Denver Duo Sues To Axe Circumcisions For Colorado Boys

Two Colorado men have taken their grievances over childhood circumcision straight to Denver District Court, asking a judge to use Colorado’s female‑genital‑mutilation statute to pull the plug on non‑medical circumcision for boys statewide.

The complaint, filed Tuesday by Denver resident Adam Schwartz and Fort Collins resident Tristan Huff, urges the court to expand the state’s existing protection for girls so it also covers male children. The men say they were harmed by circumcisions performed on them as kids and argue they are entitled to equal protection under the law.

According to The Denver Post, the suit claims the plaintiffs suffered pain, scarring, and reduced sexual sensitivity that they attribute to the procedure. The filing asks a judge to declare the sex‑specific protection in Colorado’s child‑abuse law unconstitutional or in need of extension, and to order the state to stop allowing circumcisions of male children unless they are medically necessary, the paper reports.

Colorado law and what plaintiffs want

Colorado has treated female genital mutilation as a form of child abuse since 1999, defining the excision or infibulation of the external female genitalia as a crime under state law. Schwartz and Huff argue that banning non‑therapeutic cutting of girls’ genital tissue while allowing non‑therapeutic circumcision of boys is a sex‑based double standard the court should not tolerate.

They want the judge to close that gap by extending the state’s protection, not just for symbolic parity but to halt what they describe as ongoing harm to male children. For the statute text and legislative history, see Colorado law.

Medical context and the AAP

The medical establishment has long separated the legal and moral condemnation of female genital mutilation from the debate over male circumcision. The American Academy of Pediatrics, for instance, firmly opposes female genital mutilation while handling male circumcision as a more nuanced medical question.

In a 2012 policy statement detailed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the group cited evidence that circumcised males face lower risks of urinary‑tract infections in infancy and reduced lifetime risks of certain sexually transmitted infections. Even so, the academy stopped short of calling for routine universal circumcision. That 2012 document remains the most comprehensive formal review of the subject.

Legal questions ahead

The lawsuit drops the court into a legally and culturally thorny zone that judges have been circling for years: how to reconcile child‑protection statutes with parental rights, religious freedom, and sex‑based classifications when the law shields girls from nonmedical genital cutting but not boys.

At the federal level, Congress criminalized female genital mutilation through the STOP FGM Act of 2020, which took effect in January 2021. Courts abroad, including in the United Kingdom in Sir James Munby’s Re B and G decision, have wrestled with whether some forms of male circumcision can be viewed as “significant harm” in a way that meaningfully parallels female genital mutilation. The federal statute is available on Congress.gov, and the U.K. decision is frequently cited in legal commentary on the issue.

As of its report on the filing, The Denver Post noted that Colorado officials had not yet publicly responded, and no hearing date was listed on the docket. If the judge agrees to squarely confront the constitutional questions in the complaint, any ruling could reverberate beyond Colorado by pushing courts and lawmakers to decide whether sex‑specific child‑protection laws have to apply more symmetrically.