February 4, 2018
Our intactivist adversaries have created a page for the purpose of doxing, embarrassing, and discrediting the Circumcision Choice team in general, and me in particular. They posted personal information about me, including the name of my employer. The page contains screen shots of comments I posted in a private group where I revealed details about my own sexual history. The page also includes the names and personal information about other members of our team.
I’m not writing this post to complain, to seek sympathy, or to establish myself as a victim. I’m a private person, and I prefer not to be the center of attention. But when someone threatens or tries to humiliate me, the only effective recourse is to make it public - since sunlight is the best disinfectant against a bully. I’ve done nothing that would cause me embarrassment. On the contrary, my adversaries are the ones who should be ashamed. So I’m stating these facts for the record.
This isn’t the first time that intactivists have pried into my personal life. Three years ago I sent a donation to the American Academy of Pediatrics in honor of Kenneth Hopkins - the founder of the B.S. Men who calls himself Brother K. After Hopkins read the AAP donation card, he immediately posted my name and my home address for all of his followers. I obtained a screen shot of the comment and then reported the privacy violation to Facebook. [1]
Last year a woman named Victoria Radbourne became enraged by a photo that I posted during a debate. Attempting to shame me she searched for my relatives, and she sent private messages to my wife and sister-in-law. She also posted my sister-in-law’s professional information on a public page.
Occasionally an intactivist has threatened to assault me or contact my employer to retaliate against me for exercising my First Amendment rights.
Reading my personal information on a public page where anyone can read it is disturbing. Seeing private comments that I wrote about my personal life revealed to the public is unsettling. Learning that strangers want to retaliate against me in real life – merely because they don’t like what I say – is frightening. But any attempts to bully me will not succeed. I won’t be silenced, and I won’t be intimidated.
Intactivists have been obsessed with me for years. They’ve spent countless hours discussing their perceptions of my personal and professional life, my sexual activities, and my mental state. They’ve considered religious, cultural, and psychological motivations to explain why I so adamantly support a parent’s right to choose circumcision. They believe that I want every baby boy to be circumcised, and they've convinced themselves that I encourage undecided parents to choose the procedure.
The truth is that I am but one person, a nobody. I don’t perform or authorize circumcisions. I don’t promote circumcision. In ten years on Facebook I have never once pushed a parent to circumcise her son.
At Circumcision Choice we provide information and support. We provide accurate information about the risks and benefits of circumcision. Unlike most intactivists, we actually take the time to read and analyze studies. We stand with parents regardless of whether they choose circumcision, and we support doctors regardless of whether they perform the procedure. Our name explains our position. YES and NO are equally valid choices.
The intactivists feel threatened by anyone willing to stand up to them. They seek to control the conversation in order to drown out accurate information and sober analysis. They are desperate to silence us even though viewership of the most popular intactivist pages currently outnumbers Circumcision Choice by an exponential factor.
Many pro circumcision and PPC advocates don’t use their real names out of concern for their safety. I don’t have a sock puppet account, and since I always use my real name, I’ve been an easy target. The fanatics are so paranoid that they turn against other intactivists who have respectful conversations with PPCs. Those who defended me have been kicked out of intactivist groups and placed on an ever-growing List of Fake Intactivist Trolls.
The bullies fear Circumcision Choice because they know we can't be intimidated and we won't back down. We will continue to report factual information about circumcision. We will continue to report on the actions of anti-circumcision fanatics. And we will continue to defend a parent’s right to make medical decisions for her minor children.
[1] When former intactivist Jeni Evison confronted Hopkins, he claimed that the address on the AAP notification card - the address I provided to the AAP - was the location of a mailbox service. In other words, he denied that he had revealed my home address to his followers.
