September 2008

• Silence, on coupe! – Documentary by Dominique Arnaud

• Business

David Smith

• Introduction and Welcome

John Warren

• Session 1/1: Psychological Effects of Circumcision

Chair, Tony Peters

• It’s all Relational

Andrew Tinson

• Neonatal circumcision revisited: Implications for surgeons of men’s experiences in regressive therapy

Robert C. Johnson

• Circumcision memory

Thomas W. Hennen

• Session 1/2: Female Genital Mutilation

Chair, Iris Fudge

• The First Survey on Genital Stretching in Italy

Annalisa Bertoletti, Pia Grassivaro Gallo, Ilenia Zanotti, Lucrezia Catania

• The Stretching of the Labia minora and Other Expansive Interventions on the Female genitals in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Nancy Tshiala Mbuyi, Pia Grassivaro Gallo, Annalisa Bertoletti

• Performing the Eradication of Infibulation: Mana Abdurahman Isse at Merka, Somalia

Sandra Busatta and Pia Grassivaro Gallo

• Mana Abdurahman Isse, 2007: The Prevention of Infibulation in the Lower Scebelli (Somalia)

Pia Grassivaro Gallo

• Knowledge and Opinions of North Italian health Operators about Female genital mutilation

Ilenia Zanotti, Pia Grassivaro Gallo, Annalisa Bertoletti, Miriam Manganoni

• Male circumcision in Italy, From a Free Procedure to a Paid One

M. Gloria de Bernardo

• Session 2: Physical Effects of Circumcision

Chair, Tony Peters

• Physical Effects of circumcision

John Warren

• “I’m 19 and I don’t want to be circumcised”

Peter Ball

• Circumcision and men’s health: a contradiction in terms?

Peter Baker

• Session 3: Conservative Treatments

Chair, Richard Duncker

• The Foreskin in Children

Pierre Mouriquand

• Adult Urology

Gordon Muir

• So They Claim to Know the Answer: The Problem of Association taken as Causality

Ken McGrath

• Session 4: Circumcision and Judaism

Chair, Sheila Curran

• The Shadow Behind the circumcision Dialogue: How Do We Encounter Jews?

Miriam Pollack

• Cut: Slicing Through the Myths of Circumcision – Documentary by Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon
• Thanks by Session chair
• Closing Remarks

John Warren

• Business of Evening

David Smith

Saturday, 6 September 2008

• Business

David Smith

• Introduction and Welcome

Marilyn Milos

• Session 1: HIV/AIDS Issues

Chair, John Dalton

• A case against Neonatal circumcision as a Preventative measure to Reduce HIV Infection Rates

Daniel Sidler

• Long-term Population Effect of male circumcision in generalized HIV Epidemics in Sub-Saharan Africa

Michel Garenne

• XVIIth International conference on AIDS, Mexico City, August 2008: Reason for hope or panic?

John Geisheker and Georganne Chapin

• HIV/AIDS Discussion

• Session 2: Education Worldwide

Chair, David Smith

• Onward and Outward

Paul Mason

• Educating the Professionals

Prasad Godbole

• Genital Integrity: The Way Forward

David Smith

• Thanks by Session chair
• Closing Remarks

Marilyn Milos and John Warren

• Business of Evening

David Smith

The proceedings are published in Genital Autonomy: Protecting Personal Choice, edited by George C. Denniston, Frederick M. Hodges, and Marilyn Fayre Milos, Springer, 2010.

Conference organizers

• Marilyn Fayre Milos, RN, National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers
• David Smith, General Manager, NORM-UK
• Dr. John Warren, Chairman and Founder, NORM-UK
• Professors Michael Thomson and Marie Fox, University of Keele School of Law

See also

• 1989: First International Symposium on Circumcision
• 1991: Second International Symposium on Circumcision
• 1994: Third International Symposium on Circumcision
• 1996: Fourth International Symposium on Sexual Mutilations
• 1998: Fifth International Symposium on Sexual Mutilations
• 2000: Sixth International Symposium on Genital Integrity
• 2002: Seventh International Symposium on Human Rights and Modern Society
• 2004: Eighth International Symposium on Circumcision and Human Rights
• 2006: Ninth International Symposium on Circumcision, Genital Integrity, and Human Rights
• 2008: Tenth International Symposium on Circumcision, Genital Integrity, and Human Rights
• 2010: Eleventh International Symposium on Circumcision, Genital Integrity, and Human Rights
• 2012: Twelfth International Symposium on Law, Genital Autonomy, and Human Rights
• 2014: Thirteenth International Symposium on Genital Autonomy and Children's Rights
• 2016: Fourteenth International Symposium on Genital Autonomy and Children's Rights
• 2018: Fifteenth International Symposium‎‎ on Genital Autonomy and Children's Rights
• 2022: Sixteenth International Symposium on Child Genital Cutting

External links

• Official Brochure of the Tenth International Symposium