This Penis Business
A Social Activist’s Memoir
Georganne Chapin with Echo Montgomery Garrett
Lucid House Publishing
This eye-opening memoir by Georganne Chapin chronicles the making of a social activist who is not afraid to discuss the brutality of circumcision on infants and the benefits of intact penises in mixed company. By turns witty and outraged, Chapin presents a short history of circumcision, examines the ethical considerations of removing a natural body part, describes the pain, trauma, and both short- and long-term risks of surgery on an infant, and reveals the financial role circumcision has played in medical economics. The author’s story of her own awakening as an advocate for ending circumcision takes readers through navigating civil rights issues as a student in the 1960s and 1970s, employing common sense as a mother who sees no reason to harm her child, and dealing with inequities in the health-care system as an administrator. Chapin’s powerful, evidence-based exposé should be required reading for all parents-to-be, grandparents, guardians, pediatricians, obstetricians, and support staff. This Penis Business presents the definitive case for ending circumcision and will change lives.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author 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 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, a Master’s degree in Sociomedical Sciences from Columbia University, and a Juris Doctor degree from Pace University School of Law in New York. She served as president and chief executive officer of Hudson Health Plan, a nonprofit Medicaid insurer in New York’s Hudson Valley, for 25 years and went on to found 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.
Although This Penis Business is Chapin’s first book, she 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.
Please don’t cut the baby!
A Nurse’s Memoir
Marilyn Fayre Milos with Judy Kirkwood
Lucid House Publishing
This engaging memoir by the woman who is considered to be the founding mother of the intactivist movement and a spokesperson for the genital integrity of all children is a story of determination, service, and love. A nursing student on the obstetrical unit in 1979 when she first witnessed a baby writhing and screaming in pain while being circumcised, Milos was even more shocked when the doctor said to her “There is no medical reason for doing this.” From that moment on, Milos dedicated her life to exposing the myths, misinformation, and economic forces driving circumcision in the United States, and to educating parents, the public, and medical professionals about this cultural fraud that is a violation of human rights. Backed up by footnotes and other documentation, this book should be read by every pediatric health professional and available in birthing and family planning centers as well as obstetrician offices.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
As a nurse on an obstetrical unit at Marin General Hospital, Marilyn Fayre Milos was committed to making sure parents understood what circumcision entailed before signing the consent form for surgery on their infants sons. When forced to resign, she co-founded NOCIRC (National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers) and began organizing international symposia on circumcision, genital autonomy, and human rights. Her path to becoming a multiple award winner for her humanitarian work to end routine infant circumcision in the United States and her advocacy for the rights of infants and children to genital autonomy began in San Francisco in the 1960s when she found her voice as part of the counterculture revolution and through establishing the open classroom as an alternative to traditional education. Milos has contributed to books, articles, and been interviewed widely in her quest to protect children’s bodily integrity and currently serves on the board of directors of Intact America.