Many of the participants in our group are men who carry a heavy burden of trauma from what was done to their bodies as newborns. They grapple with a mix of emotions—betrayal, anger, grief—and often deal with the physical consequences of having a normal, functional part of their anatomy amputated without medical necessity or consent.
When I was around five years old, my family moved from Ukraine to the United States. Ukraine had been part of the Soviet Union for decades, and even among Soviet Jews, overall, circumcision was rare after the 1920s. I am Jewish, but I would describe myself as spiritual but not religious. Circumcision was not practiced in my immediate family. Growing up in the U.S., I realized I was different from many boys. I remember hearing negative comments about being intact, and I sometimes wondered whether something was wrong with my body. Eventually, I came to understand that nothing was wrong with me—what was wrong was that many Americans had been subjected to a harmful procedure and taught to believe that it was “normal.”
Im ist erspart worden was Gary Shteyngart widerfahren ist.
