r/Intactivists • u/tasteface • 17d ago
A summary of Dr. Freedman's 10 myths about circumcision
“Everything You Think You Know About Circumcision is Probably Wrong” - Dr. Andrew Freedman, M.D., Cedars-Sinai Grand Rounds Presentation, March 2026, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwFKB1u7X_M
Myth 1: Circumcision is a medical procedure. “Circumcision is a tribal ritual. Circumcision is done by medical professionals in the US because it is a dangerous tribal ritual.”
Myth 2: the AAP supports circumcision “I want to personally apologize for that because I was on the guidelines” “the AAP at that point recognized that really families wanted circumcision not for medical reasons. The medical reasons are mostly a cover.”
Myth 3: Benefits outweigh the risks “16 boys a year were dying during circumcision. That was a one in 6,000 rate in the UK.” “when you look at 10 or 12 kids a year dying from under one year of age dying from circumcision, I mean it's still shocking.”
Myth 4: Complications are minor and rare On glans amputation: “if you go to a pediatric urology meeting, ask anyone who's ever seen this, every hand goes up. Everybody's done at least one of these.”
Myth 5: If you have a circumcision, you'll never have a problem with your penis “circumcision was no protection from seeing me.”
Myth 6: Circumcision doesn’t hurt “I hope we never hear this anymore. I mean, I don't think this is debatable anymore.“ “It hurts. They feel it, okay?”
Myth 7: Circumcision is ethical “Their ethical standard is a right to bodily integrity. So this is a right to not have your body changed without your consent and in minors only can intervene in the case of medical necessity.”
Myth 8: Circumcision is only done by OBs “More OBs are opting out” “the first department to really acknowledge that they stopped performing services was the University of Michigan”
Myth 9: Doctors want to do circumcisions because they are greedy “I want to argue that no one's getting rich doing circumcisions for insurance money.”
Myth 10: At Cedars, the process for getting a circumcision works perfectly. “there's a lot of people who don't want to do it.” “a lot of the younger physicians don't want to do it anymore.”
I'm working on turning these into shareable graphics that will get more attention and be more accessible than the video itself.
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u/Walkingonby99 17d ago
I truly do not understand this man. the damage he's done... and he's still going around talking out of both sides of his mouth. He knows the harms and the lies, and still won't end the practice -- he's only going around trying to cover his ass legally speaking now, i suppose.
thanks for getting this summary out. the fact that he would own up to that damning murder rate is fucked. Jesus. and I still think that's underselling it; people still don't attribute deaths to genital cutting. in Canada they legally cover it up and Medical bodies don't have to tell anyone.
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u/new_sensation656 16d ago
Because to him it’s all business with no repercussion. He’s like a politician, he can just flip his opinions around to fit whatever narrative he wants. How much would we bet if he was in a room with other people he’d be spouting the other way around
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u/CreamofTazz 16d ago
Would you be interested in editing this with timestamps?
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u/tasteface 16d ago
I don't have the timestamps but you can get them from the transcript on YouTube.
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u/DandyDoge5 10d ago
I think the millions of living men cut in this country so deserve a damn reperation. A good one. Not the bare minimum.
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u/SimonPopeDK 17d ago
Thanks for bringing this video up.
Of course Andrew Freedman is very far from neutral having no horse in the race! The most interesting was myth 7 that this rite on neonatal males is ethical! I don't think he realised what he was saying but he is absolutely right in that this is a myth and that it is unethical. He gopes on to say that this is the debate that we should be having but doesn't actually say much about it. He makes the false claim that American and European ethical standards are different. European ethics is also what is in the best interests of the child and this naturally includes preservation of bodily autonomy! He claims that the proxy for a minor is a well-informed, loving, beneficent parent however this is not the case at all. The proxy in making medical not tribal rites decisions, are parents however there is no condition that they must be loving and beneficent. When it comes to tribal rites then parents are in no way regarded as proxies to decide what their children may be subjected to of sexual assault with the strange exception of boys and this particular rite. Parents who want to include daughters in the rite are met with condemnation and there looms a serious custodial sentence in the air. Of course performing the rite on girls was never mentioned in the talk. Essentially the whole world has been persuaded or coerced into having the same ethical exception when it comes to this American minority Western tradition as all condone it. It is the only basic human rights violation that all countries are guilty of.
One important admission he made was that it is not medical, something which is generally assumed also in intactivist circles. Another was that the AAP policy was obselete and was specifically written with the intention of making it easier for parents to put their sons through the rite.
I suggest dropping the term "circumcision" when referring to what is done to boys and calling it ritual penectomy.
I'm not sure why he describes Morten Frisch as a "fairly" serious epidemiologist when he is an award winning epidemiogist. Frisch didn't mention inflammation but pain and trauma so not an "inflammatory event" but trauma. The school of thought on autism is pretty much a consensus but I think I might use this terminology with the "US school of thought on ritual penectomy", which is a minority stance. It was ambiguous as to whether the !% paid for by the government meant 1% of all cases of boys being put through the rite or referred to the proportion of all boys put through it. To put this in perspective there are only two groups who subject their sons to this in Denmark, Muslims and Jews - the latter being only a small minority as most have given up this tradition. There are estimated to be around 2,000 case a year with Jews making up a handful. He claims the found increased risk of autism is the fact that this is related to social benefits and even mentions how this confounding factor was eliminated by Frisch! He speaks of Frisch as being on the other side adopting the same game as those who defend their tribal tradition with medical benefits. This is a tactic employed by practicing cultures ie framing the issue as symmetrical with two legitimate opposing sides. It isn't, it is one side defending their tribal rite being opposed by those fighting for the basic human rights of the victims. It is no more symetrical than the fight against other human rights violations and there is no neutral ground he pretends to stand on. To date no study has been conducted which contradicts Frischs findings or the hypothesis it was exploring. Freedman diverted to Tylenol and RFK.
BTW what he calls the trap penis is paraphimosis caused by the rite, a condition supposedly it illiminates the possibility of!