Activists protest circumcision in Steubenville

DEMONSTRATION — Members of the nonprofit activist group Bloodstained Men protested circumcision Friday during a stop in Steubenville on the group’s 13-day Ohio and West Virginia tour. -- Christopher Dacanay
STEUBENVILLE — Members of an activist group wore “bloodstained” clothing and demonstrated along Sunset Boulevard Friday to protest circumcision, which the group claims to be a violation of a child’s human rights.
All volunteers, the protesters represented the nonprofit Bloodstained Men, members of which travel the U.S. to hold public shows of condemnation against the practice.
Protesters just began a 13-day tour of Ohio and West Virginia, starting Wednesday in the Cleveland and Youngstown areas. Friday’s route took them to the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Lovers Lane, after which they traveled to Moundsville. Their next stops will be Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon in Morgantown’s intersection of Patteson Drive and U.S. Route 19 and 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Clarksburg’s intersection of Northwestern Turnpike and Lodgeville Road.
Some Steubenville drivers honked in support or heckled the protesters, who bore signs and wore white pants with fake blood stains painted on the crotch.
David Atkinson, CEO and press spokesman for Bloodstained Men, said the group’s first protests were done in 2012, but the nonprofit was incorporated two years later, which is when he joined the effort. Protesters — including women — come from all over, he said, most being circumcision “victims” and others being “intact” and wanting to help the nonprofit’s mission “to spread awareness and prevent violence against children.”
Atkinson said the group pushes for equal protection under the law, claiming that U.S. law makes it illegal for girls under the age of 18 to have their genitals forcibly manipulated. However, he said, those protections don’t exist for boys — roughly 50 percent of whom end up being circumcised in the U.S. — or individuals born with ambiguous genitals due to a genetic mutation.
“If the child is healthy, then you don’t need to tamper with their genitals. Intersex activists … will say, ‘Leave the child alone to develop normally and let them choose how their genitals look and function,’ and that’s exactly the same way we feel about foreskin amputation. It should be your own choice how much of your genitals you get to keep. No one should tamper with your genitals when you’re too young to decide for yourself.”
The organization has been to 48 states to spread its message and help parents protect their children, Atkinson said.
Circumcision is uniquely popular in the U.S., as opposed to other parts of the world, Atkinson said.
The practice of circumcision began in the Middle East but didn’t make its way to the U.S. until the 1800s, fueled by the errant idea that the procedure would lessen young boys’ sexuality, Atkinson claimed. It has been allowed to continue through “ignorance and denial” from doctors who now claim the practice prevents certain diseases or has other benefits, as well as the American health care system, which incentivizes procedures over health patients, he claimed.
One of the primary resources in the American medical community regarding circumcision is a 2012 statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics, Atkinson said. In it, the organization claims circumcision’s benefits outweigh the risks but “not sufficiently enough to recommend.”
Those risks, however, refer to “immediate surgical complications” and not long-term consequences, Atkinson said, and the perceived benefits were cultural and religious, not medical. The statement expired in 2017 and another one regarding circumcision has not been issued, he said.
Another part of the issue is consent, Atkinson said, adding that a newborn is most certainly unable to make that informed decision, so having an adult make it for him is “not acceptable.”
As for parents who are inclined to have their child circumcised due to religious reasons, Atkinson said, “When a child’s foreskin is amputated for religious purposes, that individual’s religious freedom has been violated. That’s an act of religious violence because it imposes on him a religion permanently carved into his body that he has not chosen.”
Protesting with Atkinson Friday was Thomas Mooney of Dublin, who flew in to support the organization.
Involved with the group for seven years, Mooney said he wanted to take action after seeing footage of a circumcision and being disturbed by the procedure. Mooney said circumcision is “very cruel” and considered unusual by individuals in Europe.
Also protesting was Lauren Miller, who is not a member of the organization but joined its tour during the stop in Cleveland. She’s been involved in anti-circumcision activism for about seven years, inspired by the 2017 documentary “American Circumcision.”
“This is the kind of issue where, the more you learn about it, the more is revealed to you about how many layers there are,” Miller said. “There’s the ethical concerns about consent, there’s the dysfunction that people have happen to them, there’s the religious questions, there’s money to be made off of this procedure, so it’s just layers and layers.”
Information about the organization can be found on its website, bloodstainedmen.com, or Facebook page, facebook.com/BloodstainedMenTheirFriends.