Under blue skies and 95 degree heat, thousands of visitors from the Coachella Valley, Southern California and the West Coast came out on November 8th and 9th to celebrate the diversity of the LGBTQI community and to advocate for freedom and acceptance for all people. GALDEF was there once again educating the public about the harms of nontherapeutic, nonconsensual circumcision and promoting equal protection for all children. Executive Director Tim Hammond and Board member Leif Thompson, MD were joined by Intact Global Board members Joe McCormack, Deborah Eshagian, and Justin Bonyai, as well as volunteers Brett Rosenberg and Jaime Solorio.

As usual, the vast majority of visitors were aligned with the goal of protecting all children from needless genital cutting. Of note this year, we were approached by a therapist who had never considered the harms of circumcision, who followed up with us afterwards to learn more about the subject. In another positive encounter, an attorney – who had helped a young Sudanese woman living in California gain asylum in the late 1990s because of the risk of FGM in her home country – took an interest in our question of why boys aren’t similarly protected in this country. He plans to retire at the end of this year and requested more information on the constitutional and legal issues of newborn penile circumcision as well as Intact Global’s plans to launch equal protection litigation. He expressed interest in working with us on this issue in the future.

Many parents stopped by to proudly share their stories of resisting hospital solicitations for circumcision 20, 30 and even 40 years ago. Other parents shared their circumcision regrets with us. In one of the most touching moments shared with Tim that weekend, one mother confided that she always regretted having her son circumcised 30 years ago. Not being sure how her son felt about his circumcision, she wondered aloud how she could ever talk with him about her regrets.

There were also numerous occasions for us to hand out literature about circumcision from Catholic, Muslim and Jewish perspectives, giving us an excellent opportunity to promote the book Celebrating Brit Shalom and the organization Bruchim.

As usual, our unique and ever popular Pride, Intersex and Transgender roses, made exclusively for GALDEF by florist Glen Powell, were a big draw to the booth. 

Early morning setup at 9am on South Palm Canyon Drive.

Justin Bonyai, Joe McCormack and Leif Thompson, MD

Interested festival-goers continued to visit our booth until the official 9pm closing.

Palm Springs Pride at night. After 12 hours at the booth on Saturday,
some of us felt like the air dancers on the right side of the overhead arch!