Influential Voices of the Intactivist Movement

The Pioneers

These people were truly the "cutting edge" (pardon the pun) when they started speaking out against circumcision, in some cases very publicly, in the 1970s, '80s, and early '90s. Generally, each of these early activists started by doing their own thing, since they were separated by long distances and connected together only by phone and letters.

  • Jim Bigelow, Ph.D.
    Author of the book The Joy of Uncircumcising (1992), one of the first books on the topic of foreskin restoration. Established a resource organization (UNCIRC), which later became incorporated under NORM.
  • Dan Bollinger
    Director of the International Coalition for Genital Integrity (ICGI), and remains active in the movement through various volunteer and outreach activities. Read more at Intact America's profile on him. Here is a video interview by James Loewen.
  • R. Wayne Griffiths
    (1933-2017) Co-founder of the first known foreskin restoration support group (1990) with Tim Hammond, eventually the group became known as the National Organization of Restoring Men (NORM). Read more at Intact America's profile on him. Here is a video interview by James Loewen.
  • Tim Hammond
    Co-founder of the first known foreskin restoration support group (1990) with Wayne Griffiths, eventually the group became known as the National Organization of Restoring Men (NORM). Founded a spin-off, the National Organization to Halt the Abuse and Routine Mutilation of Males (NOHARMM) to handle the activism tasks so NORM could remain focused on the personal support mission. Founder of the Global Survey of Circumcision Harm, originally published in BJU International in 1993, and re-launched in its current online version in 2011. He presented the updated findings at the Genital Autonomy Conference, Frankfurt, May 2015. Executive Producer of the video documentary, Whose Body, Whose Rights (1995). Read more at Intact America's profile on him. Here is a video interview by James Loewen.
  • Brother K
    Started lobbying against circumcision in 1975, and began writing a manuscript, "The Circumcision Instinct," which he completed in 1980 as he formed one of the first intactivist organizations, "Citizens Against Ritual Violence" (CARV) with Carol Ann Babyak. The two were among the earliest public protesters against circumcision, doing a series of protests at several locations including the California State Capital, which attracted newspaper (1) attention (2), and was picked up by the Associated Press to be distributed across the nation. They went "inactive" for quite a number of years while raising their daughter. But in 2012, when the American Academy of Pediatrics updated its Circumcision Policy Statement, they were so off-base that Brother could not stay on the sidelines any longer. After several months of getting back into the movement, he formed the Bloodstained Men (FB page), a non-profit activist organization where he is still Co-Director and CFO. (Carol Ann has come back also, and the two of them are quite the formidable duo.) With the BSM organization, he has protested in cities from coast to coast, often in weeks-long, multi-state journeys, several of them per year. Brother is very active (daily, even hourly) on social media to spread the intactivism message and save babies, and will even go "Facebook Live" for several minutes during some of the protest stops, including at the Super Bowl stadiums as fans are entering for the game. Here is a video interview by James Loewen.
  • Van & Ben Lewis (brothers)
    These two were possibly the very first public protesters (of record at least) against circumcision. Van and his brother Ben were both arrested and jailed Dec 17, 1970 for peacefully demonstrating on the public sidewalk outside Tallahasee Memorial Hospital in Florida where they had been born and subsequently circumcised. Read more at Intact America's profile on Van. Here are video interviews by James Loewen, one of Ben, and also one & two of Van.
  • Marilyn Fayre Milos, R.N.
    Kindly regarded as "the mother of the intactivist movement." As an RN, she was brought face-to-face with the brutality of circumcision in 1979 when she had to assist with one. This very dramatic episode opened her eyes and she began advising parents against circumcision (for which she was fired from her job), and founded the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers (NOCIRC), which was recently re-framed as Genital Autonomy America (GA-America) (FB page). Read more at Intact America's profile on her. Here is a video interview, and another, by James Loewen.
  • Elizabeth Noble
    Writer and educator. Author of the book, The Joy of Being a Boy (1994, out of print), with the goal of helping intact boys understand and feel comfortable with their bodies -- it prominently featured photos of a happily intact boy and created quite the controversy. Read more at Intact America's profile on her. Here is a video interview by James Loewen.
  • Rosemary Romberg
    Author of Circumcision: The Painful Dilemma (1985) and the website Peaceful Beginnings from Rosemary. As a writer, most of her activism is done online, and you will see her almost daily responding to various threads on a multitude of intactivist pages. She has also been known to show up at public protests too, so keep an eye open for her. Read more at Intact America's profile on her. Here is a video interview by James Loewen.
  • David Wilson
    Started protesting circumcision - alone - on the steps of the U.S. Capital in 1993, and is the founder and Director of the Stop Infant Circumcision (S.I.C.) Society (FB page). These days, fellow intactivists travel from all across the country to join together in Washington D.C. in what has now become known as Genital Integrity Awareness Week (GIAW) (FB page). The date of this annual campaign - the last week of March - was not chosen randomly; the U.S. Federal Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Law became effective on March 29, 1997. Read more at Intact America's profile on him. Here is a video interview by James Loewen.

 

Other Key Leaders

The mid-1990s saw the beginning of the Internet, with its email and very rudimentary websites and newsgroups. As this media platform developed, it provided nearly instant availability of information, and brought people together in ways that were previously just imagination. An "intactivist movement" began to take shape with better collaboration, and coordinated messages going to a much broader audience. Building on the early progress made by the pioneers, new advocates began to make great strides in getting the message out. It is hard to pinpoint exactly when, but sometime around 2008-2010, as online social media began to take hold, the movement reached a critical turning point with new developments, new connections, new stories, and new outreach opportunities happening almost weekly. There are so many individuals who have made important contributions it is impossible to list them all, but here are a few of the more notable:

 

You???

Every one of the activists listed above - and many others - were once in your position, questioning whether or not to get involved. They found the courage to take their first step, and look what they have accomplished! Hopefully reading about some of the achievements has inspired you to take a more active role in bringing awareness to the issue, and be the voice that saves a child from the pain.

 

More circumcision history: http://www.circumstitions.com/Chronology.html