As a leftist myself, I can't recall ever talking to another leftist who supported female genital mutilation, or called someone a racist for criticizing it. I think you're talking out your butt

They've developed a false argument. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a vocal critic of female genital mutilation, but many of her other positions are islamophobic. Positions like "we are at war with Islam and it must be defeated."

In reality, I can both oppose female genital mutilation and consider Ayaan Hirsi Ali racist.

Islam isn’t a race. Criticisms of religions are perfectly reasonable and valid positions to hold.

Calling for Muslims to be militarily crushed isn't criticism, its bigotry of some sort even if you don't consider it racist.

> In reality, I can both oppose female genital mutilation and consider Ayaan Hirsi Ali racist.

Of course you can. But became sufficiently famous doing so, and you will probably also find yourself on some list of "problematic" people.

In case I am completely wrong about this, the best way to convince me would be to provide a name of a recent famous speaker against female genital mutilation who is considered politically correct.

> course you can. But became sufficiently famous doing so, and you will probably also find yourself on some list of "problematic" people

This acts like people were out to vilify her, when she publicly holds incredibly offensive positions.

OK, I'll bite.

Former congressman Joe Crowley

Layli Miller-Muro

Nimco Ali

Comfort Momoh

Waris Dirie

Thank you! Never heard about them before, but they have a Wikipedia page each, so obviously other people did. That's a good news!

Just wanted to echo this. Have never seen anyone called racist for speaking out against female genital mutilation.

> Those who object to this barbarism, inflicted upon millions of girls every year, are actually, somehow, called “racists” for doing so.

I am vehemently opposed to female genital mutilation. Even with HN's overly large number of contrarians and trolls, I claim no one can write a convincing argument that my previous sentence is in any way racist.

Why is it okay to perform the similar procedures on males? It's an outdated , barbaric practice

I agree, end it all. Save the foreskins.

As long as you speak as if female genital mutilation exists in a vacuum, as long as you carefully avoid mentioning that some cultures are more supportive of this practice than others, as long as you do not point out that some girls are at much greater risk than the general population and that any meaningful prevention needs to focus on them... you are okay. This also makes it impossible to suggest any policy with a realistic possibility to actually reduce female genital mutilation.

Bingo.

> the “left”

Makes sense that you put this in quote marks, given that you're just inventing wild caricatures to argue against.