Deconstructing the double standards of western political discourses about genital modifications on non-consenting minors

This paper critically examines the discursive and political double standards surrounding genital modifications performed on non-consenting minors, focusing on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), male circumcision (MC), and surgeries on individuals with variations in sex characteristics (VSC). While substantial literature has examined each of these practices independently, comparative analyses of how western institutional discourses construct their legitimacy remain limited. This study addresses that gap by analysing how legal, medical, and policy frameworks in the United Kingdom and Italy differentially regulate genital modifications, thereby shaping normative understandings of bodily intervention. Employing Carol Bacchi’s (2009) “What’s the Problem Represented to Be?” (WPR) approach, the paper analyses law and legislation, health guidelines, ethical statement and recommendations, and advocacy policy from governmental institutions, healthcare system and activists’ organizations engaged in these issues. Drawing on Fusaschi’s (2023) concept of Gendered Genital Modifications (GGMo), which treats these procedures and others, such as gender reassignment surgery, as situated within a matrix of public health concerns, gender norms, sexuality, harm, empowerment, and legal regulation, the study interrogates the moral and political narratives that underlie divergent treatments of these practices. This discursive analysis reveals how institutional narratives in the UK and Italy continue to distinguish and divide these genital modifications: FGM is constructed as gender-based violence and a violation of fundamental human rights, while male circumcision and VSC surgeries on minors are legitimized through religious, cultural, or medical rationales. The study asks how western discourses frame these practices as fundamentally different, despite their shared characteristics, particularly their performance on non-consenting minors. In doing so, it exposes how political, cultural, and biomedical assumptions shape normative boundaries around acceptable interventions on children’s bodies.