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IOTM – Dan Bollinger

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Blog, Intactivist of the Month
October 14, 2011

OCTOBER 2011: Dan Bollinger, who serves on Intact America’s Steering Committee, is one of the most prominent intactivists in the movement today. Director of the International Coalition of Genital Integrity (ICGI), Dan writes press releases as well as publishing scientific studies, provides insight and direction, and attends conferences (that’s him below, at this year’s AAP conference). He is tireless in his efforts to end the practice of infant circumcision in the United States.

Dan’s involvement in intactivism grew out his commitment to equal rights; he fought to help pass the Equal Rights Amendment in Indiana when he was in college. “Circumcision was an issue I could relate to—not only because I was circumcised, but because of the equal rights aspect. For most of my life I’ve been troubled by night terrors that I later became convinced were an early recollection of my circumcision at age three-days.”

Dan’s work in defense of boys’ rights to genital integrity spans decades, and his contributions to the science that supports keeping boys intact is incalculable. In 2010, he published a critical study showing that at least 100 babies die each year from unnecessary circumcisions. His most recent article, co-authored with Robert S. Van Howe, MD, shows that circumcised men have a 4.5 times greater chance of suffering from erectile dysfunction than intact men.

In addition to ICGI, Dan also founded the Boys Health Advisory, whose Circumcision Decision-Maker (now defunct) provides valuable information and guidance for parents who might be thinking about circumcising their sons. The text states, in part: “The foreskin is a vital, functional part of the male genital anatomy, and it is not a birth defect. Therefore, if there is not an absolutely urgent reason for removing it, it should remain intact—for ethical, psychological, and sexual reasons. The boy himself, when he is old enough, is the only person who should make any decision affecting the looks and function of his penis.”

“Dan Bollinger is a wonderful advocate for the rights of boys and men, and a wonderful colleague,” says Georganne Chapin, Intact America’s Executive Director. “He always has good ideas, and is always willing to help. Intact America is both fortunate and proud to count Dan among our most loyal supporters.”

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Marilyn

Marilyn Fayre Milos, multiple award winner for her humanitarian work to end routine infant circumcision in the United States and advocating for the rights of infants and children to genital autonomy, has written a warm and compelling memoir of her path to becoming “the founding mother of the intactivist movement.” Needing to support her family as a single mother in the early sixties, Milos taught banjo—having learned to play from Jerry Garcia (later of The Grateful Dead)—and worked as an assistant to comedian and social critic Lenny Bruce, typing out the content of his shows and transcribing court proceedings of his trials for obscenity. After Lenny’s death, she found her voice as an activist as part of the counterculture revolution, living in Haight Ashbury in San Francisco during the 1967 Summer of Love, and honed her organizational skills by creating an alternative education open classroom (still operating) in Marin County. 

After witnessing the pain and trauma of the circumcision of a newborn baby boy when she was a nursing student at Marin College, Milos learned everything she could about why infants were subjected to such brutal surgery. The more she read and discovered, the more convinced she became that circumcision had no medical benefits. As a nurse on the obstetrical unit at Marin General Hospital, she committed to making sure parents understood what circumcision entailed before signing a consent form. Considered an agitator and forced to resign in 1985, she co-founded NOCIRC (National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers) and began organizing international symposia on circumcision, genital autonomy, and human rights. Milos edited and published the proceedings from the above-mentioned symposia and has written numerous articles in her quest to end circumcision and protect children’s bodily integrity. She currently serves on the board of directors of Intact America.

Georganne

Georganne Chapin is a healthcare expert, attorney, social justice advocate, and founding executive director of Intact America, the nation’s most influential organization opposing the U.S. medical industry’s penchant for surgically altering the genitals of male children (“circumcision”). Under her leadership, Intact America has definitively documented tactics used by U.S. doctors and healthcare facilities to pathologize the male foreskin, pressure parents into circumcising their sons, and forcibly retract the foreskins of intact boys, creating potentially lifelong, iatrogenic harm. 

Chapin holds a BA in Anthropology from Barnard College, and a Master’s degree in Sociomedical Sciences from Columbia University. For 25 years, she served as president and chief executive officer of Hudson Health Plan, a nonprofit Medicaid insurer in New York’s Hudson Valley. Mid-career, she enrolled in an evening law program, where she explored the legal and ethical issues underlying routine male circumcision, a subject that had interested her since witnessing the aftermath of the surgery conducted on her younger brother. She received her Juris Doctor degree from Pace University School of Law in 2003, and was subsequently admitted to the New York Bar. As an adjunct professor, she taught Bioethics and Medicaid and Disability Law at Pace, and Bioethics in Dominican College’s doctoral program for advanced practice nurses.

In 2004, Chapin founded the nonprofit Hudson Center for Health Equity and Quality, a company that designs software and provides consulting services designed to reduce administrative complexities, streamline and integrate data collection and reporting, and enhance access to care for those in need. In 2008, she co-founded Intact America.

Chapin has published many articles and op-ed essays, and has been interviewed on local, national and international television, radio and podcasts about ways the U.S. healthcare system prioritizes profits over people’s basic needs. She cites routine (nontherapeutic) infant circumcision as a prime example of a practice that wastes money and harms boys and the men they will become. This Penis Business: A Memoir is her first book.